by Posy Roberts
Louis pulled him into a kiss. “I’ll always have socks for you. And sweaters. And a bathtub you can soak in.”
“And all the products I could ask for to slather on my skin and in my hair?”
“That too.” He gave Sebastian’s butt a light smack and said, “Why don’t you go have a long soak and read until your heart’s content. I’ll make breakfast and bring it in to you.”
“You’re spoiling me.”
“Let me. It’s my calling. Which book are you starting with?”
“The one where the divorced father and his boyfriend from back in high school meet again years later. It’s a trilogy.”
“Go indulge yourself. I have some connections to make before we get to the party. And sometime today, you’ll have to tell me if we need to go shopping for clothes or if you can find something here.”
“I’ll wear the sweater and button-down you bought me. Or is it fancier than that?”
“This one is fairly casual. A few of the others will be dressier. It’s the New Year’s Eve party you’ll have to really dress up for.”
Sebastian lifted a brow. “I’m going with you to the other parties, and to a New Year’s Eve party?”
Louis blushed. “If you want. I sure as hell don’t want to go to them alone, especially New Year’s Eve. And to kiss you at midnight . . .”
“Mmm, sounds perfect.”
18
One Long Date
Sebastian sat on the wide window ledge that overlooked the street and sipped his coffee. His soak had been more than relaxing, and he’d taken advantage of Louis’s cupboard of skin- and hair-care delights once again.
He was buffed and moisturized and polished. He was also well fed and warm. Right at that moment, he was wanting for nothing.
He’d already read a novel, started a second, and still had several more hours before he had to get ready for this party. He didn’t know what to expect, having never been to DC parties. On occasion, his parents had entertained political types back in New York, so this type of schmoozing wasn’t entirely foreign to him, but he’d be going in a different capacity this time. He wasn’t the eccentric kid of the host who was afforded all sorts of leeway for his foibles. This time he was going as Louis’s . . . Louis’s what?
“Louis,” he called out.
His answer came from upstairs where he was working. “Be right down.” And sure enough, he emerged a few minutes later.
“How are you introducing me tonight?”
“Oh.” He rocked on his heels. “I hadn’t thought about that. I guess as my friend?”
Sebastian rolled his lips between his teeth and bit them to keep himself from suggesting something else.
“That might invite an interrogation neither of us is up for, though. How long we’ve been friends, how we met, what was I like at twenty.”
“How old would I have been when you were twenty?” Sebastian asked with a chuckle. “We never got to the age thing.”
Louis blushed. “Oh, geez. I’m thirty-eight.”
“Twenty-three. Did you have five-year-old friends when you were twenty?”
Louis snorted. “Uh . . . no.” He worried his bottom lip and his blush grew brighter. “Would you have a problem if I called you my boyfriend?”
Sebastian went wide-eyed. “And that won’t invite the third degree?”
“I don’t think so. People are always asking about my love life and wondering who I’m dating. And the age gap won’t be a thing. Blanche’s newest lover is forty years her junior. Besides, they’d get to meet the guy I’m . . . dating?”
“Is that a question?”
“I guess. Are we dating or just sleeping together? Or is this something else?”
Sebastian set his mug aside and stood so they were chest to chest. He adjusted Louis’s collar and undid one button so his chest hair peeked out. Sebastian ran his thumb over it and smiled. The world deserved to see Louis’s chest hair. It was a shame to hide it. “This is the longest date I’ve ever been on.” He smiled as he pressed a kiss to Louis’s mouth. “And if we added up all the different dates we’ve fit into this one huge date, I think it’s been at least . . . eight.”
“Is that why this feels so different?” Louis asked as his palms settled in the small of Sebastian’s back.
“Different how?”
“I feel like I’ve known you months, not days.”
“Well, on your last few dates, how long did they last?”
“Couple hours. Three tops.”
“Depending on how you divvy it up, we’ve been on something like sixteen or two dozen dates, then.”
“We slept, though.”
“Still, that’s a minimum of ten dates.”
“Is that why I keep having to resist telling you I love you?”
Sebastian gave him a soft smile. “You don’t love me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“How can you?”
“You just got done telling me I’ve been dating you for what would be equivalent to several months. I’d be at that ‘I love you’ stage by now.”
Sebastian pressed his finger to Louis’s lips and closed his eyes. “Don’t. I can’t hear that right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you realize I’m truly a spoiled brat who isn’t worth your time, my heart couldn’t take losing you.”
“You already told me you used to be a spoiled brat, but no one goes through what you have these last months and doesn’t come out the other end changed. I like you, Sebastian. I like your heart and your kindness. You like my penchant for colorful shoelaces and quirky socks. I love that you’re as much into all my skincare products as I am.”
Sebastian chuckled and pulled Louis into a kiss. “You have a ridiculous variety.”
“I know. You should’ve heard what some of the women I brought back here thought of that.”
“Not good?”
“Nope. Teased me. I’m not a real man and all that BS. It was worse than when I first told people I was pansexual. I’m used to that one now and know how to effectively clap back, but how the fuck does a clay mask make me less of a man?”
“Toxic masculinity is scary. It’s one of the reasons I’m glad to be out of my house. My dad was like that. He was okay with the gay thing until he found out I bottomed.”
“Why does that matter? Do you know what your parents do in the bedroom?”
“Ewww. Gross! Why would you do that to me?”
Louis chuckled and pulled Sebastian in for a hug. “I didn’t mean to break you, but what right does he have to know such personal information about your sex life? I never understood that part, why straight people are so fucking nosy about who does what in the bedroom? Maybe we just read until we fall asleep. Actually, that was the majority of my marriage in the last few years. We worked so much, and we were just . . . tired. We preferred cuddling.”
Sebastian let out a sigh. “You’re refreshing.”
“I am?” Louis’s eyebrows climbed closer to his hairline.
“Yeah. You don’t see the world like most of the gay men I know, but you’re not like a straight guy at all, even if those are the relationships you’ve been in.”
“I’ll tell you a secret.”
“What?”
“Us pansexuals and bisexuals and omnisexuals straddle two worlds. We hear the BS straight people say about queer people, and we have a choice: blend in and ignore it or call people out and maybe out ourselves. And when we’re around gay people, we hear just as much hate, just directed different places. When I come out to them, I’m told to make up my mind. Pick a side. I made up my mind ages ago, and I still love cock and pussy.”
“There ya go!”
“Actually, I love people, not their parts. And it’s not a fucking phase. If it is, you’d think I’d be over it by now.”
“You’d think. So . . . do you blend or go boldly most of the time? I think I know which you do.”
“I go boldly. I won’t leave m
y people out in the cold.”
Sebastian glanced to the snowy landscape and back. “You mean that literally and figuratively.”
“I do. It’s my style to speak up. I advocate.” Louis grabbed Sebastian’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “So if you were asking how I’ll introduce you at the party tonight because you were afraid you’d out me, don’t give it a second thought. I’m already out to those who matter, and I don’t give a shit about the rest. They can take me or leave me, and if anyone is a shit to you, let me know. I won’t put up with that. Not for a second.”
So maybe a knight in shining armor wasn’t all bad.
19
A Romantic
“I’m nervous,” Sebastian said as he got out of the car. He took Louis’s offered hand and leaped across the snowbank. Snow had melted some when the sun shone brightest, but the cold temps had decided to stick around. Now that it was dark out, Louis was wishing he’d worn a warmer coat.
“You’ve got time to work out your nerves. We have a few blocks to walk. But there’s nothing to worry about. You don’t need to impress anyone.”
“But who are these people? What kind of party is this?”
“A mix of people focused on making the world work on a more level playing field.”
“So, what does that mean for people like me?” Sebastian chuckled at Louis’s nonanswer, but the last thing Louis wanted was to scare him off.
“You don’t want the company line. I get it.” Louis squeezed his hand. “There will be policy wonks, maybe a few familiar faces from Congress, directors from various service organizations, and donors.”
“So they’re paying to be here.”
“Yup.”
“Lovely,” Sebastian said with an eye roll.
“That’s my world. Money, influence, power, and I’m there to act as a gatekeeper to make sure all that cash doesn’t end up in greedy hands in offshore accounts but instead helps people here at home who really need it.”
“You’re a romantic.”
Louis burst out laughing. “Only you would think schmoozing philanthropists is romantic.”
A wink.
“So, does knowing that make you less nervous or more?”
Sebastian shrugged, pulling Louis’s focus to how amazing he looked. You’d never in a million years guess that Sebastian lived on the streets. No one here would believe it if they knew. Not that anyone would. But Louis couldn’t wait to see how people reacted to him and to see how that affected Sebastian.
“Are you warm enough?” Louis had offered him one of his older dress coats, but he swam in them. Instead, he wore the long navy blue coat he’d been wearing when they first ran into each other. It was thin, not built for winter.
“I am. Thanks for insisting on the scarf, though.”
Louis couldn’t fight his smile. “You love cashmere. I thought it was fitting.”
Sebastian planted a kiss on his cheek before twirling. “And I do love parties. And even if I don’t know anyone and I might not be able to follow along on political conversations or know what to say, I’m sure I’ll have fun.”
“First, I’ll introduce you to a few people who don’t bite.”
Twenty minutes later, a glass of bubbly in hand, Sebastian was carrying on an easy conversation with a group of people who were interested in addressing DC’s homeless crisis, and not from a “get them off the streets so I don’t have to see them” standpoint. They genuinely wanted to help.
“I have some ideas,” Sebastian said with a definitive nod and then took another sip, finishing off his glass. Louis beamed at him as he took his empty and set it aside.
“I’d love to hear them,” said Blanche, an eccentric woman in her early seventies, with wavy silver hair that flowed over her shoulders. Sebastian was sure her dress was a vintage Chanel. “If the ideas are practical, that is. I’m so tired of hearing big talk about replacing the entire social network and starting from scratch. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Too many would suffer.”
“Right?” Sebastian nodded. “There are pieces that work great, but they’re underfunded. Drastically. One of the most useful is the homeless liaison program, but it needs to be expanded. They do a great job with homeless kids. They get early intervention and prevent a lot of problems, but we have a larger homeless population than that.”
“Children and family homelessness has decreased,” Blanche said.
“Yes.” Louis spoke up for the first time since this most recent huddle had formed. “But single people, especially men, those numbers have gone up. So we’re doing a better job helping families and women, but not such a great job helping single men.”
“Well, can’t they just get a job?” a guy Sebastian never caught the name of asked. He was squirrelly. That was the best description he’d come up with, but now that he finally spoke up and showed his ignorance, all Sebastian noticed was his large front teeth and beady eyes hidden behind glasses too big for his face. “They have the time, so what’s stopping them?”
Sebastian reached out to shake his hand, something his father taught him to do when someone pissed him off. Grab the power. Show them you’re not intimidated. “I’m Sebastian. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Gerald. Gerald Jones.”
Sebastian sent an uninterested smile his way as he dominated the handshake. He debated sharing his own story, making this personal, but he didn’t want to put Louis on his back foot. He was there as Louis’s boyfriend or date. Whatever. He was sure Louis wouldn’t be thrilled to have gossip buzzing around that he was dating a homeless guy.
“From up here, the ‘get a job’ rhetoric is satisfying, but it’s oversimplified. Dramatically. How do you get a job when you don’t have an address to put on a job application?”
“Shelters.”
“Not emergency shelters. No employer will accept that, and many trash an application the second they see any shelter’s address. And do you know the wait time to get into a long-term shelter in DC?”
“No.”
“Longer than most people can wait for an address to put on a job application for a minimum-wage job that will only give them ten or fifteen hours a week. And that’s assuming their application didn’t end up in the circular file. So how is a homeless person supposed to afford housing in this city on two hundred dollars a week? And that’s assuming they can afford to get to their jobs.”
“There has to be help for transportation costs,” Gerald argued.
“There’s some assistance. Those liaisons I was talking about help distribute SmarTrip funds, but they have a limited budget. If you got help last week, you’re out of luck this week. The assistance goes to someone else.”
Gerald wasn’t buying it, but everyone else in their little circle was looking on with rapt attention, as if Sebastian was laying down the everyday problems in a way no one else ever had before. Which was fucking crazy! If these were the people who were supposedly woke to the issues facing the homeless population in this city, how they hell didn’t they see what the issues really were?
“What about the smartphones I see all these homeless people carrying around?” Gerald argued as he waved his huge-ass phone in the air. Did that thing have three fucking camera lenses on it?
Sebastian was grateful when Louis took this on. Sebastian couldn’t have done it without raising his voice.
“Those phones are a lifeline. They’re the difference between accepting a job offer or totally missing out. Being alerted that a blizzard is coming so finding shelter is a must. Or if they’re off working away from their encampments, hearing about one of the city’s cruelest acts, in my opinion, the sweeps. They come around with a garbage truck and trash everything those people have, all to give the false impression that all is well here in America. And trust me, Gerald, they’re not running around with the latest model phone with all-access plans and unlimited data. These are no-contract, pay-as-you-go phones with very limited data. They cost nothing near what you pay.”
; Sebastian pulled his phone out of his back pocket and wiggled it to get people’s attention. He was outing himself, but he didn’t fucking care. Maybe his story would make Gerald grow a heart. “I paid thirty bucks for this phone. I don’t even know what it is, some generic piece of shit. But it works as long as I buy more credits each month. Thirty dollars a month to feel like I’m still part of society. This society that kicked me to the curb and would rather hide me away and toss all I own in a garbage truck than face the fact that it failed me, that it doesn’t have room for me.”
Louis had tears in his eyes as he pulled Sebastian against his side. “We’re failing people.”
“Especially queer people,” Sebastian added, no longer willing to hold anything back.
Blanche squeezed Sebastian’s shoulder and gave him a warm smile, so different from all the other pitying ones directed his way. “I have a project I’m working on with a bunch of out-of-touch, privileged, urban rich.” She winked.
Louis chuckled, breaking the tension.
Sebastian smiled and admitted, “I’m familiar with the type. I used to be one.”
Gerald’s eyes nearly popped out of his head at that.
Blanche smirked. “Even better. You know how to speak their language. I need someone to get them to look outside their spoiled, inside-the-Beltway existence so they can come up with practical solutions. Their heads are so far up in the clouds, they think a tent city would be a cool way to live.”
Sebastian snorted. “It’s cool, all right, especially when the temps are freezing. Hey, I’ve got a space they can sleep in under a bridge if you wanna send them my way. Sturdy concrete beds even.”
“They wouldn’t make it an hour. They think I’m this bat-shit crazy old hippie who knows nothing, but I was homeless back in the day. Lived in my van, so not totally without shelter, but that was hard enough.”
Sebastian liked this woman. This was the one Louis said had a lover forty years younger than her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Louis talking to Gerald and a few other people. He didn’t know if he and Blanche had been the ones to drift away from the crowd or the other way around. He’d had too much prosecco. It always went straight to his head, and since it had been months since his last drink, two glasses would do that.
