Page 134 of Contested

“Marcos?” he called quietly, though the ringing in his ears made it hard to determine how loud he was being.

He didn’t get a response. Marcos’ breathing was deep and even, mouth slightly parted, head turned a little toward where Sebastian had been standing.

Sebastian waited for him to move. To mumble something else. To turn it into something else that Sebastian could deal with easier.

But there was nothing.

Marcos was asleep.

For a moment, Sebastian couldn’t make himself move. His chest had gone too tight, and each breath came in shallow, as if there wasn’t any space in his ribs to accommodate the air.

Sebastian pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and swallowed, but it didn’t shift the pressure in his throat. His eyes started to sting sharply, and he blinked hard before anything could spill over.

A sound rolled in the hall.

Sebastian’s body reacted before his mind did.

He pulled the handle and pushed through the door, his shoulder clipping the frame, and pain sparked down his arm, but he ignored it, moving into the hallway and letting the door close behind him.

He started walking.

His legs didn’t feel steady. Each step landed slightly harder than it should have, and his hands had started shaking again. He shoved them under his arms, gripping his own sides through his shirt.

At the corner, he stopped and leaned one shoulder against the wall, staring at the floor while the hospital moved around him. He heard the distant ding of an elevator somewhere behind him and was reminded that Marcos’ family would be coming up soon.

They would go into the room and see him asleep again, not knowing what he had just said to Sebastian.

His breath caught. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his chest, hoping the pressure would help.

It didn’t.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his head resting against the wall as his heart pounded underneath his palm.

Sebastian had spent so long denying himself his own feelings that he hadn’t considered what they actually meant. But hearing the words come so easily from Marcos’ mouth—everything suddenly caught up and slammed into him hard.

He fucking loved Marcos Reyes.

|| Chapter Twenty-Nine ||

Marcos – “Did I say something stupid?”

EARLY OCTOBER

Traffic moved in a steady flow below Marcos.

His eyes tracked the headlights as they moved between buildings, small and bright from this high up, red and white lines slipping along the roads before disappearing behind corners and towers. The city looked different from Sebastian’s apartment. A sea of light against the blackness of the night, everything smaller than it actually was, flattened by distance.

He took a sip of the whiskey Sebastian had poured him, and it slid easily down his throat, almost warming him as it went.

Marcos turned away from the window, eyes scanning the living room. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d been here, except the massage table had been packed away. The television still threw a blue light over everything while the racing game idled on the screen, faint music playing through the speakers and filling the quiet space of the apartment.

Vodka, gin, whiskey, and mixers were placed on the coffee table in a line-up that Sebastian had made far too neat. All of them had been tried. A small glass poured of each until they had both settled on drinking the whiskey.

The card game Marcos had brought sat with them, opened but not used yet. The red box glinted against the television’s light.

Marcos sighed and took another sip of his drink before walking around the couch and taking his seat. His shoulder ached as he shifted it, a dull pull across the joint that made his mouth tighten. His fingers had mostly healed as well, though they were still taped together, the stiffness more annoying than painful now.

“I can’t believe I missed my mouth,” Sebastian said as he walked back into the living room, pulling a shirt on.