Baz swallowed against the nausea thickening his throat.He twirled his wrist, clenched his toes.
He couldn’t begrudge her feeling this way.She didn’t know Sami like he did.Sami wasn’t out to hurt him or his career.Hopefully, she’ll see that when they won the case and could forgive him.
His legs felt heavy, as though weights were chained to them when he dragged them back to his office, toward the beacon of light that was his phone.Ripe with a new notification from his favorite stalker.
20 bucks if you wear this to the office
Thisbeing a bowtie made to look like the inside of a watermelon.Despite it all, Baz chuckled.Sure, he wore two-thousand-dollar suits just to ruin them with a five-dollar joke bowtie.
In your dreams
that is what I dream of yes
you in the bowtie and ONLY the bowtie <3
Such a flirt.
Sami’s nonsense didn’t eradicate the guilt, but his jokes were a soft blanket swaddling him, whispering everything would be all right.
How could Aya expect him to live without that again?
Chapter sixteen
Raysofambersunstole the brightness from Baz’s desktop, making it impossible to decipher the words of the trial brief he was drafting.He swiveled his chair toward the window, twiddled a paperclip between his fingers.
The orange sunset swallowed the blue of the day, backlighting the majestic downtown buildings and the scattered dark, dense clouds dotting the sky.
He could close the blinds and ignore it.Or,since it would take another hour for the sun to cease its sabotage—would it be preposterous to invite Sami to dinner?
Perhaps if Baz casually texted him that he thought about going to a restaurant, Sami would understand that as an unspoken invitation and join.Or Baz could turn the tables and surprise him at his place for once—only now he realized that he had no idea where Sami lived.
That ought to be corrected soon.
Tonight, though… The sunset really was breathtaking.How handsome Sami would look, coated in the golden light that would make his skin glow and his hair shimmer light brown.It would be a shame to waste such a divine sign for a break on a Friday night.
Maybe Baz could score a reservation somewhere high up above the city, see Sami’s eyes sparkle as he marveled at the changing colors…
Knock knock.
Ugh.Work.
Baz spun around—his insides froze at the sight of his own face, thirty years older.The same square shape and muddy eyes, except with deep frown lines carved into the pale skin.
The paperclip snapped between his fingers.
“Hello, Baz,” his father said.Jack’s voice was deeper than Baz remembered it, rumbling through him like an earthquake, shaking the walls of his composure.
Baz clawed into the desk.It was the only thing standing between him and committing a crime.The dull pain in his fingertips wasn’t nearly enough to still the urge for destruction that coursed through him.
“Do not call me that.”That was Mom’s name for him.Jack didn’t get to sully it when he was the reason she was gone.
“Sebastian,” Jack corrected.His bottom lip quivered under the glassy eyes.He wrung his hands.“Look at you.All grown up, in your own office.”
Oh, he could shove the proud dad act up his ass.
“Get out,” Baz growled.
The scissors on his desk looked way too inviting, and he refused to go to jail over Jack, no matter how badly he deserved to feel just a fraction of the pain he inflicted on others.
