Under My Skin (11 page)

But as he rode, his mind worked overtime, replaying everything Dylan had told him and reviewing all the facts as he knew them, trying to find a way that the drawing on Dylan's wall wasn't what it appeared. Trying to find a way to mesh it with the damned tender way he'd looked at Sebastian, had touched him.

Beck, Horst... none of the men he'd ever slept with had looked at him the way Dylan had. He kept coming back to wondering how someone could fake that. Or why. He would have gone to bed with Dylan even without that look. He'd already gone home with him, had given him head in the garage before he'd seen it. Dylan hadn't had to pretend like he cared.

And that's what hurt worst of all.

When he got home, he found his cell phone. Turned it on. Held his finger over the button that would dial his voice mail.

But the drawing of the mall with Rad Tattoos as the single store reared its ugly head once again, filling the screen in his mind's eye with the vision of it hanging there, like a proud goal, above Dylan's drafting table where he'd be able to see it as he worked. And then all the other bits and pieces followed— the music, the parking, the renovations he'd had Ander reschedule, the hiring of a new person or people.

Disgusted, he hit the off button and tossed his cell onto the kitchen counter.

He would talk to Dylan. But in person. He wanted straight answers,
deserved
straight answers, and the phone wasn't the way to get them. It was too easy to deceive over the phone. Better to look him in the eye.

Yeah, and where did that get you before?

Drained, and more than a little worried, Dylan pulled up in front of Sebastian's two-story townhome Monday afternoon. It had been a really crappy few days for many reasons, but Sebastian's total phone silence had weighed on Dylan almost as much as worrying about his mom's health.

When he'd awakened on Saturday morning and found Sebastian gone from the bed, and ultimately, gone from the house, his stomach had taken a nosedive. He'd tried not to read too much into it, though. Maybe he'd just wanted to go home and get ready for work, since both their stores had Saturday business hours. Except he'd ridden with Dylan the night before, which meant he would have had to take a cab or catch a bus back to his car or his house. And why do that when he could've just woken Dylan and asked him to give him a ride home?

Still... he'd wanted so badly to believe everything was okay, so he'd showered and dressed to go into the shop, trying to keep an upbeat attitude, knowing at least he'd get to see Sebastian in a short while.

Then the phone call had come, and he'd been on the road to Poplar Bluff within minutes. He'd tried to get in touch with Sebastian to tell him what had happened and that he had to be away for a few days, but had gotten his voice mail. Wishing he could speak to Sebastian in person, but not wanting to leave him hanging as to where he'd disappeared to, he'd left a message. And then, for the first time ever, he'd bitten the bullet and spoken from his heart. Maybe talking to Sebastian's voice mail hadn't been the best way to do it, but he'd wanted to get it out in the open.

He'd left his cell number and asked Sebastian to call him when he had a few minutes to talk.

But Sebastian hadn't called. Not Saturday, not Sunday, not today. Dylan had tried several times to reach him, but Sebastian had never picked up, and he'd been stuck with leaving messages. He'd tried not to call too often, tried not to pressure Sebastian in case he'd pulled back and needed space. But after three days of silence, following on the heels of Sebastian's stealthy departure from his house, Dylan's spirits about the status of their relationship were pretty low. He'd known Sebastian might bail, had tried to prepare himself for it, but the truth was, if that's what was happening... it hurt.

Whatever was going on, he couldn't continue not knowing any longer. If Sebastian wanted to run, it was better to find out now.

He knocked and waited.

When the door opened, a long moment stretched out where Sebastian stared at him, looking part shocked to see him and part some other swirling emotion that made Dylan's chest ache with relief. But then those emotions were swallowed by something else, something both cold and hot, and unmistakably angry.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just got back in town. I wanted to see you.” And, damn, Sebastian was a sight for sore eyes. Dressed in faded jeans, a gray V-neck T-shirt, and barefoot, with his hair tousled liked he'd been running his hands through it, it took all Dylan's self-control not to drag the man against him and kiss the hell out of him. But Sebastian's “stay back” wall was up at full strength, and Dylan was afraid if he tried to force it, this conversation would be over before it started.

“How'd you even know where I lived?”

What was going on? Why was Sebastian so damned angry— it billowed off him in waves. And yet, beneath it, Dylan sensed a healthy dose of hurt also. He recognized it all too well because he'd been feeling the same way. But why was Sebastian hurt? “I looked you up on the Internet. You didn't return my phone calls. Did you get my messages?”

Guilt flickered through Sebastian's brown eyes. “I didn't listen to them,” he whispered.

A stab of pain hit Dylan square in the chest. “Why?”

Sebastian swallowed hard and looked over Dylan's shoulder as if he didn't want to make eye contact. “I didn't want to hear what you had to say.”

Jesus
. The man cut him to the bone. Trying to pull air into his squeezing lungs, Dylan managed to get out a strangled, “I don't understand.”

Sebastian's eyes closed, then they fluttered open when he shook his head. Finally, he turned his gaze back to Dylan. “Let's just... God. Let's just not play games, okay? I can't do any more games. You know why.”

“No. I don't. What's going on?”

“I saw the drawing. The one in your den.”

“Which drawing? I have dozens of drawings in there. That's what I do for a living.”

“God, you're making this so hard. Frankly, I'm shocked you had the nerve to come over here at all. I saw the drawing of the mall... Green Meadows. I know what you're planning to do and it sucks. I don't appreciate being played, and none of the other store owners will either. All of our stores were there before yours, long before yours. So let me make this as clear for you as I can... if you expect me to pack up my books and move out of my space, you can go straight to hell. Great Escapes is staying and you're just going to have to deal with me.”

Dylan felt like he'd been blindsided by a Mac truck.

“What are you talking about? A drawing? My plans?”

Sebastian's hands clenched into fists at his side and a dark red flush slid up his cheeks. Dylan had never seen him so angry. “Your plan to run the rest of us out of our locations so you can take over the whole strip mall for Rad Tattoos. ‘Today Suite E, tomorrow the Green Meadows strip mall... ‘”

“What the fuck? Are you talking about the picture hanging by my drawing table?”

“The one and only. Since your secret's out now, I guess you won't have to worry about fucking me anymore. That'll probably be a relief for you— not having to go to bed with the geek and pretend you like him.”

Dylan stared at him, stunned, furious, and hurt to the core at Sebastian's accusations.

He started to open his mouth to speak, but the truth was, he was stunned into silence and didn't even know how to start defending himself from something so outrageous.

“Was I so bad you couldn't even face me and you had to go off and hide this weekend?” Sebastian's voice was hoarse. The words sounded as if they'd been torn from his gut.

Even amidst his own hurt, he heard Sebastian's. But the man's accusations still hung in the air between them, poisoning everything, causing too many conflicting emotions inside Dylan for him to be able to sort them all out.

“You know what?” He finally found his voice, but it was choked. “At this point I don't know if I want to even bother to give you explanations. I've been tried, judged, and sentenced in my absence without even being given a chance to clear things up. But because, in spite of what you clearly think of me, I'm an honorable man, I'll share with you one thing and one thing only. I did
not
draw the picture on my wall. It was drawn by my friend Matt Landon, who has a regular, syndicated comic strip in newspapers across the country. Look him up on the Internet if you need proof. He drew the picture as a gift for me when I moved my shop into the mall. It was a joke because, hey, he draws a comic strip, so he's a funny kind of guy.”

He paused and shook his head, as a new surge of crap rolled through him. “And as far as where I was this weekend, maybe if you'd taken a little less time to be an
asshole
and a little more to be a decent person you would have
listened to my phone messages!"

Now Sebastian looked stunned.

But Dylan didn't care. His chest ached so badly he thought he might pass out from lack of air to his lungs, and the rest of him was numb.

“All I asked for was a chance, Sebastian. But if you're that desperate to find fault with me, that desperate to find reasons why you can't be with me, then I can't compete with whatever it was in your past that made you this way. I wanted... ” His voice caught and he couldn't finish. “Never mind. It doesn't matter anymore. Just forget it. Forget everything.”

He turned his back on Sebastian and walked away.

He made it to his Jeep, started the engine, fastened his seat belt and drove away without once looking back at the man still standing on the porch.

But as he turned the corner, the shaking hit. He pulled over on the side of the road and dropped his forehead to the steering wheel as the anger and hurt and heartache tore through him. In what had already been a shitty day, losing Sebastian, especially like this, had been the capper.

The one time in all his life he'd decided to open his heart to someone and it had come to this.

Risk-taking was highly overrated.

Sebastian had been standing at his kitchen counter, but as the words on his voice mail in Dylan's quiet, husky voice crept through the line, he sank to a crouch, his back against the cabinets. His breathing came out in soft huffs and his heart felt close to exploding.

He pressed the button to replay the messages, and closed his eyes as shame rippled through him. There were three messages in all. But it was the first in particular that tore him inside out...

"Hi, it's Dylan. I just got a call that my mom has had a heart attack. I'm on my way to Poplar Bluff and I may be gone a few days. I don't really know any details yet, but I'm not going to lie and say I'm not scared because... she's my mom, you know? I am scared."

There was a pause and Sebastian could almost feel Dylan's churning emotions in the silence. Then,
"Bastian, I hope everything's okay. I missed you this morning and there was no note or anything. I'm not good at this because, the truth is, I've never been with anyone before who I've wanted to say this to. But... well... last night was amazing. You're amazing. I really hope you'll keep giving me a chance to show you that whatever might have happened in your past, I am the right decision. I want to be your right decision, if you'll let me."

Another pause.
"Well, I'd better go. If you have a few minutes and you want to talk, call me, okay? It would be really nice to hear your voice."

The second message was shorter, left on Saturday night, with Dylan saying his mom was stable but they were running tests on her and he was at the hospital with her. Sebastian could hear the hospital public address system in the background. Dylan again said he hoped everything was okay with Sebastian.

The third, left last night, also got to Sebastian big-time. Dylan had sounded so uncertain because he hadn't heard from him. He'd said he'd probably come home on Monday and asked if he could come see Sebastian.

The last part of it caused Sebastian's chest to heave.
"I've never told anyone this before, but... I miss you. I've been thinking about you constantly, wondering where you are and what you're doing, thinking about that sweet, sexy smile of yours, the sound of your voice, and how your eyes get all dark and come-hither when you climax. Call me, please? Even if it's just for a seconds. And if this is all too much for you, tell me, okay? I've never done this before, never felt like this, so I don't know if I'm coming on too strong or not enough, or maybe you just want me to go away. But, God, I hope it's not that. Okay, so, you know how to reach me."

Sebastian pushed the off button and stared down at the phone. Then he tossed it on the floor and let his head fall back against the cupboard.

There was no mistaking that in each message Dylan had been putting himself out there, reaching out. Sebastian didn't believe for a second any of it was faked. Not when he put the words and the quiet emotion together with the look of utter hurt on Dylan's face when he'd been here and Sebastian had leveled his accusations at him and told him to go to hell.

God. He was a fool. Always had been, but this time for a very different reason.

This time he'd pushed away the good one.

He'd already checked out Dylan's story about the artist who'd drawn the picture. Matt Landon was, indeed, a real person. The name had sounded vaguely familiar to Sebastian, and he'd realized why when he'd Googled him. He read the man's comic strip in the paper every Sunday morning. But what had really made Sebastian feel like the asshole he was, was when he looked at the cartoon drawings and the words and realized the picture on Dylan's wall had the same style, and the distinctive handwriting on it exactly matched the words on the comic strip.

Dylan was right. Sebastian had tried him, judged him, and labeled him a deceiving bastard without ever giving him a chance to defend himself or explain. Is that the kind of person he'd let himself become? Had he let Beck's manipulations and betrayal turn him into a bitter, jaded man who'd rather search out every fault— real or imagined— and pass judgment rather than listen, learn, and talk things through? Apparently he had.