Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,32

Sean didn’t know for sure, which said a lot because they normally shared everything. But there were benefits to working in the dark—maybe he’d have connections or access to information the rest of us couldn’t get.

“Actually…could you look into someone for me, Matt?”

“What’s the kid’s name?” He got his phone from his back pocket and pulled up an app I didn’t recognize.

It seemed that it was a mystery to Sean too, and he poked at the screen. “What’s that app?”

Matt grunted and smoothly pulled the phone away from his twin’s reach. “What’s his name?”

“Sebastian Lane. But it’s his brother I want you to look into.” The two of them looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Benjamin, or I guess ‘Ben’.”

“Brother?” Sean sounded surprised. “So, Sebastian’s not a lost boy.”

“Maybe. I don’t know, maybe the brother’s involved in all this shit.” The thought made me uneasy, more worried about Seb.

“Involved in the bridge fall?” Matt didn’t look up. Just typed into his app.

“Maybe.” A sinking feeling gripped at my guts as I remembered how stiff Seb had become when I mentioned his brother. “Ben came into the hospital looking for him, with a boyfriend Seb denies having…”

“His brother came in to see him?” Sean crossed his arms again.

“Yeah, but Seb had checked himself out of recovery, and he was on his way back to his apartment.”

“Where Eli kidnaped him.” The tiny twitch of an amused grin on Sean’s lips made me growl.

“After he found him with a gun pointed to his head.” I sounded gruffer than I meant to, but Sean dropped the grin.

“Jesus… So the kid is in big trouble.” He tightened his arms over his chest.

Matt looked up from his phone. “What else do you know about the jumper?”

“Nothing.” My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. I knew very little about Sebastian and his problems at home. The twins stared at me like I’d let them down somehow, and I clenched my jaw. I hated feeling like the weak link in a conversation. “I’ll find out what happened.”

Matt shoved his phone back in his pocket and the two of them moved, as though they were sharing a single brain, to squeeze my shoulders. They turned, and headed back to their apartment without another word, leaving me to continue dripping in the foyer, with the tingling in my crotch that wouldn’t let me forget what had just happened in the bathroom.

“Fuck.” I ran my hands over my face and tried to scrub the memory from my mind. I’d practically molested the kid, taken advantage of him when he was hurt, and confused, and relying on me for help. He was so young, he was probably overwhelmed by my tongue and my hands and my body forcing itself on him. Probably had just gone along so it would end sooner. Damn it. I knew better, but seeing him naked and wet with his hand on his dick short-circuited my brain.

I walked back to the apartment. Leaving didn’t suddenly seem as important as making this right. Seb was on the couch dressed in the clothes I’d been leaving out for him when I’d heard him cry out in the bathroom; a tank top and jeans, left behind by one of the guys who’d crashed with us before. One I hadn’t molested, by the way.

“Thanks for the threads. More flattering than the hospital garb, huh?” He was swimming in the oversized tank top, but the skinny jeans fit, tightly hugging his thighs…

I caught a towel he chucked my way, and I snapped my eyes onto his. “I’m so sorry.”

“What for?” His voice had an air of casualness, like he was prepared to give me an out. But I wasn’t a fan of living under unspoken resentments. Owning my mistakes was important to me.

I lowered myself into the leather armchair opposite him and met his gaze, his eyes wide and full of forced naivety, like he was still pretending it hadn’t occurred. “What happened in the shower never should have happened.”

He flinched, and guilt surged up from my gut and into my throat. Guilt tasted a lot like bile. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you—”

“Is that what you think happened?” He huffed and shifted on the couch, then threw his hands up in the air. “You think you took advantage of me?”

I was filled with the compulsion to assuage my guilt with some kind of explanation, and I gripped the towel in my lap tightly. “I’m older—”

“Oh, please! I’m an adult, doc.” His