“Nowyou’rechanging the subject.”
“Not at all,” Wesley said loftily. “I’m giving proper attention to this menu. I do realize this formal dinner, and the formalwear to go with it, is for my benefit.”
Sebastian tugged the black bow tie. “I don’t mind.”
“A sweet lie, also for my benefit, and it’s truly adorable you continue to think you can get that kind of thing past me,” Wesley said. “It looks damn good on you, though. Which—yet again—is for my benefit, since I’m the one who gets to look at you in it. Well,” he amended, “me and half the nosy Americans in this room. They’re probably wondering what such a handsome Spanish playboy is doing with an unfashionable stick-in-the-mud like me.”
Sebastian’s smile wavered before he could stop it. Wesley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did I just say that bothered you?”
The waiter was dropping off their drinks. “Nothing, Lord Fine,” Sebastian said, with a mutteredthanksto the waiter.
Wesley ordered first courses and soups. As the waiter left, he picked up his ginger ale. “Prohibition is a fucking travesty. And what happened toWes?”
Sebastian gestured around the club. “Don’t I need to use your title in places like this?”
“At our private table? Why?”
“Well, the waiter might think—”
“Why would I give a damn what the waiter thinks?”
“Because it’s going to be how you say, isn’t it? People will wonder why we are together?” Sebastian said. “It doesn’t matter to me, but I’m not going to make trouble for you. I can be discreet.”
“Discreet.” Wesley took a sip, grimaced, and set the drink down. “And yet you’ve never asked me to call you Mr. de Leon in public.”
“Of course not,” Sebastian said. “You can call me whatever you want.”
“I see,” Wesley said, too lightly. “So I don’t have to be discreet, but you do, so you don’t make trouble for me? You can’t publicly use the given name of the man you’re sleeping with in case people talk, but I can use yours without a thought?”
“Yes, exactly,” said Sebastian.
Wesley leaned forward. “That’s bullshit.”
“But—”
“What kind of contemptible lout would want that bargain? I’m not suggesting we give the restaurant a show, but I’m not about to fumble with your prick in private and then demand you act like a stranger in public,” Wesley said, sharper than he’d been. “If the patrons here lack the manners not to stare and speculate about a handsome man from out of town, that is not your fault. You are not to blame for what gossips whisper about your lovers.”
It was so completely different from what Sebastian had heard before that for a moment, he didn’t have a response. Finally, he said, “But I have magic. I should be the careful one.”
“You and you alone? Not a fucking chance,” Wesley said. “That is not how this—this thing we’re doing is ever going to work.”
Aha. Apparently Sebastian wasn’t the only one who didn’t have a name for what they were to each other. “Why not?”
“Why not?” Wesley looked highly ruffled. “Because I will never require a nursemaid, not even in Wonderland, that’s why not. There isn’t even magic here; we’re in a bloody hotel waiting for Oysters Rockefeller. Why would I insist we go out, choose the place, then make you solely responsible for protecting my maidenly virtue or whatever it is you imagine you’re doing?”
Sebastian bit his lip. Wesley’s wry smile had disappeared, and his shoulders had gone stiff. It brought back memories of their trip to Yorkshire, when Wesley had been bravely marching into a new world where others had magic and he didn’t, refusing to show any nerves and instead being adamant that Sebastianat least treat him like a competent man.
It wasn’t fair that life and war had forced Wesley to harden his skin into armor. But fair or not, he now resented anything he perceived as sheltering, and even if it seemed obvious that magic meant Sebastian would be the one to handle obstacles, Wesley clearly didn’t agree.
“I just don’t want to be the reason you get a reputation,” Sebastian said.
“Ihavea reputation,” said Wesley. “One that doesn’t require protection. I’m well-known in my every circle for being a caustic prick and a discourteous bastard. Disagreeable, remorseless, unwelcome—”
“You’re not any of those things,” Sebastian interrupted. “Especially not unwelcome. You’re always welcome. Everywhere—” He clamped his mouth shut before he kept going and spilled feelings all over Wesley.
But Wesley’s lips curled up grudgingly. “You’re truly an absolute nuisance, the way you insist on only seeing good in things. I could bring you a mange-covered dog and you’d call it cute.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Sebastian said. “It’s not the poor dog’s fault he’s had a hard life. Suffering doesn’t make someone ugly.”
