Page 18 of Inevitable
“You talk about him like he’s yours.”
Bas seemed to freeze for a moment before he slowly continued cracking eggs into a bowl. He had them whisked and had added milk and water before he set the bowl aside and concentrated back on Ezra.
“You and I are strangers,” he said.
Ezra nodded mutely. It seemed he had crossed some sort of a line.
To his surprise, Bas considered him with pursed lips for a second before he said, “Fuck it. It’s not like it matters what I say to you.” He fixed his gaze on the tree right outside the window. “Drew and I have known each other practically our whole lives. Best friends since first grade.”
Bas turned back to his cooking. For a little while, the only sounds in the kitchen were Bas preparing the food. The pan sizzled as he dropped butter in it. The knife moved on the cutting board. Egg mixture started bubbling on the pan.
Bas turned around to face Ezra.
“I love him.” He shrugged almost helplessly. “Always have. Probably always will.”
“But he doesn’t feel the same?”
Bas fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.
“It’s complicated. Drew deserves better. He deserves normal. I can’t give it to him. The two of us… We’re not meant to be.”
Concentrating on somebody else’s problems for a little while was strangely relaxing. It was much easier to see solutions when you weren’t directly involved.
“Have you ever tried to make it work?” Ezra asked.
Bitterness was etched on every inch of Bas’s face. “So that I would know what it feels like to have him all to myself before we crash and burn, and I’ll lose him forever? Somehow I don’t feel like it’s the most desirable option.”
“Does Drew know?”
Bas turned around to flip the omelets. “There’s very little Drew doesn’t know. And what he doesn’t know, he can guess.”
“But you two live together.”
“We do. Roomies. Our situation would make for a good sitcom. I should pitch it to a network. Might as well make some money off of the abject misery of my situation.”
Bas slid plates and utensils on the table and turned the burner off.
“Drew sleeps with other people,” Ezra said. He just couldn’t seem to stop poking, and he felt woozy and feverish enough not to care about little things like being pushy and impolite.
“Why shouldn’t he? We’re not a couple.” The way Bas said it made it seem like the line had been uttered a thousand times. Maybe he’d practiced it to make it sound as natural as possible.
“How do you handle it?”
“Years of practice?” Bas shot Ezra a grin that didn’t fully reach his eyes. He turned serious again almost immediately. “Sex is… I don’t really care about sex. I find it relatively easy to just shrug it off. He fucks whoever catches his eye, and he moves on. They never last. And at the end of the day, he comes home to me. All these one-night stands get is fleeting pleasure and a moment of bliss. I get the parts of him that matter. It might not be the perfect solution, but it’s worked for me so far.”
Ezra still couldn’t wrap his head around whatever it was Bas and Drew were doing, and he was feeling too lousy to even really try.
Instead, he just shook his head and said, “Well, maybe you’re used to chatting with Drew’s hookups, but it’s freaking me the fuck out. I keep expecting you to poison me.”
“Would you like me to taste test your food before you start eating?” Bas’s lips twitched.
Ezra stared at Bas until the man started laughing, and damn it, Ezra felt laughter bubbling up inside of him, too. First, a snort escaped, which only made Bas laugh harder until Ezra couldn’t suppress his own laughter anymore. He laughed until his stomach hurt, and tears were streaming down his face. The absurdity of his situation was too much for his feverish brain to take, so hysterical, out-of-place laughter seemed to be the only way to lessen the tension.
Bas sighed and wiped at his eyes before his expression turned serious again.
“It doesn’t do anything to dwell on what-ifs. In a perfect world, I’d be everything Drew wants and needs, and we’d live happily ever after. In reality, there’s this huge difference between us that’ll just… it will end us. You can’t build a life with somebody who doesn’t want to have sex with you. We could fool ourselves, but I’ve been there before, and I’ve seen the spoiler thread.” Bas took a deep breath and glanced at Ezra. “I’m wired differently, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not even sure I’d want to change anything about myself if by some miracle I could. Despite all my faults, I like me.” He waggled his brows. “No need to mess with perfection.”
“Have you ever tried to date anybody?” Ezra asked and scrunched his nose. “Sorry. That’s none of my business.”