Page 95 of Rule 2: Never Join a Christmas Dating Show

“Oh yeah, he already left,” Luke assures Troy.

“Cool.”

“Want to watch TV?”

“I have a headache,” Luke says, and it’s clear that even when speaking with his best friend and roommate, he’s not any more relaxed than on the show.

Then Luke enters the room. He grins. His chest puffs out.

I do my best to not giggle out loud.

He locks the door, then jumps on the bed, the springs wobbling. I bounce up, and he clutches me against his chest.

“That was great subterfuge,” I whisper.

“All those spy movies came in handy.”

I nod, wondering what the state of his acting would be like if he’d never seen any spy movies. Warmth fills my body. We’re together. I clutch hold of him, gazing into his eyes, because we don’t have a few minutes, we have all night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Luke

Sebastian is in my bed.

My bed.

With me.

I grin ridiculously at Sebastian as we lie side by side, then pull him on top of me and grin ridiculously at him some more. I want to feel his weight. I want to know he’s there. God, he’ll be with me all night.

Our lips meet, and I clutch him to me. We kiss, then kiss some more. We slide off our clothes. Or at least, I slide, and Sebastian unbuttons.

“You should wear more sweats,” I say.

“Okay, dude,” Troy’s voice booms from the other side of the wall. “Mr. Fashion Guru.”

I laugh weakly, and Sebastian’s eyes widen.

“Old house,” I mouth.

Sebastian presses his lips together, and I press my lips together. We shake, and not in the romantic manner. Joy spills from me, swathing me in it, when before there was just hockey practice and training and clean eating and watching Sebastian hostSeeking Mr. Rightfrom my laptop screen.

This is way better.

I must have known it back then. I must have seen something in the show, something that made me watch it over and over. Some fascination with Sebastian. Some pull that existed when all he was was a small face, no bigger than my thumb, on my screen.

I knew. I must have known.

We’re naked, our cocks hard, and though this is no hockey game, our bodies are slick with sweat. Sebastian’s body shimmers, probably the same as my own, and I smooth his hair where his pomade has loosened, and his hair now sticks to his forehead, the strands darker, wilder, the way only I can see.

But our time does not extend forever and ever. Sebastian cannot explain to his boss that he stole Mr. Right from the actual contestants, that all my rhapsodizes about them, forced as they were by Ella, Aisha, and even Sebastian himself, were feigned.

He cannot admit that the world’s conversation about which woman I will choose was flawed to begin with, that all their musings, all their forum conversations and twitter threads and water cooler conversations in the office and happy hour conversations out of the office were for naught.

I cannot cost Sebastian his job. I cannot move him from the glitter and glamor of California with its palm trees and blue skies and blue ocean and celebrities driving in fancy cars, never stained by salt, never inching through slush and snow, to the place he left behind. God, my brother is his greatest enemy.

And though I can tell Bryce to respect him, to be kind and honorable, and to be all those things that he should have been to begin with, I cannot erase his memories. There is no eraser with all the money I have now, that I can buy that will take away his pain, even if I would give every single million to take away his anguish. Can I ask him to be part of my life on a permanent basis when he would have to ruin every good thing he’s achieved to do so?