Sebastian (Bowen Boys, #5)(6)
“I think I’ll just get it over with. They’re all there now and I can just go and take my medicine like a man. I’m pretty sure that whatever he has planned for me is nothing I’ve not thought of doing to myself. I was way out of line.”
He pulled into Khan’s drive and got out a few minutes after hanging up with Marc, who had told him to come by after he received his punishment. Sebastian told him that he’d think about it. His parents’ car wasn’t in the drive and his mom came out just as he was ready to step on the lowest step.
“I hope you’re very proud of yourself.” He hung his head in shame. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, young man.”
His head snapped up like she’d jerked it up. “I’m sorry, Mom. I was having a bad day and I took it out on her. I have no excuse for what I did.”
“No, you do not.” She didn’t move and he stayed where he was. “You embarrassed us. And her. Do you know that we’d tried to pay her all afternoon and she wouldn’t take a penny from us? Then you call and first off accuse her of theft and all sorts of other things.”
“She told you what I said?” He dropped his head again when she glared at him. He heard the door open and knew it was his dad. Sebastian could feel his anger as if he was throwing it at him.
“She didn’t say anything other than that she had to leave. Was going to walk back to the city, but I had to make her ride in with that man you guys have driving us all over. Wouldn’t let me go with her to make sure she got home all right, saying you’d be mad. Well, damn it, boy, I’m mad!” His dad’s voice thundered down at him. “What did you say to her? We heard her all right, but not a thing you were saying.”
“I accused her of stealing your money when she set up the accounts, and that she was planning to murder you after she got all your money.” He looked up at them both. “What the hell was I supposed to think when I hear my own parents have gone to someone else for help with a computer and not their own son?”
“You’d think that we were capable of making sound decisions on our own.” That hurt him coming from his mom. “She set up the email account and all the other accounts, but never once put in a single thing that we would call ours. Our passwords...she stepped away when we put them in, as well as the credit card numbers to the accounts that we have that pay our electric and phone bills. She even cautioned us about using one of those sites that can pay them for you, and told us to never save our passwords on the computer but to write them down in a notebook.”
All the things he would have done for him. He looked up at his dad. He had really hurt him and he knew it. He started up the steps when the limo pulled back into the driveway. His dad walked to the driver without a word to him, and Sebastian knew that his dad would be hard pressed to forgive him.
“Mom, I never meant to make you think that you couldn’t do all this on our own. I would have helped you.” She shook her head. “I would have.”
“Maybe, but lately you’ve been…well, short with everyone, and we wanted to surprise you with what we could do. We, your father and I, had so much fun until you called. She was laughing with us and joking with your dad’s choice of sites he wanted to look into. She even told us that she’d had fun.”
“Until I called.” She nodded. “I’m going to apologize to her. Just tell me when she’ll be back and I’ll be here to tell her how sorry I am.”
“I don’t think she’s coming back.” He heard the hurt in her voice. “I doubt we’ll see her again. I’m pretty sure that she…I don’t think she’ll come back.”
When she turned her back to him and entered the house, Sebastian sat on the steps. Pain shot through him as if he’d been stabbed right in his heart. When his dad came toward him, Sebastian thought for sure he was going to go around him without speaking, but he stopped.
“You embarrassed us. And you hurt your mom. We were having a grand time with her and you messed it up because you don’t trust us.” He couldn’t even deny that. “You should go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Dad, I’m so sorry.” His dad nodded and went into the house.
Sebastian started for his car but bypassed it for the limo driver. He walked up to him and asked him where he’d taken the girl.
“She’s got herself a place at the Y, Mr. Bowen. I didn’t know if I got her back in time for her to be able to get in, but that lady that runs the place said she’d let her in.” Sebastian asked him what she’d looked like. “Looks like? I tried to think on that when I dropped her off. I remember thinking that she was pretty, but right now I couldn’t tell you a thing about her. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”
Strange maybe for someone else’s family, but not his. He nodded to the driver and walked to his car. He called Marc and told him he was going home, that he was never going to be able to dig himself out of this one.
“Find your mate and knock her up. I’m telling you, it’s like having a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can’t do anything wrong.”
Sebastian told him he’d work on that and drove home. It was going to be a long night.
~~~
Ama stripped down and lay on the bed. She was looking up at the light when she thought of the man on the phone. Man, he had one suspicious nature about him. She rolled to her side and smiled at the fun she’d had with the elder Bowens. They had made her laugh all afternoon. And they’d made sure that she was welcome, something she’d not felt in anyone’s home before.