I guess everything in my life was looking up for the very first time.  Sebastian and I were practically in love and if I played my cards right, we could be together for a very long time.  The only thing that I saw that might have interfered in our tiny piece of heaven that we had brought to earth was Chad.

     He had been acting strange ever since me and Sebastian started hanging out and I definitely needed to get that settled before it turned into something major.  Within the team, small conflicts could quickly turn into major ones overnight if they weren't handled properly.  I think one of the main reasons our team was doing so well this year was the fact that we almost always got along.  Sure, we had our share of problems, like when Anthony and Mike got in a fight over Natalie, but we were quick to settle such disputes.

     The problem with Chad though was that I had no idea why he was acting the way he was.  He obviously didn't care much for Sebastian, but I didn't think that was sufficient reason for him to get upset with me.  Something had to be done.

     I walked into Algebra Friday morning and sat down right next to Chad.  He appeared to be reading his Algebra book, but I knew he wasn't.  Chad liked Algebra about as much as I did.

     "How's it going, Chad?" I asked him.

     "Fine," he said without looking up from his book.  This was going to be harder than I thought.  Mrs. Anderson started the class and again for the whole period, I mostly stared at Sebastian.  He looked up every once in a while and smiled, but went right back to listening to Mrs. Anderson or glancing over his book.  He was so awesome.  I couldn't believe I had found someone like him.  His very presence took my breath away and everything else in this world faded into the background when I was with him.

     I couldn't wait to see him after school.  Hopefully, Shannon wouldn't be there to interfere. I just wanted to hold him all night long and Shannon would have definitely messed those plans up.

     The class period was finally over and I saw Chad moving toward the door without saying anything to me.  He wasn't going to get away that easily though.  I rushed to catch up and called to him, "Chad, wait up."

     He stopped in the middle of the hall and turned to me.  He didn't look happy at all.  "What?" he insisted.

     "Hey man, settle down.  I just wanted to talk to you."  We slowly made our way to the side of the hallway and out of the traffic lanes.  He didn't look at me as I continued.  "I've noticed that we've drifted apart recently."  I didn't want to place any blame and tell him it was his fault, even though it most certainly was.

     "What do you care?" he said, finally looking me in the eyes.  All I could read from them was anger.

     And just when things couldn't get any worse, Sebastian steps up next to me.  "Hey, Sebastian," I said.  "I'll catch you at lunch, okay?"

     He realized I was trying to shove him off and he said in a soft voice, "Okay," and then headed off down the hallway.  Chad was staring at him, the anger still visible in his eyes.

     "Now, what is this all about?" I asked Chad.

     "Sebastian," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the whole world.  "You tell us everyday at practice that we're supposed to work together and be a team and then you go off with some nobody after I offer to help you in Algebra."  He said it quickly, obviously glad to get it off his chest.

     What he had said made a little sense, but I didn't think Chad should have gotten so upset about it.  There must have been something else he wasn't telling me.  Chad glanced down at the floor after he had said it.  He seemed to be ashamed of his behavior and I was glad he was starting to realize how ridiculous he was being.  "Hey man," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.  "We are a team.  I didn't know you offered to help me out.  I'm really sorry.  It's just that Mrs. Anderson said that Sebastian was doing really well in the class and he could probably teach me."

     Chad looked down at my hand that was resting on his shoulder and then up into my eyes.  He just stared for a while and I guess he realized I was telling the truth.  I noticed that he had really nice eyes and I contemplated telling him, but decided not to.  Probably wouldn't have been the best thing to do.  "Okay," he said finally.  "I'm sorry."

     "Cool.  I'm glad we got that settled.  I'll see you at practice then."  With that, I was off down the hallway again to my second period class.
 
 

     I walked into the lunchroom and noticed that Sebastian wasn't at his usual table.  I immediately began to worry that I might have been a little bit short with him in the hallway.  I hoped that wasn't the case.  I got my lunch and sat down next t to Vanessa at our usual table.

     "And where have you been?" Vanessa said, putting as much irritation into her voice as she could muster.

     "What do you mean?"

     "I tried to call you after practice yesterday, but your mom said you weren't home."

     I stopped for a moment and tried to think of a response.  I could have said I was hanging out with Sebastian, but decided that would have just upset her more.  "I was helping my dad at the shop."

     "Oh," she said.  She turned to her friend who was once again sitting across from her and began to gossip about anything and everything.  I looked over at Sebastian's table, but saw that he was still not there.  God, I really hope I didn't upset him.  It had just been the night before that I had promised myself I would never hurt him.

     The door to the cafeteria suddenly opened and a huge gust of wind whipped through.  The weather outside was getting pretty bad.  I wondered if we were going to get our first snow storm of winter sometime tonight.  I sat at the table the rest of the lunch period, mostly talking to Mike and finally the bell rang and we all filtered out to battle the chilly wind outside.
 
 

     I was in Chemistry when the announcement came over the intercom.  "Attention faculty and students," the box far up on the wall hissed out.  "There is a severe storm warning and all classes after this one have been canceled.  Please go straight home after the bell rings."  Everyone in the class cheered and the teacher quickly handed out the worksheet that would be due tomorrow.

     Since classes had been canceled, that meant that football practice had been canceled, and while that usually would have depressed me, it now excited me.  It gave me that much more time to hang out with Sebastian.  I rushed home and told my mom what happened and asked if I could go over to Sebastian's house.  At first she wasn't so sure, but I guaranteed her I wouldn't leave until the storm was over.

     I rode my bike to Sebastian's house and fast as I could and the snow was already starting to come down as I ran up to his front door.  I was expecting his mother to answer like usual, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sebastian had answered the door.

     "Hey, I was looking for you today at lunch," I said, stepping inside and letting him close the door behind me.  I watched his face to see if he was upset, but he didn't appear to be.  He looked more confused than anything else.

     "Sebastian's up in his room," he said.  What he had said didn't register at first and I suddenly realized I was talking to Eric.  I had thought about hugging him when I came in, but now I was glad I hadn't.

     "Oh, I'm really sorry," I said, taking my coat off.  That was twice I had gotten them confused.  I bet Eric and Sebastian got that a lot though, because they looked exactly alike.  Same build, same hair style, same everything.

     "It's fine," he said smiling.  He walked back into the house and I ran upstairs to Sebastian's room.  He was sitting at his desk writing something when I walked in.

     "Hi Sebastian," I said.  He quickly crumbled up whatever he was writing and turned around to me.  It looked like he had been crying.  "Did I come at a bad time?"

     "No," he said quickly, closing his hand tighter around whatever he had been writing.

     "I looked for you at lunch," I said, going over to his bed and sitting down on the edge.

     "Oh, yeah," he said.  "I was finishing up something for class and I couldn't make it."  He wiped his eyes quickly to make it look like he hadn't been crying, but I could tell he had been.  He walked over to the waste basket and threw the piece of paper away.  I would have been lying if I said I wasn't dying to know what he had just been writing.  "I can't believe they sent us home early," he said, going over to his closet to look for something.  I think he was just trying to hide his eyes from me though.

     "Yeah, it must be a pretty bad storm coming.  It was already snowing when I got here."  I looked over at his window and saw that the snow was coming down pretty heavily now.

     "You want to do our homework now so we can hang out for the rest of the night?" he asked, finally turning to me.  He wanted to do his homework and I just wanted to go over and start making out with him.  He was so cute.

     "Sure," I said.

     "Okay, I'm going to run downstairs and see if you can eat dinner here with us."  He left the room and my eyes quickly scanned over to the waste basket.  I wanted to know what he had crumbled up when I walked in.  I knew I was invading his privacy, but I just had to know.  I probably wouldn't get another chance either.

     I walked over and took the crumbled up piece out and unfolded it.

     Dear Trevor,

                  I understand now that we can never be together and I'm sorry for anything I put you through.
            I had this image in my head that we could settle down and be the happiest couple in the world, but
            I guess I was wrong.  I just want you to know that
 

     I read the whole thing quickly and had to go through and read it again.  I couldn't believe he had started to write this to me just because of the way I had told him me and Chad had to talk earlier in the day.

     I crumbled the paper up and threw it back in the waste basket and went back over to the bed.  How could Sebastian have taken the incident in the hallway completely the wrong way?  Something must have happened to him that had left him completely vulnerable and confused.  For the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was.  What had happened to my Sebastian...

     Sebastian walked back into the room and said, "My mom says it's okay for you to eat with us.  The weather channel said the storm is going to be pretty bad, so you might be stranded here for a while."  There was a hidden meaning in his last statement, but I was still too bewildered by the letter to acknowledge it.

     He walked over to his desk and grabbed his homework and sat on the ground.  I continued watching him, trying to figure out what was going on inside his head.  Soon though, he gave me a strange look so I sat down on the floor across from him and got my homework out as well.  "Your brother answered the door and I thought it was you," I said, trying to get my mind off the letter.

     "People do that all the time," he said.  "We're used to it."  He started to work on his homework and I attempted to do my Chemistry worksheet, but my mind was a million miles away from formulas and the table of elements.  I kept looking up at Sebastian to find him completely withdrawn into his homework.  This world had crushed the hopes and dreams of Sebastian, my prince, and it was up to me to show him that love still existed.  I wanted to reach over right then and hold him, but we had made the silent agreement to go slow with the relationship.  That didn't mean I wasn't completely ready to rip his clothes off and indulge both of our desires.

     After about an hour, his mom knocked on the door and said, "Dinner's ready."  We both went downstairs to see that Eric and their dad were both already seated.  They looked up at us, but neither one of them said a word.

     "Dad, this is my friend Trevor," Sebastian said, introducing me.

     He continued looking at me for a moment before saying, "Hello Trevor."

     "Hello," I said back.  Sebastian took a seat across from his brother and I took the seat right next to him.  His father looked back down at his meal and began eating it again.  His father had given me the creeps the first time I had seen him and this time was no different.  There was no way this was the same man who used to call his sons his little princes.

     "So," Eric said as their mother took a seat at the opposite end of the table from her husband.  "You getting ready for the homecoming game?"

     "Oh yeah," I said, glad to get my mind off their father.  "We're really pumped."  I explained that we were playing Stillwater High, the school from the next town over, who also had an amazing record.  A lot of people thought that it was going to be us versus Stillwater at the State Championship.

     During dinner, me, Eric, and their mother did most of the talking and Sebastian and his father remained quiet.  We talked a lot about football and soon Mrs. Reynolds was talking about Sebastian's hobbies like classical music and art.  I could tell Sebastian was getting really uncomfortable.

     Suddenly, the lights went out leaving us in the dark, with only the hazy light from outside helping us to see.  "Shoot," Mrs. Reynolds muttered.  "They said there would probably be brownouts, but I didn't think it would be this soon."  She got up and made her way into the kitchen.

     "It's going to be cold tonight," Eric said, the lack of lighting not slowing down his food intake.  For such a small guy he sure ate a lot of food.  Mrs. Reynolds came back with three glowing candles and set them on the table.

     "Hopefully the power won't be out to long."  We finished our dinner and Sebastian excused us so we could go back upstairs and finish our homework.  He took one of the candles from the table and I followed him through the house.

     The house seemed really spooky with only the light of one flickering candle playing off the dozens of sculptures and bizarre lamps that Mrs. Reynolds collected.  I followed Sebastian up the stairs and we walked into his room.  Even this room was kind of eerie with only one candle lighting it.  "I have more candles in the closet," Sebastian said.

     I walked over to the window and all I could see was pitch black outside.  It must have been snowing pretty hard.  I walked back over to the middle of the room and sat down on the floor as Sebastian lit several more candles and put them around the room.  When he was done, he sat down on the floor across from me.

     I looked down at my homework and realized I was sick of working on it.  I looked back up and saw that Sebastian must have felt the same way because he was staring right at me, the delicate light of the candles playing across his face.  He broke eye contact and said softly, "You want to play cards or something?"

     "Sure," I said smiling.  Even after our encounter the other night we were both still really nervous.  Neither one of us knew how to make the first move.  We both knew how the other one felt, but that just made it harder.  Sebastian went over to the closet and came back with a deck of playing cards.  I watched his every graceful movement carefully.  Something deep down told me that tonight was the night.

     He opened the pack and began dealing cards.  It appeared that he wanted to play speed.  When he was done dealing we began to play and I was surprised when he beat me.  "You're pretty good at this game," at said smiling.  He looked up and caught my eyes.  A giant grin crossed his face.

     "Me and my brother used to play all the time."  He way he fondly spoke of his father and his brother in the past tense seemed strange to me.  It was always, we used to play all the time, or, he used to call me his little prince all the time.  It seemed that something had happened to this family that had put an end to the loving and caring nature that it once had.  Only the mother, it seemed, was trying to keep it alive.  It didn't seem to be working.

     Eric knew that Sebastian was gay and I began to wonder if his parents knew.  That revelation might have been the thing that changed this family forever.  I tried to imagine what would happen to my family if they ever found out, but I discovered that I couldn't.  I had no idea how my parents would react.

     Sebastian pushed the deck over to me.  "You want to shuffle?"

     "Sure," I said.  I began tossing the cards between my hands and Sebastian turned and pulled the thick blanket off the bed and wrapped up in it.  Now that I thought about it, it was getting rather cold in here.

     I began to deal the cards and soon Sebastian was once again beating me.  "Damn," I said.  "Did you used to beat your brother this bad also?"

     He smiled and said, "Of course."  He put the winning card down and we both sat there staring at it.  The cold was starting to make me shiver and I looked up into Sebastian's eyes.  The candle light was shining in them and he had the most peaceful expression on his face.

     Sitting in the dark with nothing but the candle light was to much.  Sebastian looked so good.  "Can I use some of that cover?"

     "Sure," he said.  He opened it a little and I crawled around to where he was and sat up against the bed next to him, bringing the other half of the blanket around me.  There we were, wrapped up in the blanket together and I had no idea what to do.

     My arm was resting against his and, under the cover, I slowly slid my hand down and placed it in his.  He was still looking down at the winning card and I think he was getting nervous. He was shacking and I don't think it was from the cold.

     Just like I had the other day, I began brushing the palm of my hand past his.  The sensation sent tingles up my arm and I was slowly becoming aroused.  Sebastian was so incredibly hot and I don't think he realized it.  That just made him all the more attractive.

     I put my head on his shoulder and began rubbing my cheek across the fabric of his shirt.  I could hear Sebastian's breathing becoming heavier.  I finally lifted my head up to look at him and he turned his head and looked into my eyes.  His hand was still in mine and I just knew this was the perfect time.

     I began moving my face toward his ever so slowly and he closed his eyes as I neared.  The candles continued to flicker, sending shadows dancing across the room and I could feel Sebastian's breath as I closed my eyes and our noses brushed past each other.

     And then, before I knew it, my lips touched his.  The sensation ran through my body, all the way down to my toes.  I had kissed Vanessa a hundred times, but it had never been like this.  At first, our lips were just brushing past each other gently, but finally, my lips took hold of his.  I broke contact and I moved in again with a little more force.

     The sensation wasn't just filling some physical need.  It was as if it was filling some fundamental desire in my heart and mind.  I twisted my body around slightly as I kissed him harder.  It was still slow and gentle though, unlike anything I have ever felt in my life.

     It might have been my imagination, but I began to hear that song Sebastian had been playing on his cello when I had first stepped into his life.  The music filled my head as Sebastian's lips parted ever so slightly and our tongues met for the first time.  His other hand came up out of the blanket and he held the back of my neck as we kissed, his fingertips massaging the skin.

     I opened my mouth wider as we drifted off to a place we had only dreamed about.  The candles continued to flicker and we became oblivious to the cold.  Outside, the winds continued to blow, sending waves of snow dancing to the music in our hearts.