Owen has been struggling with addiction since he was a teenager, but it takes a DUI involving another vehicle for him to finally face his issues. The road to recovery is a rough one, and for Owen it's a journey made harder by bankruptcy, loneliness, and repressed memories.<br><br>His new apartment doesn't help either. It's small, worn, and hot as hell. The only way to reach it is a tedious stretch of stairs that seems like the final insult on top of a whole pile of misery.<br><br>Thankfully, the mess comes with one bright spot: intense, pretty Sebastian, who seems to have a knack for keeping his head up and finding the beauty in everything.

Forty-Two Stairs

Owen shifted on the mattress, rearranging spring and lump to find the most comfortable of places for his own points and angles, before tugging their bodies back together. “Yes. Not like I did. Things are different now. But I will probably always love him.”


He wasn’t sure if the following silence was meant to be taken as acceptance or grief. Some people could tell those things. They could read the radiance coming off another person’s soul and make a reasonable call on aura and emotion. Owen, on the other hand, merely rested beside Sebastian and hoped he wasn’t about to be told to get out of bed and go home. Just as the silence got too painful, as conscience told Owen he should clarify the previous statements with disclaimers and explanations, Sebastian’s palm lighted on his forearm and stroked it. When Sebastian spoke, his voice was slow and sleepy. “Do you think you might want to love me someday maybe?”


Owen smiled at the back of Sebastian’s head. “Maybe someday.”


Chapter 34