Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
Wells
“You’re letting my sister help you? You must be desperate.”
I stopped curling my bicep to glance up at my buddy Thatcher Reed. He was a big motherfucker. Actually, he was the exact opposite of his sister, who was tiny as shit.
Snarling, I tried not to think about her as Thatcher sauntered up to me. We were at one of the university’s gyms, and he nudged me with a sweaty arm which was gross as shit. He dropped a heavy bicep on my shoulder. “Maybe if you quit dicking around in your classes, you wouldn’t need a tutor.”
I wasn’t dicking around in my classes. I wasn’t going to classes. There was a difference.
I shoved him off me which made him chuckle. Dude and I had been best friends before we even knew what that shit was.
Not standing for the shove, Thatcher attempted to shove me back, but my ass was quick. I dodged it and our horsing around got the attention of one of our other friends who’d joined us today. His name was Bruno Sloane-Mallick, but we called him Bru.
Bru stopped his pullup after I dodged another attempted strike from Thatcher, his feet touching the ground.
Bru was so tall he had to tuck his legs in tight just to make a pullup effective, but he started up again once he caught my eye.
His gray sweatpants hung low on his hips, exposing his chiseled hip bones just briefly before his shirt covered them when he pulled up again.
Ignoring his next rotation, I shoved Thatcher, then got back to work. It wasn’t football season anymore, but Thatcher and I liked to stay in shape. We both played for the university’s team.
Our other friends, Dorian Prinze and Ares “Wolf” Mallick played for the university too, but they were having date night with their girls.
It was weird to think they were shacked up considering what whores we all had been in high school.
My buddy Thatcher had a serious girlfriend too, but she was a celebrity cellist. Currently, Aspen Davis was on tour, but that didn’t mean we all didn’t hear about her.
My pal Thatch was in love, which was crazy.
I was happy for him. I was happy for all my friends, but it did leave gym days and general hangouts without one (or several) of my best friends.
This particular gym day, I only invited Thatcher out, but Bru tagged along.
He didn’t play football. He hadn’t since high school, but the dude liked to stay jacked.
Bru dropped from the pullup. He was a brunette who resembled Clark Kent in both looks and stature. I mean, he wasn’t as pretty as me, but he got eyes across campus just like the rest of our group.
That kind of came with the territory of being, well, us.
Bru maneuvered his way over to his water bottle and his gaze slid to me before he sprayed some water in his mouth.
He swallowed hard, then wiped his brow with his cut-off tee.
His core was just as strong and defined as his hips, and I shook my head before lifting my dumbbell again.
Nothing against the guy, but he hadn’t been invited today.
Nah, he hadn’t been invited.
I really pushed myself with my weights and made myself look at everything but the mirror. It gave me views of things other than my workout, which was priority.
“What’s your deal with Bow anyway? She’s a sweetheart,” Bru said from somewhere in the gym behind me. Did I mention that dude wasn’t invited? “You’re always giving her a hard time, and I don’t get that.”
He wouldn’t, would he? Dorian, Ares, Thatcher, and I had all been friends since we came out of our mothers. Our parents were friends in school too, so that’d been natural. Bru and his sister, Sloane, entered our group later. Because of that, he didn’t know my history with that “sweetheart.”
Again, Rainbow Reed had the world fooled.
Because Bru wasn’t invited, I didn’t grant his question with a response. I just continued to lift my weights, and Thatcher nudged me again with his nasty wet bicep.
“He’s just not her biggest fan,” Thatcher said, which was nice of him. He didn’t particularly love that I had beef with his sister, but he got it. He understood. My beef also kept dudes away from her, so there was that, too.
Yeah, there was that.
Rainbow Reed didn’t deserve allies, let alone friends. She had none outside of our group, and that wasn’t because of anything I’d done. It was a byproduct of bullshit she concocted all by herself.
I didn’t feel bad for her, but, because Thatcher was like a brother to me, I did look out for her as needed. I did so for Thatcher.
Maybe Bru was about to ask something else about shit that wasn’t his business, but Thatcher got a text and I took that as my way out of the conversation.
It also marked the end of my gym session, because the text was from his girlfriend, Aspen.
He felt compelled to call her after. He wanted to hear her voice, and as much as I was happy for my friend, I wasn’t trying to hear all that.
Their calls consisted of enough babys and sweeties for a lifetime.
No one was more deserving of an awesome girl than my buddy Thatcher, and Aspen was pretty awesome. She gave him a run for his money. She challenged him.
After gathering my things, I waved my goodbye to Thatcher, who nodded at me. He was so consumed in his call he barely even noticed I left which made me laugh.
I mumbled a short goodbye to Bru on my way out but that was all. I didn’t think anything else was needed, and I didn’t wait for his response before I headed to the showers.
I went there to get my head right.
I had a lot on my mind as I slid under the heat of the mist and one of those things was Bow Reed. Spending longer than necessary with her was the last thing I was trying to do, but she was brilliant. She could get me out of this scrape with my parents.
I only knew two people just as smart. One was Thatcher, who was completely consumed with his girlfriend. He’d offered to help with my situation, help me study, but I wasn’t going to bother him with my problems.
The other smart person I wasn’t going to think about. I refused, and, as I lathered my hair, I regretted not sticking around for a proper goodbye with Bru.
If I had, maybe he wouldn’t have approached me.
I smelled him before anything else, his scent like oak trees and freshly cut grass. He smelled like nature and campfires and probably didn’t actually smell like that last thing, but he reminded me of that, camping. He spent a lot of time outside. He liked to run and be around wildlife.
I knew too much about this guy, and, when he touched my shoulder, I should have shrugged him the fuck off. I should have tackled his ass down and told him to get the fuck away from me.
Instead, I let him squeeze my shoulder, his thick digits digging into my flesh. The lather from my shower gel ran over his firm fingers, and I growled.
He did too.
“Wells…” My name rumbled into my back, his chest pressing up against me.
Reaching around, he grabbed my dick, and I sucked in a breath.
For some reason, I let him work me, massage my balls, but not for long before I wised up and thew an elbow into his abs.
That shit was rock solid and radiated hard into my joint, but that didn’t stop me from doing it again.
Bru didn’t even move he was so big and me doing that would have normally sent a guy down.
It didn’t affect Bru, and as if to emphasize that, the fucker locked me into a bear hug. He grabbed me tight against his chest, his hand pumping my dick, and I closed my eyes because I couldn’t help it.
Fresh cut grass. Oak…
I’d come to hate that smell, resent it. Bru’s hand went to my throat, and when he tried to kiss me, my neck, I shoved him off. I finally got my mind back.
I finally got the strength.
I turned around and that strength wavered a bit seeing Bru just as naked as me. The shower had taken his Clark Kent hair and flattened it over his brow. It curled a little. His jaw tightened and it worked when he noticed I was just as hard as he was.
And wet.
Bru’s pecs glistened down to his abs, his dick, and he massaged it a little, looking at me. The action made my cock twitch. He rewet his lips. “Wells…”
I grabbed him, threw him against the wall, and he put his hands up instantly.
He submitted.
I felt myself go harder. In fact, I was fucking steel, and when I let go, I turned. I squeezed the bridge of my nose, and after, ran my fingers through my hair.
“Wells—”
“I told you to stay the fuck away from me,” I growled, and when I pivoted, he blinked in front of me. My jaw clicked. “You had no fucking right to do that, touch me.”
He didn’t. I told him no.
Bru said nothing, his back still against the wall and his naked chest moving rapidly up and down.
I bared my teeth. “I told you. I’m not into this shit.”
I wasn’t into him, and when he walked toward me, I put my fist up. I’d punch his ass out. I didn’t care if he was my fucking friend.
He put his hands up again. “Wells…”
If this dude said my name one more fucking time, like that… I pointed at him. “I told you. I’m not into you, bro. What? You didn’t get the fucking message?”
I didn’t know how I could have been clearer with everything that happened before this moment, but, when I said that, he laughed. He laughed, and I almost did hit his ass.
He gestured toward me. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”
His dark eyes scanned down to what he clearly saw as the evidence of that.
My eyes narrowed. “That shit is physical, bro. It was a physical response only and doesn’t change anything.”
It didn’t, and so what I was hard? I got hard watching fucking Titanic and that was barely a flash of tits.
Once more, Bru said nothing, and I walked up to him. He was still hard too of course, but I ignored that. “I’m. Not. Into. You. We’re friends, bro, and that’s it.”
It was, and what happened between us shouldn’t have. I knew better than to kiss someone I considered a friend.
I knew better than to more than kiss my friend.
Bruno Sloane-Mallick and I had made a mistake. I was aware that shit was on me. We started hooking up with girls at parties as a release for him. He always took himself way too seriously.
“We crossed a line,” I continued, and I was aware of that too. I swallowed. “We both did, but we are friends and that’s it, Bru.”
That was it.
I stopped it before things got too deep, and I tried to before Bru embarrassed himself.
Bru scanned my eyes. “A line crossed is one time, Wells,” he said, and my stomach knotted, tightened. He nodded. “One time. More than that is something else.”
Something else.
“You must think I’m stupid,” he said, lifting his eyes to the tiled ceiling.
It was a wonder no one else was in here.
I wished someone else was in here. He faced me.
“But I’m not, and you’re in denial. You’re also failing and need a tutor because of that denial.
Or did you think I hadn’t noticed you stopped going to classes because of me? ”
We had all the same classes last semester. I often had classes with my friends.
I didn’t make that mistake this semester. Bru and I had zero classes together.
“You started missing them after what I said,” Bru continued, and the breath punched from my lungs. “You stopped going to classes after I told you I loved you.”
He loved me.
He didn’t love me. He was infatuated with me like many people were once they got a hit. I had a lot of sexual partners I had to give the same talk to. I didn’t do love.
Love didn’t do me.
“Do me a favor and stop this,” I said, backing off him. I shook my head. “Do it before there’s nothing left of our friendship to repair.”
We may not be able to get back to what we were after everything that happened between us, but there’d be no possibility at all if he didn’t stop.
Someone did come in, and, worried it could be Thatcher, I left. I didn’t want to explain any weirdness to him. He was happy.
At least one of us was.