Oblivious

Oblivious...

(Last Christmas #2)

Heather Mar-Gerrison

Smashwords Edition

Heather Mar-Gerrison Copyright 2017

Revised Edition 2022

Beautiful front cover courtesy of Shutterstock designs

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work.

Prologue

You’d think that living in the French Alps would be all fine and dandy and that every day was some kind of exotic adventure.

It wasn’t.

Let me tell you that most of the time I was bored out of my skull and waiting for my life to start.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating because I was pissed off that everyone else’s life was getting off to a flying start and I was stuck in first gear.... It would be fair to say that I was in a permanent bad temper these days and I guess I was just being churlish.

We lived in possibly the prettiest place on the face of the earth and I had the best parents and the best brother a guy could ever wish for. I probably had the best job in the world too but I wanted more. I wanted to go to uni.

Kane, my twin brother, didn’t have any such desires. He was totally into the family-run business and was perfectly happy to take it over and run it when Mum and Dad finally retired – which, between you and me, I couldn’t see them doing for a long time. Still, Kane wasn’t bothered. He’d got a great boyfriend in George, who had graduated uni this year and was in the process of moving out to live with us.

I wanted to experience what George and his best friend, Eleanor, who was also cousins with my best friend, Elliot, had. Freedom to do as I liked without having to run by a late night with the olds. It was such a ball-ache. And my parents were pretty liberal but I totally got the feeling that Mum judged me for not wanting to settle down. She totally had me in the same pigeonhole as my best mate, Elliot. But I wasn’t like Elliot at all. Elliot loved to play the field and was in serious danger of never settling down with his one and only but I was seriously looking for the one – I just couldn’t find her... I thought I might be lucky and find it to be Eleanor when she and George came home last Christmas, but we soon realised that we didn’t really have the spark that was so necessary in The One...

Maybe I was too picky, or maybe my idea of romance was too much like the movies – but I was such a sucker for the perfect happy-ever-after ending, when epic love didn’t immediately happen, rightly or wrongly, I just lost interest.

So anyway – my disastrous love life aside, I’d decided that studying international business as my degree would be a prudent move (I guess at the back of my mind I really did think I’d eventually have more to do with the business side of things with Kane, after all) and I’d applied and had been accepted at the University of Liverpool – and I was going in September...

*

Mum being Mum, insisted that I look for accommodation to share with someone else. I don’t like the idea of you being all on your own in a room – you’re not a naturally solitary soul and you’ll just sink inside yourself and play on that damned X-Box thingy all of the time. You need company, Kurt – you’re a twin!

I rolled my eyes and bitched about it for a bit, but in the end, I had to agree with her – I really wasn’t a solitary type of guy. I did love company. Hell, it was a terrible wrench being apart from Kane – but Kane had George now and it was time, at twenty-three, that I grew a pair, took stock and got on with my life...

Anyway. I applied for an apartment to share and was lucky enough to get one. I had no idea who I was sharing with. All I knew was that I’d been put with another guy, which was totally cool. It really would be too much to hope that I’d be put with a hot woman. I guessed that I’d meet him soon enough and I was confident that I could get along with just about anyone...

Chapter 1 – Panicking...

Sebastian

What if he’s a total homophobe? I wailed to my mother, chewing on my bottom lip nervously to the point of being able to taste my own blood. Gross. "What will I do?"

She rolled her eyes at my obvious meltdown, "Honey, he’ll love you – everyone does."

Not everyone. Steve Morley had absolutely fucking hated me at school. That one kid had made the last two years of my school life absolutely fucking unbearable. Thankfully, college had been a totally different ball game and I’d made some really great friends – boys and girls – who had adored me in the same way as I had adored all of them. Yeah, right. I bitched, tell that to the homophobic arsehole, Steven Morley...

Mum gave me one of her looks, Sebastian. She said in a voice that told me she was only just holding onto her patience.

I flashed her a smile, Sorry. I said, "I’m just really nervous." I’d been to the bathroom more times than I’d like to admit to and my arse was feeling pretty damned tender.

She nodded, I know, honey. She said, Now, are we packing these? She held up a couple of brightly coloured thongs.

I snatched them out of her hand, feeling utterly mortified that she even knew they existed, Oh, my God!

She left my room, laughing. Just hurry up. She shouted over her shoulder, We’ll be going in half an hour, young man. Or you’ll miss your allotted moving in time.

I sat on my bed and stared around my room. It was my haven, this room. It was painted in navy blue and white and everything matched beautifully. I doubted my room at university would be anything like as nice. Still, I guess I could always accessorise...

*

Four hours later, it was apparent that I was going to have to buy paint, rugs and fairy lights just to make my room even half way decent.

Something my new roommate, Kurt, who was absolutely beautiful by the way, thought was really quite hilarious...

"Oh, man – you are so like my brother!" he chortled.

I raised my eyebrows, You’ve got a gay brother? Interesting. Younger or older? I’d always liked guys who were older than me by a couple of years... I wondered what he looked like...

He nodded, smiling fondly as he talked about him, Yeah, Kane – he’s just like you with your penchant for accessories and shit.

I smiled, But you’re okay with it? I asked, "And uh, with me I mean – you know – being gay?" It may well be the twenty-first century where we were all supposed to be tolerant and everything but there were still so many horribly ignorant people around – young and old alike...

He nodded, Sure. He said, "I’m totally down with the whole gay thing – I’m not gay, though."

Well, if that wasn’t as plain as the nose on his face. I laughed, I never thought you were, mate. I said.

He grinned, You’re not gonna hold it against me, are you?

Was he flirting with me? Hello... But no, of course he wasn’t flirting with me. He’d just told me that he was as straight as a die – and my gaydar had definitely not even so much as given a feeble ‘ping’ at him being anything like me. It was a shame because he was totally my type – dark hair, blue eyes framed with long black lashes and dimples to die for. My God, it was like spotting the best cream cake in the box only to find someone else had ordered it specially... totally unavailable... Oh well, there were plenty more fish in the sea and all that.

Well, you’ve already made a difference in here, Kurt said, Fancy a pint? he asked, looking at me hopefully.

I blinked, Me? I asked.

He frowned and made a bit of a show of looking around the room, Well, I don’t see anyone else in here. He flashed me a grin, showing off those magnificent dimples again, So, how about it, Seb – are you coming with me?

I nodded. He just called me Seb... Don’t read anything into it. He’s straight. Straight... Yeah, definitely. I said, scrambling off my bed where I’d just wound around my string of rather lovely multi-coloured fairy lights and shoving my feet in my Converses. Just give me two minutes to do my hair.

He nodded, following me to the bathroom and sitting down on the toilet to watch me while I ran a little wax through my hair and teased it back into shape, Sure – take your time, Kane always does...

I was surprised that he’d come to a different uni to his brother – even more surprised when he explained that actually, his brother, who was his twin brother (niiiice – gay and with his looks – phew! Shame he was already taken by the lucky bastard, George...) hadn’t come to uni at all and I almost died of shock when he said they were both twenty-three already.

"You’re twenty-three?" I asked. Wow, he was a