“Maybe I would have if you weren’t happily married,” Sebastian said with a snort.
“Come on, Alisa and I are a modern, open-minded couple,” Matt said, grinning. “She’d ask to watch. Hell, she’d want to join us.”
Sebastian shook his head, getting to his feet. “Sorry, but you know my rules, Matt: I don’t get involved with taken people. It gets too complicated.” His dark eyes flicked to Vlad. “I always ask if they’re single. Sometimes they lie, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Vlad pursed his lips and looked away, for the first time truly considering that maybe Sebastian really hadn’t known that Nina had been taken.
“All right, our work here is done. We should move to your old school before it rains,” Matt said, his tone becoming professional again after being turned down.
Matt, Sebastian, and the stylist chatted amiably as they headed toward the town. Vlad trailed after them silently, watching their surroundings.
The town was small and picturesque, the type of place where everyone likely knew everyone else’s business. Vlad looked at Sebastian and tried to imagine him being out and proud in a town like this.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one thinking that.
“We don’t want to focus too much on homophobia in small towns,” Matt said as they walked toward Sebastian’s sixth form college. “We would like for our message to be positive. So we decided to focus on the time right after you decided not to hide who you are and forced people to accept your sexuality.”
“But I’ve never hidden my sexuality,” Sebastian said with a small frown.
The stylist nodded. “We know. He means the time after your homophobic classmates bullied your boyfriend into—” She cut herself off, looking uncomfortable.
“Killing himself,” Sebastian finished for her softly.
“Yes,” she said, swallowing. “You told us that after that you became more defiant and bold with your clothes. We want to replicate that, obviously with designer clothes, but as close to the seventeen-year-old you as we can.”
Sebastian nodded, but Vlad noticed that he looked rather uncomfortable and tense. The tension in his shoulders seemed to grow when they entered his old school.
“We will have an empty classroom to ourselves,” Matt said.
Sebastian said nothing, his eyes flickering all over the school’s corridors, his face paler than usual. He clearly didn’t have good memories of this place.
“The PE teacher said it was okay if we shoot in the gym too,” the stylist said. “A very helpful man, about your age, said he knew you in school. Mr. Fletcher was—”
Sebastian’s head whipped toward her. “Sorry, what? Mr. Fletcher?”
Did his voice sound a little strained?
The stylist nodded. “Yeah, the PE teacher. I think his name is Mike. Did you know him?”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said after a short pause, looking the other way. “Yeah. I knew him.”
Vlad frowned at his back, wondering.
The second part of the photo shoot was completely different from the first. Gone were the fancy designer jackets and trousers. Now Sebastian was decked in jeans and patterned shirts that practically screamed flamboyant. But that wasn’t what made Vlad stare. Sebastian wore eyeliner and nail polish.
Catching Vlad’s stare, Sebastian raised his brows, determination and challenge on his face. “What?” he said, cocking his hip against the desk while the other two men argued about the setting and lighting. “A problem?”
He was picking a fight, Vlad realized, watching Sebastian with narrowed eyes. Something had put Sebastian on edge. Maybe it was the surroundings—it didn’t take a genius to guess that Sebastian had been bullied here—but Vlad had a gut feeling it wasn’t just that.
“Not really,” Vlad said. “But if you looked like that in school, no wonder you were bullied. That’s practically an invitation.” He couldn’t imagine a schoolboy wearing eyeliner and nail polish in Russia.
Sebastian chuckled humorlessly. “I had been picked on well before I started wearing nail polish. This”—he waved a hand over himself— “was just a big fuck you to the assholes who bullied Bill, nothing more.”
Vlad stared at him. There was something he didn’t get. “You’re bi,” he said. “Why didn’t you just date girls? You could have avoided all of that.”
“Even if I dated only girls, it wouldn’t have made me straight,” Sebastian replied. “It doesn’t work like that. Even if I someday meet a wonderful woman, marry her, and stay with her for the rest of my life, it won’t change the fact that I’m bisexual. I actually prefer men to women. Why would I hide who I am and be satisfied with pretending to be something I’m not? It’s the principle of the thing.”
“Principle of the thing,” Vlad repeated. “I don’t know if that’s stupidly idealistic or just stupid.”
Sebastian’s lips twitched. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“It’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Vlad shook his head. “If you were in Russia, that would have gotten you beaten up or arrested; maybe worse if you were unlucky.”