Dex and Seb

DEX WOKE with a start, his face mashed into Seb’s chest and the rest of Seb’s body wrapped protectively round him like a cocoon. His head hurt and his stomach felt like he’d been kicked by a horse, but the warmth of Seb’s arms felt amazing.

And so did the pulsing, throbbing heat pressed against his thigh.

For a moment, Dex didn’t dare move, breathe, or even blink, and then a wave of exhausted nausea swept over him and he found himself burrowing closer to Seb as though he could climb inside him and escape the fast-growing hangover brewing deep in his bones.

He woke again sometime later to Seb rubbing his back. “All right?”

Dex blinked, both relieved and disappointed to find the dick pressed into his leg had retreated back where it came from. “What time is it?”

“Eight. You’ve got your lesson with Mel at nine, haven’t you?”

Dex sat up and scrubbed his hands down his face. It was Tuesday, the day he had a two-hour reading lesson before his workday even started. Dammit. Why hadn’t Seb reminded him of that before he’d drunk his body weight in lurid fizzy booze? “I need to go home.”

“What for? You can use the bathroom here. Stay awhile and rest. You’ll need it if you’re going to get through today.”

“It’s not that. I need to get my washing so I can do it at work.”

“Oh.” Seb was silent a moment. He looked tired and rough, and Dex could almost see the effort it took him to think coherently. “How about

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you grab a shower and a cuppa here, then you go to work while I fetch the washing from your place?”

“You want to go to my place?” Dex wasn’t sure about that. He kept his room clean and tidy, and his dirty clothes were stacked in one of Bernie’s big linen bags by the door, but glancing around Seb’s sleek, polished flat, he wasn’t sure he wanted him to see the sparse reality of his life at the hostel.

“I’ve been there before, Dex. I know what it’s like.”

Dex sat up again. Somehow, his head had dropped back to Seb’s chest. “What? Why did you go there?”

“Last time I lived in London, my head chef used to donate leftovers to the homeless shelters around the city. I took some food there once.”

Dex clambered off the couch, stumbling over the too-long legs of his borrowed tracksuit bottoms. He didn’t have much in his life to be proud of, but it bothered him that Seb knew just how lowly he was. “Where did I put my clothes?”

“Over there.”

Seb inclined his head toward the coffee table. Dex frowned. He didn’t remember putting them there. “I need to go.”

Seb didn’t argue, and he didn’t reiterate his offer to go to the hostel either. He watched Dex scramble around for his things with an unreadable expression on his face, and when Dex emerged from the bathroom dressed in his own clothes, he met him by the front door with a travel mug of hot, sweet tea.

“See you later.”

Dex ran home, changed his clothes, and dragged his bag of washing up the road to the restaurant. His detour had made him later than usual, and after loading his things into the machine, he was just in time for his literacy lesson.

He usually enjoyed his sessions with Mel. Reading was hard, and writing near on impossible, but he could see with his own eyes he was making progress. Not today, though. Today, the words on the page seemed to blur into a migraine-inducing riddle. Mel lost patience in the end and sent him back to the kitchen an hour early.

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After setting up the dishwasher—a habit he’d yet to break—Dex wandered over to the dessert section, noting Seb and the Chelsea Bun dough they’d made the day before had yet to appear. He retrieved Seb’s weekly planner and flicked through until he came to the right day, but aside from the words “bun” and “lunch,” he could decipher little from the handwritten plans for the day.

He rubbed his belly. The headache was fading, but his insides still felt empty and raw, like he was hungry, or sick, or both.

“Morning.”

Seb dumped a big plastic box down on the counter. Dex jumped but found himself distracted by the ball of Chelsea Bun dough billowing over the sides of a glass bowl. “That’s huge.”

Seb smirked, though Dex could see his eyes were drawn and weary. “Amazing, eh? Give me a minute to get a brew, and I’ll show you how to punch it down.”

Punch it down?

Seb ambled off to the bar and reappeared a few minutes later with two mugs of tea. He passed Dex one, along with a bag of sweets and a paper-wrapped package from his box of tricks. “Cheese and Marmite. Pink shrimps and fried eggs.”

Dex’s mouth watered. He felt like death, but cheese and Marmite? Food of the gods, and no one made it better than Seb. “What have you got?”

“Jam sarnies and cola bottles. Don’t let me eat them all before lunch. I’m going to need the sugar this afternoon. Pass me that bloody dough. Let’s get this over with.”

Dex stuffed half a sandwich in his mouth and watched, fascinated, as Seb knocked the air out of the dough with his fists and turned it out onto the floured counter. By the time it was stuffed with spiced raisins and rolled into spiraled buns, it didn’t look anything like the gloopy mess Dex had walked into the previous afternoon.

Seb wrapped them in cling film. “Right. They just need to proof on top of the steamer for an hour, then they can go in the oven. Do you know what cake you’re making today?”

Dex picked up the baking tray loaded with the buns. “Lemon drizzle.”

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“You’ve got the recipe squared away?” “Think so.” “Okay. Good. I’ve got to pop out for a while. I’ll be back before

service starts. If you need anything, ask Rick.”

Seb took his bandana off and tossed it on top of the microwave. His tone was friendly enough, but he didn’t look happy. Dex took the buns to the steamer and slid them into the warm space where the air leaked out. When he came back, Seb was still there, staring into space.

“Okay?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah. Apart from hanging out of my arse, at least. Hey, can I ask you something?”

Dex nodded and reached for the second half of his sandwich. He felt better already.

“What does gorjer mean?”

He dropped the sandwich like a stone. “What?”

“Gorjer. You kept muttering it in your sleep. Is it someone you know?”

Dex waited a moment for his tongue to detach from the roof of his mouth. He’d never talked in his sleep before, at least not that he knew of. He was pretty sure Braden would’ve beaten it out of him. “You’re a gorjer. I’m a Traveller.”

Seb stared at him, then shook his head and gathered some paperwork from the file he kept in the counter drawer. “See you in a bit.”