Pretend You're Mine (The Protectors 12.50)

“Rick, honey, not here,” Darren said.

“Why not here?” Rick responded, clearly a little tipsy. “We’re all friends, right?” he added. Rick’s hand teetered as he lifted his glass of wine. “Darren and I are pregnant. The baby’s due next fall.”

The announcement received several cheers and comments from the guests sitting at our table. Sebastian hunched in on himself, then reached for his wine glass. Like with the champagne, he started guzzling it down. When he motioned to a waiter for another glass, I discreetly settled my hand on his thigh beneath the table and leaned in so I could whisper words only he would hear.

“Sebastian, baby, let me take you home, okay?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “I’m fine.”

The waiter filled the glass and he toasted Darren and Rick. His words were still relatively clear, but within minutes of starting dinner, he started to lean against my side and his eyes looked a bit heavy-lidded.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He nodded, then blurted, “Is headache a code name for sex?”

Every single person at the table froze and looked at Sebastian, but he was looking at me. “Your brother and you were talking ’bout headaches. Does that mean he and his husband wanna f—”

I kissed him to silence him. I’d only meant to derail his line of thinking with a simple kiss while I simultaneously came up with a way to pass the whole thing off as a joke to the guests at our table, but when Sebastian began hungrily kissing me back and searching out my lap beneath the table with a fumbling hand, it was all I could do not to throw him on the table and have him for dinner instead.

“Remember when you couldn’t keep your hands off me like that, Bernie?” I heard someone at the table say. It was enough to remind me that our little make-out session was turning R-rated pretty quickly, and from the way Sebastian was whimpering low in his throat, I was going to turn it X-rated long before Bernie could even answer his wife.

“Hmpf,” I heard a man, presumably Bernie, dryly respond before calling out to the waiter for another drink.

I managed to tear my mouth from Sebastian. He looked confused at first, then he was scanning the faces at our table. I expected him to be embarrassed, but the alcohol had clearly kicked in because he leaned his head on my shoulder and began stroking my chest as he grinned and said, “I have my boyfriend’s headache.”

Several people at the table chuckled and resumed eating as Sebastian tried several different versions of the same sentence, each sounding more and more slurred.

“I think it’s time to take this one home,” I said, trying to keep my voice even because Sebastian’s roving hand had found my dick through my pants and was palming it.

“Cause you have my headache?” Sebastian asked.

“I have something,” I mumbled so only he could hear.

Mainly a hard-on that could pound spikes into railroad ties. I leaned down to snatch Sebastian’s bag off the floor and then helped him stand. It took several minutes for Sebastian to say his goodbyes to an amused table of guests. When he got to Rick, who was anything but amused, he barely acknowledged his former lover.

Mostly because Sebastian was too busy petting me. As I tugged him away, I swore I heard him say something about a wall, but I couldn’t be sure. Sebastian snuggled up against my side as we waited for my truck to be brought around. His hands were still on the move, but he mostly focused on my upper body. I put my arm around him as he leaned heavily into me.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” I asked as I rubbed his back.

“Tired,” he mumbled.

“What about your knee?”

“What knee?” he asked in confusion. He looked around us as if he were checking if we were alone, then loudly said, “It’s my headache you gotta take care of, remember?”

I laughed out loud because he was just the cutest, worst drunk I’d ever met. “I’ll take care of it when we get home,” I assured him. By the time my truck was brought around, Sebastian was leaning against me so heavily that I had to practically carry him to the car. The drive home was silent as Sebastian dozed on and off in the front seat, waking only long enough to drink from the bottle of water I’d given him. At one point, he covered my hand where it was sitting on the console between us and didn’t let go of it again until we reached his house and I had to help him out of the truck.

“Are your keys in your bag?” I asked a seemingly less drunk but obviously very tired Sebastian when we reached his front door.

“Huh?”

“Your keys?”