Bewitched by Bella's Brother

Elope with me Miss Private and we’ll sail around the world I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl…

“Piazza, New York Catcher”—Belle and Sebastian

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ISABELLA BRYNE was very nearly the most stunning piece of physical female perfection that Sebastian Craig had ever laid eyes on. She was five feet, eleven inches of Norwegian

perfection: hip length, satiny blond hair; eyes the color of the Atlantic Ocean on a summer day with naturally brown

lashes and brows; high cheekbones; the faintest brushing of freckles on her faintly tanned skin; a plump, lush mouth; and a straight, small nose.

She was brilliant, competent, took shit from nobody,

had a razor-edged sense of humor, and worked her ass off academically. In fact, given all her assets—and the fact that when she stood next to dark-haired, blue-eyed, gaminely

beautiful Sebastian, they practically glowed like Olympian gods—only two things kept Sebastian from being head over heels in love with her.

The first thing was that she often had a temper that

made a PMS-ing harpy going into nicotine withdrawal look like a chubby fuzzy bunny that burped daisies and shot

rainbows out its ass.

The second thing was that Sebastian was so gay he

made a parade in San Francisco look like a Bible Belt tent revival. Oh, he toned it down most of the time, unless he wanted to torment someone who did the wedgie dance out of a glass house and Sebastian felt like throwing stones, but oh yes—Sebastian could only look at Bella as the sister of his Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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heart and not the wench he wanted in his bed.

They adored each other.

And gay or not, when he found out that her brother was

willing to put them up over the summer so Sebastian could save his money for his second doctorate, he was about ready to have her babies.

“So tell me,” he begged, “tell me your brother isn’t some psychotic, gun-toting, homophobic Nazi, or, you know, like the Unabomber, locking himself in the linen closet and

making homemade explosives using peanut butter and

methamphetamine… because otherwise, Bella, I don’t see a downside.”

Bella had shrugged in her laconic way. “I haven’t seen a lot of Asa since I went away to school,” she said. “He… you know. He got his job, got his business, put the rest of us through school. Talks to Mom and Dad once a week. Mom

talks his ear off—tells him who’s doing what, what the nieces and nephews are doing, that sort of thing.” She shrugged again. She was the youngest of five children, and Sebastian had met the other three. Classrooms full of sugar-hyped

kindergartners talked less. He often wondered if Bella’s surly disposition was to ward off the overwhelming press of family that could be generated from three such unapologetic

extroverts—and their rambunctious, terminally charming

children.

“So, does he do any talking, or is it all your mom?”

Bella’s mother, Brenda Bryne, adored Sebastian—and vice

versa. She even adored the way he gave her shit about her name.

Bella’s upper lip came up in what Sebastian thought of

as a lazy-man’s shrug. She’d shrug with her shoulders, but Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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it was too much damned effort. “I think Asa and me are both like Dad.” She looked thoughtful then, and Sebastian cocked an eyebrow at her.

“The thing is, Dad and me, we don’t talk much, but we

get hurt really easy. It’s why I’m such a bitch—easier that way. I just….” And now she looked away. “You know, he just had a horrible divorce out east, and here he is, a single father and back home. It just occurred to me that maybe I should have been more worried. He was always really kind to me when I was a kid.”

Sebastian straightened up from his insouciant lean over

the counter at Barnes & Noble and looked at her more closely. They both worked there (Sebastian was a day

manager and Bella kissed his long shapely toes, as she liked to say) and had been friends and fellow students at U.C.

Davis for over four years, when Sebastian had gotten his first doctorate in pre-Renaissance Art History. He’d never seen this particular expression on Bella’s face before—not even when she dumped a bewildered pre-med student for no other reason than that he liked Death Cab for Cutie—which was

actually her favorite band.

“Omigod,
Bella
!” he exclaimed, a little horrified. “Is that
remorse
?”

The narrowing of her eyes should have warned him. She

pulled a pen from the cup at his elbow (he was working the information kiosk in the store today) and started scribbling furiously on the pad of paper on the counter.

“Yes, Sebastian. Absolutely. Today, on May fifteenth,

two-thousand-and-ten, Isabella Bryne felt remorse. Here. I’ve made a note of it.” She ripped off the piece of paper, wadded it up into a ball, and shoved it into his hands. “Now here, Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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just for you, take it into the bathroom, shove it up your ass, and jack off with it. I know you’ll enjoy yourself.”

And with that she stalked off, leaving a trail of red-

tinged funk in her wake. Sebastian ignored her suggestion and unfurled the piece of a paper. While Bella would never be a famous artist, she was a decent caricaturist—in fact, she often doodled or cartooned to express her rather

repressed emotions.

The piece of paper in Sebastian’s hand had a picture of

a lion cub on it, looking playful and befuddled and dear, and Sebastian looked at it thoughtfully before he folded it and put it in his pocket. His parents were living in Europe at the moment and God-knew-where-else at the long term, and

Bella was the next best thing he had to a sister. They looked out for each other, and that little piece of paper was a clue to her grouchy, miserable heart.

It was worth keeping, but he wouldn’t tell her that.

They made peace—they had to. They were moving their

shit into Asa Bryne’s house that day. Of course, most of Sebastian’s stuff was in storage—not that he had much. He’d been pretty much traveling from degree to degree since he’d been turned loose on the world at eighteen. That September he’d turned twenty-seven, and the thought had made him

sad.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” he grumbled to

Bella as they schlepped their sixth box of books into Asa’s ginormous garage. The whole house was ginormous. It

should be—it was situated on six acres of hillside in Ophir surrounded by oak trees, mowed grass, and cattle wire.

The house itself was stunning: stained raw wood,

wraparound porch, a stand-alone garage that could probably Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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hold six vehicles, a porch-side swimming pool that could actually give a passable workout. The yard was oddly

shaped; it sort of capped the hillside, and although it looked as though there had been some serious landscaping to get the whole hilltop level, the lawn ran to a patchy, uneven edge before blending into the weeds.

They’d parked Bella’s beat-to-shit blue Honda in front of the garage, and started moving Sebastian’s boxes from the truck they’d borrowed from their friend Sammy. Bella’s

sudden cramp of bitchiness couldn’t hold up to Sebastian’s determined good will, and eventually she was talking to him again. But judging from the way she was narrowing those

spectacular eyes, maybe not for long.

“Doing what?” she snapped.

“Planning to come with me to Spokane. You like it here.

You have family, and not just any family—awesome family.

Fun family. Family that has dinner every Sunday and

celebrates everybody’s birthdays and gives a shit. Who

wouldn’t love your family?
I
love them to death, they’re wonderful; I want a gym membership changing my name to

Bryne. Seriously, Bella-luv, if you had anything resembling a penis, I’d marry you just for a reason to stay.”

Bella wrinkled her eyebrows at him. “You don’t need a

reason, Sebastian,” she muttered, hefting his suitcases and walking toward the house. He grabbed his favorite box of books and struggled to keep up with her. After taking a look at the spacious—and well kept—garage, complete with work bench, meticulously organized tool rack and chests, and a lot of expensive man-machinery that Sebastian knew nothing about, he was itching to see what the inside of this suburban palace looked like.

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It didn’t disappoint.

“Oh God—are you sure we don’t sleep with the

servants?” he muttered as they walked into the front room from the entryway. Beyond the entryway was a sunken living room—wide, spacious, with a cluster of couches and

armchairs in front of a plasma television to one side and another cluster in the center. On either side of the living room was a twin spiral staircase that curved along the wall to meet at a landing that overlooked the sitting area and led back into a hallway. It was a small-scale version of the stuff of Hollywood dreams, and for a moment, Sebastian and

Isabella just gaped.

“Jesus, Asa,” Bella muttered. “Be ostentatious, would

ya?”

Except it wasn’t ostentatious, Sebastian thought, his

inner princess completely beguiled. It was dreamy. He just stood there and soaked up the awe for a minute while Bella disappeared. The couches were both fabric and leather, in dark, subdued colors—oxblood, dark canvas green, navy—

and the arrangement made the living room seem both cozy

and personal as well as spacious. The vaulted walls all had skylights near the top, and there was enough natural light to satisfy even Sebastian’s artistic eye. The only thing missing was art on the walls, he thought, and he automatically

began to sort through which artists he’d put up to make this whole room perfect.

He had a sudden vision of himself, sitting on those

couches, surrounded by his beloved books, with his laptop on the coffee table, and swallowed a little lump in his throat.

He wanted to belong here too.

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Bella sauntered in from the kitchen—which was off to

their right with a dining room attached—holding a piece of plain white scratch pad paper.

Bella—on a daytrip with Jordan. Back tonight. You and
friend get two rooms on right side of upstairs hall. You must
share a bathroom. Sorry. A’.

“He’s sorry we have to share a bathroom?” Sebastian

asked, disbelief in his voice. Considering that he, Bella, and Sammy had been sharing a two-bedroom, one-bath

apartment for the last three years, this seemed like the height of luxury. Alas, Sammy had moved in with his

partner, Chad, and Sebastian and Bella had been at loose ends on their bookstore salary before they moved to

Washington for their next academic adventure.