Bewitched by Bella's Brother by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online

random comment as they did, but mostly, there was sort of a happy hum of peace there. Since Sebastian usually ran his mouth at a thousand miles a second, the peace was soothing.
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    After dinner, Asa sat down in the living room to read his son a book and Sebastian went outside to check on his car.
    His joy at discovering it did not smell like what it had been covered in that afternoon could hardly be contained. He rushed back into the house, thanks tumbling off of his
    tongue, when he was brought up short by the sight of Asa with his son in his lap. Jordan had fallen fast asleep, and Asa was resting his cheek on his son’s hair.
    Sebastian skidded to a halt and took a deep breath.
    “Would you like me to take him?” he asked, thinking
    that he could probably lift that little body pretty easily.
    Jordan’s wrists and ankles were slender with growth, and while he was tall for his age, he looked like he’d weigh less than a full-grown tabby cat.
    Asa shook his head, then shifted his body to move. “I’ll get him,” he murmured. “But I’m coming back, so don’t take my chair.” He flashed a small grin there, to indicate the absurdity of Sebastian needing that one overstuffed
    armchair when there was enough furniture in the room to
    host a small party, and then he hoisted his little boy in his arms and went upstairs. Sebastian watched him go for a
    minute, then broke out his laptop, which Bella had stowed in the downstairs closet, and set it up on the coffee table, just like he’d imagined.
    This room, even at night, was just such a lovely space;
    there was low-level track lighting in wall sconces at the higher levels of the room and brighter, reading-level lamps down where they were needed. Sebastian set the laptop out on the coffee table, sat on the couch, and pulled out his research. He was well on his way to explaining why textile arts were arts and not crafts (a stand that hadn’t endeared Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lan e
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    him with his professors at Davis any more than it had with the rest of the online academic community) when Asa came back downstairs.
    Sebastian looked up from his work and said, “Thank
    you. Seriously. My car’s the only one with A/C; it would suck if we couldn’t drive it all summer.”
    Asa shrugged. “It’s my fault, really. I should have
    warned you: the kid’s a real vomit comet if you don’t keep an eye on him.”
    Sebastian snickered and grinned, and Asa grinned back.
    Sebastian stopped laughing and buried himself in his
    computer, thinking it could be gay porn and it still wouldn’t distract him from the power of that wicked expression on his stomach. Asa sighed and stood up and stretched, moving
    toward a small wet bar in the corner of the room.
    “Can I get you something?” he asked solicitously, and
    Sebastian shook his head.
    “Mmm, no thank you.”
    “Can’t write and drink?”
    “No—actually I write wonderfully when I’m drunk. I just can’t read it when I’m sober, and that’s a problem.”
    Asa chuckled again, and this time Sebastian managed
    to join him. It was past nine o’clock now and dark outside, and the darkness added another level of strange intimacy to an oddly begun acquaintance. Asa dropped some ice in a
    glass and poured a minimal amount of Scotch in after it.
    “I wasn’t a big drinker until we went back east,” Asa
    said unexpectedly into the silence. “But everyone back there seems to drink; it got to be a habit to have something right before bed. It’s kind of soothing, but I’m not sure if it’s good for me.”
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    Sebastian shrugged. “That depends on how much you
    have.” Then, because it just occurred to him, “Where’s
    Bella?”
    Asa shrugged. “Upstairs, I think, watching television—
    what?” Because Sebastian was scowling.
    Sebastian shook his head. “Heifer told me she was going
    to help me with this paper,