Page 44 of Sebastian

“It is for social media promo!”

Rhys puts both hands over his heart. “Aw… it’s a workplace romance.”

“Guys, stop it,” I bite out. “There’s nothing going on between me and Christian.”

Around the table, three pairs of eyes stare in surprise at my outburst. I take a deep breath and hold. Then let it out and hold. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hayden says.

“Of course, Sebby.” Rhys shoots me an apologetic look.

After brunch, I head directly to Mars. My anxiety is up, creeping in around the edges of my mind. My hands are unsteady and tingling with numbness. It feels like a vise is oh-so-slowly tightening around my chest.

Christian is still with a client when I get there, so I stiffly lower myself into a chair by the juice bar. He shouldn’t be long. He’ll come find me when he’s done. I just need to sit and breathe and wait.

“Hey, you’re Sebastian, right?”

My head snaps up to find a guy wearing a Mars t-shirt standing above me.

Fuck. I really don’t want to talk to anyone right now, not when I can barely hear over the sound of my heartbeat in my ears.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Awesome. I’m Sawyer.” He points his thumb over his shoulder toward the reception area. “I work the front desk on evenings and weekends.”

I nod and force my lips into an approximation of a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

Sawyer helps himself to the chair on the other side of the small coffeeshop sized table. Goddamn it.

“I started following you on Instagram. I love the posts of you and Christian. Bro, you guys are so cute.”

“Thanks.”

“You been doing the camming thing for long? Seems like one of those things that’s easy to get into but hard to actually do well, you know? Like, I bet there are thousands of guys posting nudes on OnlyFans, but would I want to pay for any of them? Eh.” Sawyer shrugs. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave, but then, he doesn’t seem to need me to hold up my side of the conversation either.

“Yeah,” I murmur and let him continue blabbering.

“Man, I don’t think I could do it, though. You need to be like, super confident in your body, right? I mean, I work out, obviously, but doesn’t the camera add ten pounds or whatever?”

“I guess.”

“There are probably tricks, though, right? Like lighting and angles and photoshop? Although…” He leans to the side to give me a once-over. “You look pretty much the same in real life.” He gives me a smoldering look and a flirty smile.

Under other circumstances I might have flirted back, but all I can manage now is a stilted chuckle.

“Hey, this guy bothering you?”

My heart leaps at the sound of the familiar voice. I almost jump to my feet and launch myself at Christian who’s shooting Sawyer a very unimpressed look.

“What? You told me to keep Sebastian company.”

“No, I asked you to tell him I’d be another couple minutes.”

Sawyer stands to give Christian a smack on the shoulder. “Same thing. Anyway, great meeting you, Sebastian. I’ll see you around.” He waves and heads back to the front desk.

“Sorry about that. Sawyer is… Sawyer.” Christian picks up the chair he just vacated and sets it next to mine before sitting down. “Hey, you all right?” Christian asks when I crowd into his personal space and press my face to his neck.

He smells a little musty and sweaty, but under that, he smells like comfort, peacefulness, and home. The vise around my chest loosens enough for me to take a full breath. My heart stops trying to claw its way up my throat. I manage to unclench my hands and wrap them around one of Christian’s instead.

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