Chapter 39: Growing Up Pains

Every summer since childhood, Dominic would drag Alexander outside to play.

And "play" was putting it mildly, because Dominic had always been far too competitive for his own good.

"Come on, Alex! You’re too slow!"

"I’m not slow! You started running before you said go!"

"That still means I’m winning!"

"That means you cheated!"

Naturally, that accusation only made Dominic laugh harder as he took off running again, forcing Alex to chase after him.

Their games were sometimes so rough that by the end of the day, both boys returned home covered in dirt, with scraped elbows and knees.

On one particularly memorable afternoon, Dominic tackled Alex while they fought over a ball, sending them both tumbling onto the grass.

"Ow!"

"Got you!"

"You’re heavy! Get off!"

"I’m not heavy!"

Dominic immediately lifted himself, but his hand slipped on the grass.

"!"

He fell forward.

Their lips brushed.

For several seconds, neither boy moved.

Alex’s entire face immediately turned red.

"You..."

Dominic stared down at him.

"You kissed me!"

"What? I fell!"

"That still counts!"

Alex hurriedly covered his mouth, absolutely horrified by what had just happened. But Dominic merely stared at him for another second before shrugging.

"So?"

"So?!"

"It was an accident."

"But we’re both boys!"

"So?"

Alex stared at him, completely dumbfounded.

Dominic apparently couldn’t understand what there was to be embarrassed about. Worse, after getting back on his feet, the shameless boy even held out a hand as though nothing particularly life-changing had just happened.

"Come on. We’re not done yet."

"..."

"Unless you’re admitting I won?"

That naturally got Alex moving again.

Unfortunately, Dominic’s complete lack of concern over physical boundaries didn’t disappear as they grew older.

If anything, it became worse.

As Dominic became more comfortable in his own body, he also became increasingly comfortable invading Alex’s space. An arm around his shoulders while they walked became normal. So did leaning against him whenever they sat together or sneaking up from behind just to annoy him.

Then there were the kisses.

"Dominic!"

"What?"

"You kissed me again!"

"It was your cheek."

"That’s still kissing!"

Dominic grinned, then tightened the arm around Alex’s shoulders.

"Fine. Next time, I’ll warn you."

"That’s not the problem!"

"What’s the problem, then?"

"..."

Unfortunately, Alex never had a particularly good answer.

More than anything else, Dominic’s behavior confused him.

But asking someone about it seemed even more embarrassing.

He certainly wasn’t going to approach his older brother Ben and admit that another boy kept kissing him whenever he pleased. Asking his father sounded equally mortifying, while his mother, Rosalie, had never exactly been the easiest person to approach about what Alex privately categorized as boys’ stuff.

So he simply left things as they were.

Meanwhile, Augustus observed everything from a distance.

As the years passed, Dominic remained fiercely competitive in sports, academics, and practically anything else that could produce a winner.

Strangely enough, Alex was rarely treated as his competition.

Giovanni, however, was another matter entirely.

If Giovanni won something, Dominic wanted to beat him the next time. If Dominic accomplished something first, Giovanni seemed equally determined not to fall behind.

Alex somehow ended up caught between them often enough that their rivalry simply became another familiar part of growing up.

That last summer after high school, however, things started to change.

Dominic glanced at Alex before bumping shoulders with them.

"Come on. They’re starting another song."

"I don’t dance."

"You danced earlier."

"That was because everyone else was doing it."

"Exactly. Everyone else is still doing it."

Before Alex could argue, Dominic had already grabbed his hand and pulled him back toward the others.

At first, nothing seemed unusual. They’d been playing, fighting, and dragging each other around since they were children.

Except somewhere between one song and the next, Alex became strangely conscious of the hand still holding his.

Dominic seemed to notice too.

Neither of them let go.

When the music slowed, Dominic hesitated for once before placing an arm around Alex.

"Is this alright?"

Alex looked at him.

For someone who’d spent years kissing him whenever he pleased, Dominic suddenly looked oddly uncertain.

"Since when do you ask?"

Dominic laughed. "Since you started looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Don’t know."

"Then don’t make things up."

"Fine."

But Dominic’s arm remained around him.

And Alex didn’t move away.

They never talked about what happened that night. There was no confession, much less some grand announcement that their relationship had suddenly become something else.

They simply started spending more time together.

Whatever they had was still too new and uncertain to explain to anyone else.

So they kept it to themselves.

Or at least, they thought they did.

From across the gathering, Augustus watched the two boys return from the dance floor together, then quietly turned back to his drink.

Victoria Sebastian noticed too.

Unlike Augustus, however, the small smile on her face had little to do with sentiment.

By then, Giovanni had left the neighborhood for good, and Dominic’s attention seemed to settle almost entirely on Alex.

He brought him snacks without being asked. He appeared whenever Alex was alone and kept him company for hours. If Alex mentioned wanting something, Dominic somehow remembered it later.

And the teasing that Alex had once dismissed as Dominic simply being Dominic gradually became harder to ignore.

Their relationship had changed.

They both seemed to know it.

Neither seemed particularly capable of naming it.

But they liked being around each other, and for a while, that seemed enough.

Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones who noticed.

Victoria Sebastian had been watching too.

Most people outside the family didn’t know the Sebastians were already facing financial difficulties. Conrad Sebastian had been doing everything he could to keep the Sebastian Group afloat. Still, Victoria understood how much easier their problems would become if the two boys’ relationship developed into something more permanent.

So she quietly encouraged it.

Gifts began arriving at the Vance household in Dominic’s name. Small gestures were carefully presented as evidence of how thoughtful Dominic had become toward Alex and, by extension, the rest of the Vance family.

Victoria made sure Augustus noticed.

She wanted the older man to believe Dominic genuinely had the Vances’ interests at heart.

More importantly, she wanted Augustus to start thinking Alexander and Dominic might really be good for each other.

Even if Victoria’s reasons for encouraging their relationship had never been quite as innocent.