21. Jesse

21

JESSE

I leaned back in the Adirondack chair I was sprawled on, enjoying the soft sounds of the waves breaking against the dock.

The storm had ended sometime during the night, and the early morning sun was just starting to warm the air. Thankfully the power had come back on around dawn, and I'd been able to make coffee before coming outside to get some air.

The last twelve hours felt like a blur, but also like a natural progression of events. Like Bas and I were always supposed to end up like this.

I'd woken up about an hour ago with Bas as my big spoon, his warm body against mine and a possessive arm over my waist.

Instead of panicking or feeling trapped, I lay there until he rolled over, enjoying his presence and trying not to think about everything that had gone down between us.

When it was obvious I wasn't falling back asleep, I snuck out of bed. I got dressed and went downstairs to make coffee. When it was done, I'd made myself a cup, written Bas a note so he'd know where to find me, and came out to the dock to wait for him to wake up.

"Hey," a gruff voice said behind me.

"Hey," I greeted Bas as he sank into the chair next to me, a cup of coffee in his hand.

He looked good. The messy bedhead, rumpled sweater, and the little crease still on his cheek from his pillow softened his features and made him look sweet and a little shy.

My stomach flip-flopped as he took a sip of his coffee.

"Got your note. Obviously." He shot me a quick look. "Have you been up long?"

"Not too long. About an hour."

"I thought you left," he said softly, peering into his coffee like it held the secrets to the meaning of life. "When I woke up and you weren't there. I figured you left. But then I saw your note, the coffee…" He chuckled humorlessly. "I have no idea how to act right now."

I pulled in a deep breath. "Are you awake enough to have a conversation?"

He nodded and took a big gulp of his coffee. "Yeah. I just have no idea what to say."

"That was real, right? Last night?" I blurted.

He sort of slow blinked at me.

Great. So much for not showing all my cards.

I'd spent the last twenty or so minutes going over every single detail of last night, trying to analyze what it meant, if anything, to Bas.

I'd meant to feel him out a bit, see if maybe he felt something too, but apparently, I had zero chill today and instead just went right for the jugular.

"Never mind," I said quickly. "I'm just?—"

"Yes."

Bas's simple answer stopped my backpedaling before it could start.

"If you're asking if what happened between us last night was real and not just because of everything else that went down, then yes. It was real for me."

"Me too." I put my nearly empty mug down on the dock and stuck my hands in my hoodie pocket to stop myself from fidgeting. "I don't understand when it happened, but it feels like things have been changing between us for a while."

He nodded. "They have. Last night just kind of… I'm not sure how to say it, but it felt like a culmination, if that makes sense. Like it was always going to happen."

"Yeah." I sighed, some of the tension leaving me in a rush. "I don't think I can go back to the way things were between us. And I don't want to." I snuck a look at him.

He met my gaze, his eyes so full of hope that my breath caught, and another of those little flutters tore through my chest.

"I don't want to either." He put his cup down and turned in his chair so he was facing me. "I have no idea what you want, what you're thinking, but I can't pretend like things aren't different. I can't pretend that didn't mean anything to me because it meant everything."

I nodded, my throat tight with emotion. "Yeah. It did."

"So what do we do about it?" he asked tentatively.

I knew what I wanted, and I was pretty sure he wanted it too, but it was still hard to get the words out.

"I was at your show last weekend," I said instead.

"You were?"

I nodded. "Adam told me about it. I got there about ten minutes after you started and left after you performed ‘Cellophane.'"

"That bad?" he joked. "You stayed for less than fifteen minutes."

"That good." I huffed out a laugh at that. "You were…incredible. And that song…"

"Song?"

"Cellophane. That song hit me hard the first time I heard it. Seeing you perform it live was when things really started to change for me."

"They did?"

I nodded. "It helped me see past my own bullshit and really see you. For so long, you were just Sebastian, the guy who drove me crazy and confused the fuck out of my dick. But that night I realized you're so much more than that."

The shy smile that tilted his lips shook something loose inside me.

This was the real Sebastian. The sometimes shy, sometimes sassy man who was so much more than I'd ever given him credit for.

The man I'd fallen for without even realizing it was happening.

"I'm sorry I called you a failure," I said, needing to make amends.

"It's fine." He waved dismissively. "You're not the first. I've been hearing that my entire life."

"It's not fine," I insisted. "You're amazing, and I'm sorry I ever diminished your accomplishments or made it seem like you failed because you chose to leave the business."

He cleared his throat softly. "Thanks. I appreciate you saying that."

"Can I ask why you retired?"

He studied me for a second. "It's not much of a story. I just stopped enjoying it. The touring, performing, chasing the dream. It was fun for a while, but it's not where my passions are."

"Is that songwriting?"

He nodded. "I wasn't built for the road, or for the spotlight, and the last few years were really rough for me, mental health-wise."

I kept quiet, letting him tell me more if he wanted.

"The constant tours, bouncing from time zone to time zone, always planning for the next tour, next album, next show. It stopped being about the music and was all about the money." He let out a little laugh. "Money is great, and I'll never say no to more of it, but I wasn't happy. It didn't matter how much we made or how many side projects I did. I lost my spark."

"Spark?"

"Inspiration, creative drive, whatever you want to call it. Music has always been my therapy. It's how I process things and work out issues. It's like a living thing inside me, a compulsion and an obsession, but also the only real outlet I have. I'm not explaining it right."

"You are. I get it. I'm not an artist or anything, but I've heard other people talk about similar things. Quinn, and Asa."

"Asa?"

"He's a writer. He said something similar. That writing was his therapy and his passion all rolled into one obsession that keeps him sane."

"That's exactly what music is for me. And I felt empty without it. Like a piece of me was missing. It was either quit or end up in rehab—or worse." He paused. "Remember when you asked about my piercing?"

I nodded.

"I got it right after I found out a friend of mine overdosed. He's okay now, but it was touch and go there for a while. I was on tour when it happened, and I left my hotel and started walking. I ended up in front of a tattoo shop and went in. I just wanted to feel something, even if it was pain, so I made an impulsive decision and pierced my sac." He shot me a little smirk. "Go big or go home, right?"

"That's one way to go big." I paused. "Are you okay now?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Promise?"

He nodded again, a smile on his full lips. "Promise."

"I don't know how to say this without just saying it, so here it goes." I drew in a deep breath. "I want you. And not just for sex. I want to be with you. Be together. Like us…together," I finished lamely.

That had been about as smooth as gravel.

"You do?" He arched his eyebrow teasingly.

I nodded.

"That's the first time I've ever heard you stumble over your words like that. It might have been easier if you just said you love me."

"I love you?" I repeated, completely thrown by what he'd just said.

"Do you? Because you don't sound so sure." He grinned. "Would it help if I said it first? Because I love you."

"You love me?" I stammered dumbly, my mind not quite catching up to the conversation.

"Yup. Tried really hard not to. Tried even harder to stop, but I can't." He shot me a quick smile. "It's fine if you don't feel it?—"

"I think I do. I mean, I know I do. I just...ugh. I'm not good at this."

"Neither am I." He laughed. "We can be bad at it together."

"My family is never going to let us live this down," I groaned.

"Nope." His smile faltered, and I realized that I never actually said the words to him. The ones he'd so freely said to me.

"Bas." I reached out and took his hand. "I love you."

His smile was so bright and brilliant it made my heart swell with not just happiness, but pride.

Bas was mine, and I was his.

We might not have taken an easy route to get here, but now that I had him, I was never letting him go.

"I love you too." He squeezed my hand. "Even if you are an annoying jackass."

"Right back atcha, sweetheart." I pretended to blow him a kiss.

He laughed and leaned back in his chair, his posture relaxed. "I think we should stay here today. Just spend the day together."

"Sounds good." I shot him a wicked grin. "But we have to go to Sunday dinner at my parents' tonight."

He cackled. "We so have to."

"How about we go back inside for a bit. Maybe you can show me your studio and what you're working on?"

"You want to?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay." He beamed a big smile at me. "Yeah. That would be great. Then I can show you my bed again." He waggled his eyebrows at me. "See if you can pull off those moves when you're not on a couch."

"Deal."

"Why do you keep looking at your dick?"

"Adam!" Dad admonished, his lips twitching with humor.

"What?" Adam looked between me and Dad. "I'm simply asking my brother a question."

"I'm looking at my phone." I held it up and waved it in his face.

He snatched it out of my hand. "Who're you texting?"

"No one. Give it back."

"No." He jumped up.

"Adam," Pops said, not quite managing to sound stern. "Give Jesse back his phone."

"This phone?" Adam held it up. "Sure. As soon as I find out who Jess has been texting."

"Are you on my side or his?" I asked Hannah as Adam moved out of my reach and stood behind her chair.

"Mine, obviously." Adam held up my phone, the screen pointed at him.

"What are you doing?" Quinn asked.

"Unlocking it," he said, like that was the most obvious thing in the world. "Holy shit, it worked." He cackled and flipped the phone around so I could see the screen was unlocked. "I know we look alike, but this seems like a security flaw."

"You're awfully calm for a man whose little brother has full access to his phone," Tristan, Quinn's boyfriend, said, looking between us.

I shrugged and suppressed my grin. My brother had no idea this was all part of our plan. "He's not going to find anything interesting."

Bas and I had spent the day at his cabin relaxing, fucking, and listening to music, not necessarily in that order.

I'd worried that things might be weird while we transitioned from not-quite-hate fucking to boyfriends, but it wasn't. Being with Bas was easy, the same as fighting with him had been.

Touching him, kissing him was the most natural thing in the world, and making him smile was just as much fun as pissing him off.

We'd also spent a good chunk of time today figuring out how we were going to tell my family and Hannah about us. We'd thought of all the traditional ways, like walking in together or standing up and making an announcement but had ultimately decided to use my brother's curiosity against him and mess with everyone a bit first.

"Not going to find anything? Challenge accepted." Adam squished himself into the space between Hannah and Quinn's chairs, moving further out of my reach. "Cover me."

"Do I need to be Dad right now?" Dad asked me.

I shook my head.

Both he and Pops shot me strange looks.

I shrugged again, loving how extra we were being.

"Holy goddamn crap!" Adam gaped at my phone screen.

"What?" Hannah and Quinn asked at the same time, leaning up and trying to get a glimpse of whatever Adam was looking at.

"Oh god!" Adam practically shrieked, dropping my phone onto Hannah's lap, his face a mask of horror.

"What?" she demanded, fishing my phone off her lap.

"Don't look at it!" Adam screeched and snatched it out of her hand.

He hit the power button and put the phone on the table like it was a bomb with less than ten seconds left on the counter.

"What the hell?" Quinn asked.

"Why not?" Hannah asked.

Adam covered his eyes with his hands and scraped his fingers down his face like he was trying to pull off his skin. "I need to bleach my brain. I'm never going to unsee that."

"Unsee what?" Hannah demanded.

Quinn picked up my phone and passed it to me. "What the hell were you looking at?"

"Nothing." I unlocked my phone and sent Bas a quick text, giving him our signal that it was go time, then slipped my phone away. "Nothing at all."

"You sit on a throne of lies," Adam accused. "I'm traumatized for life."

"Is this something we need to be worried about?" Pops asked, exchanging a concerned look with Dad.

"Should we go?" Tristan asked Quinn.

"No reason to go," I said calmly. "Everything is fine."

"Fine?" Adam spluttered.

I nodded, keeping my customer service smile on and folded my hands on the table serenely.

"I just saw your dick on your phone. That's not fine."

"Ew." Hannah wrinkled her nose.

"Your fault for snooping," I said pointedly. "But that wasn't my dick."

"It wasn't?" Adam looked relieved for about half a second, then his earlier horror returned. "Oh god!" He squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. "Nope, not any better."

"What?" Hannah asked, giving Adam a gentle backhanded slap on his stomach. "Who's was it?"

"Mine."

Everyone swung their heads toward Bas as he stepped into the dining room, a smirk on his perfect lips.

"What?" Hannah shrieked. "Ew!"

"Told ya it's not any better." Adam made a face. "I'm not okay."

"Why is your dick on his phone?" Hannah demanded.

Tristan shot Quinn a questioning look. Pops and Dad sat in stunned silence, looking between us like they couldn't decide if they should intervene or let things play out.

"Because I sent it to him." Bas crossed the room and stopped next to my chair.

"Why?" Hannah looked completely scandalized.

Quinn's eyes rounded comically, then he burst out laughing.

I knew he'd be the first to figure it out.

"Nothing about this is funny." Adam shot Quinn an accusing look.

"It's pretty funny," Bas said to my brother. He shifted his gaze to me and leaned down. "Hi," he said, his voice soft and full of affection.

I tilted my head back and smiled up at him. "Hi."

He pressed a soft kiss against my lips.

The room went absolutely silent as everyone froze.

"I hope you don't mind me crashing dinner," Bas said to my dads like everyone wasn't staring at us like we'd suddenly sprouted wings and started breathing fire.

"Of course not," Dad said, snapping out of his shock.

"You know you're always welcome," Pops added.

"Are you…" Hannah looked between us.

Bas looked at his sister, his face the picture of innocence. "Are we what?"

"Son of a bitch, you are!" Adam jumped up and down a few times like an excited toddler. "It worked!"

"Yes!" She jumped up and pumped her arm a few times in victory. "Finally!"

"You owe me twenty." Quinn poked Adam in the side.

"Doesn't count." Adam shook his head.

"It totally counts."

"Wait, what worked?" I asked my brother.

"Getting you together." Hannah clapped excitedly. "Took you guys long enough."

"What?" Bas cut in. "You were trying to get us together?"

"Duh." She rolled her eyes at him. "We got tired of waiting for you to figure it out on your own, so we've been playing matchmaker."

"You were?" Bas asked.

"Oh yeah. As soon as you told us you're bi, we stepped it up." Adam tossed him a cheeky grin. "But we figured that out years ago."

"You did?" Bas questioned, stunned.

"It was so obvious." He nodded.

"So obvious," Hannah repeated.

"Obvious?" Bas croaked.

"Not about you being bi," Hannah assured him. "That wasn't obvious, but you and Jesse, totally obvious to us."

"That's good, I think." Bas shot me a questioning look, then glanced at Quinn. "Were you a part of this?"

He just smiled serenely.

"You were," he accused.

Quinn shrugged. "I'm neither confirming nor denying anything."

"Were you in on it too?" I asked my dads.

They exchanged a look. "No," Dad said.

"But," Jonah cut in. "We've been waiting for this."

"You have?" Bas and I asked at the same time.

Dad nodded. "For a while now."

"Really?" I couldn't help asking.

"I'll get Bas a chair," Quinn said, pushing his own chair back and standing.

"No need." Bas slid into Adam's empty seat and scooted it closer to mine.

"Where am I supposed to sit?" Adam asked.

"Keep your pants on. I'll get you a chair." Quinn patted his arm.

"Better tell them to keep their pants on." Adam shot me another scandalized look.

"Your fault for snooping in my phone."

"You expected me to not scroll when I saw you were texting Bas?" he asked incredulously. "The trauma is almost worth it to finally see this happen." He waved at us. "Almost."

"You've really been waiting for this?" Bas asked my dads.

Jonah nodded. "Do you remember when you started hating each other?" He made little air quotes to emphasize the word.

"The day we met?" Bas glanced at me, a silly grin tilting his lips.

"Try ten minutes after we met." I smiled back at him, my grin probably even sillier than his.

"Did you really hate each other when you were kids?" Dad asked.

"Yes," we said in unison.

"I don't think you did," he said knowingly. "You've always argued and known exactly how to push each other's buttons. But you only started really disliking each other when you were twelve."

Was that true? A lot of my really early memories of Bas were of us arguing or trying to make each other mad, but now that I thought about it, there hadn't been the same kind of animosity there.

I was jealous of him and disliked him for having what I wanted, but did I actually hate him? Or had a lot of my anger been because of everything that happened before we moved here, and not him?

I glanced at Bas, who looked just as pensive as I felt.

"I think that's when you started realizing you might have feelings for each other. It made everything confusing because you were still figuring out your sexualities."

We glanced at each other.

That was around the time I figured out I liked boys and not girls. Was it the same for him? Was that when he started realizing he liked both?

"And one thing a lot of people don't realize is that love and hate are both expressions of passion. They're two sides of the same coin," Jonah added. "So it makes sense that you interpreted your feelings as hate because it was safer than admitting it could be something else."

We glanced at each other again.

"That makes sense," Bas said, threading his fingers through mine under the table. "It didn't matter how many times I told myself I was done with you. I couldn't stay away. I didn't see it for what it was, but it's been like that since middle school."

"It has?" I asked.

He nodded, a blush painting his cheeks. "I thought it was the fighting part I liked, but I think it was you that made it so addictive, not the fighting."

"Yeah," I conceded. "I think it was like that for me too. You were always there in the back of my mind at school. And it didn't really go away after you left. I think that's one of the reasons I never looked up your music or checked up on you. I think I missed you."

"Awww." He squeezed my hand. "You missed me?"

"Don't let it get to your head, asshat," I grumbled.

"Don't be embarrassed. I missed you too." He batted his eyelashes at me.

"You're lucky I figured out that I love you, otherwise I'd be wiping that smirk off your face with my fist."

"Such a grump." He squeezed my hand and gave me a genuine smile, one that sent more of those flutters through my chest. "But don't worry. I'm pretty sure I missed you too. Even if you are annoying as fu-dge," he corrected, tossing a quick look at my dads.

"So this is how it's going to be?" Hannah asked, her tone flat. "You're going to be just as annoying and still snipe at each other, only now we have to deal with the moon-eyes and cutesy stuff too?"

"Yup," we said together.

"Awesome," Adam deadpanned. "And here we thought we'd get a break from all that."

"Nope," we both said.

"Got your chair." Quinn came into the room carrying one of the extra dining room chairs.

"What took you so long?" Adam complained.

"Nothing. Just like making you wait." Quinn put the chair next to Tristan and sat in it.

"Seriously? I could have just taken your chair this whole time?"

Quinn put his hand over Tristan's. "Carpe diem, little bro."

"I'll carpe your diem," Adam grumbled, flopping into Quinn's vacated chair.

"I think that went well," Bas whispered, leaning in close.

A flurry of tingles danced up my spine as his hot breath fanned over my ear. "You did that on purpose."

"Maybe." He leaned closer. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Meet me in my old room after dinner, and you'll find out."

He leaned back in his chair, his gaze heated as he looked me up and down.

I pressed my leg against his, a smile sliding over my lips as everyone started talking about stuff that wasn't us.

If someone had told me even three months ago that I'd not only be in a relationship, but be in one with Bas, I would have laughed in their face and called them crazy.

But now that I knew just how amazing it was to have all of him like this, I couldn't picture my life without him.

Bas was everything. The only person who'd ever gotten under my skin and the only one I couldn't get enough of. But he was so much more than that. He challenged me and pushed me to be better without even trying. And he helped me shift away from the mindset that love was transactional. That it didn't have to look a certain way, or even make sense to anyone but us.

He was my home, and I was so damn thankful we'd gotten our heads out of our asses long enough to see it. He was mine, and I was never letting him go.

It might have taken us seventeen years to get to this point, but we had a lifetime ahead of us to make up for it.