Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Bow
Things surprisingly weren’t awkward during my tutoring sessions with Wells and Bru. They should be, gosh should they be, but they weren’t. Things were naturally easy between Bru and me normally. We got along really well, which was why I liked him so much.
I expected to lose that with everything that happened between us recently, which would be my fault. We didn’t though. We seemed to pick up right where we left off with our ease. Maybe that was because he was taking things seriously by tutoring Wells. He didn’t want to go to the ballet again.
Bru seemed to forget about everything that happened between us with the kiss, and, though that stung a little, I was glad.
It kept things less awkward and the return of our ease seemed to transfer to Wells.
He was also taking his tutoring seriously, which was crazy.
He wasn’t much of a serious guy when it came to anything.
Let alone school. With Bru and me tutoring him though, he was trying.
Wells showed up every day on the quad for our tutoring sessions. He participated and appeared to be a sponge for the information. He didn’t always get the concepts Bru and I attempted to show him, but he worked at it until he did. He must really not want to be cut off by his parents.
It was easy to forget that was the reason we were hanging out when we were together. Wells wasn’t only on board with learning, but he was civil to me. He respected me, and that was something I hadn’t felt since we were younger.
It was something I hadn’t felt since before I screwed up.
When the three of us were together, it was like none of that had happened, but gosh, those first few days had been weird.
The boys had this weird tension, but I supposed I got that.
After they hooked up, all Wells did was hand Bru a tissue box.
It was like Wells didn’t want anything to happen between them but something obviously had.
That was where my own awkwardness came in.
I’d witnessed something that happened between them, but I had to keep all that to myself.
I thought things would be weird for me being around them because I had kissed Bru and also got drunk.
I made things weird for all three of us, but I found that what I thought about most was the night neither guy knew I’d been watching them.
It was the time I came only several feet away from them.
“Come on. You got this, Ambrose,” Bru said.
He was sitting on the couch with an Algebra textbook in his hands.
It was Wells’s textbook, and Wells himself sat on the armchair across from Bru.
Wells had his long body draped across it while he tossed a stress ball in the air.
Bru frowned. “You know this. Now tell me what you got for x.”
Wells sighed. He continued to toss his stress ball, which was something Bru gave him around our third tutoring session.
Bru and I both noticed Wells liked to work his hands when he was thinking, which made sense.
Wells really enjoyed cooking, which was honestly the only thing he took seriously outside of football.
The three of us normally didn’t have tutoring sessions at Legacy House.
Wells knew I liked to be out on the quad, especially since it’d been warmer.
Our group could be seen there, and he knew I wanted that for our deal.
People stared at me now, but not in judging ways because it looked like Wells was cool with me.
People smiled at me, and some even said hi.
The power of Wells Ambrose was something I hadn’t felt in a positive way for a long time, and once upon a time, that would have meant everything to me.
I wanted to be acknowledged, be cared about.
Now, I was only grateful for his presence, and, though I would prefer to be outside, it was raining, so we had to stay in.
I sat on the floor of the guys’ living room, waiting for Wells’s answer too. I crossed my legs in my dark leggings. I had another one of Wells’s textbooks on my lap. “Come on, Wells. I know you got this one.”
It was a complicated equation but Bru and I had taught Wells hacks he could use for some equations that wouldn’t require paper or even a calculator.
We found that Wells was perfectly capable of doing the work but sometimes got lost in the numbers.
Many equations did need to be written out, but the one we were working on now didn’t.
Wells continued to toss his ball. His legs were so long they were basically touching the floor and the room smelled so much like both boys.
I noticed that Wells’s scent was fresher.
He smelled like a tidal wave, whereas Bru gave off a more oaky smell.
Bru was like the forest and Wells the sea.
I thought of both when I was around them.
I shouldn’t have been thinking of either boys’ smell. It was weird, so I focused as I waited for Wells’s answer.
Wells caught his stress ball. He popped one of his high-tops on the arm of the couch Bru sat on, his eyebrows scrunched. “Uh, 149?”
Bru and I exchanged a glance, my insides fluttering that Wells got it. Bru shot Wells a grin. “Uh, yeah, dude.”
“You’re fucking kidding?” Wells dropped his ball. He’d been tossing it again, and the ball hit his face before tumbling to the floor. Wells popped up. “You’re joking?”
“He’s not. You totally got it, Wells.” I clapped, so excited for him, and I was thrown when Wells launched off his chair and grabbed me.
He pulled me up off the floor, my feet pedaling beneath me.
The tall football player did this as if I weighed nothing, and, after he put me down, he grabbed Bru too.
He grabbed us both.
Wells hugged us both, and soon, I found myself sandwiched between both guys when Bru stood. I was surrounded by the forest and hit by that tidal wave. I was both drowning and dizzy in the breeze of both of them, which didn’t seem possible, but it was.
It was.
“Fuck, yeah,” Wells said. His arm was beneath mine but also around Bru. I was right, Wells had the wingspan of a swimmer. Wells’s cheek touched the top of my head. “Thanks, Squeak.”
Thanks, Squeak.
“Of course,” I said, and soon, I found myself hugging him. I squeezed him, and I realized I hadn’t had my arms around him since that day in the pool that summer. His embrace had been so warm then, solid.
“Don’t know how I would have done that without you and the kid,” Wells continued, and I noticed he didn’t let go of me. He didn’t even though he had to know I was squeezing him tight.
I almost felt his body relax under my embrace, and it definitely did when Bru reached around and squeezed Wells’s shoulder.
“That was all you, dude,” Bru said. His force hit my back, and I might have been crazy, but I believed I felt his cheek touch my head too. That or his forehead or something I didn’t know. I was too busy swaying in the forest…
I was too busy drowning in the sea.
“Yeah, but without you guys there’s no way I would have gotten this shit.
No way.” The sea was suddenly pulling away.
Wells’s shirt had rode up a little. It always did when he extended.
A sliver of his abs disappeared when he tugged the shirt down, and he wrestled with his hair before pointing toward the kitchen.
“I’m going to go make you guys an omelet or something to celebrate. ”
He was always making food. He was always making Bru and I food. The three of us usually met in the quad, and Wells showed up with some kind of peace offering. It reminded me of when we were kids, and he used to bring me candy, sweets.
Food was definitely Wells Ambrose’s love language, and I tried not to think too hard about that. Things weren’t like old times. Wells didn’t like me.
Wells hated me. And Bru didn’t like me either. At least, not in the way I wanted him to.
Bru studied Wells’s back as Wells left the room. A deep frown was etched in Bru’s face, but it disappeared by the time he faced me. I think Bru really did like Wells, and, like me, he was fighting an attraction he couldn’t help. And I knew for a fact that Wells Ambrose wasn’t easy to love.
I knew because I once loved him.
It was a love I had to let go, of course. It was too painful to love someone when they hated you.
“I guess while he’s doing that, let’s watch something on TV,” Bru said to me, smiling. It hurt to look at his handsome smile. To have feelings for someone when they clearly were into someone else. Bru sat back down on the couch. “You think Jeopardy is on right now?”
We used to always watch game shows together and keep our own scores. Winner would often take control of our study playlist or something equally as silly.
I so missed Bru. He was such a good friend. I always did screw up my friendships, and it was a wonder his sister was still friends with me.
“It might be.” I sat beside him but not close. It hurt to be too close to him just as much as staring at his smile. He was always using it. Great at it.
“Let’s see what we can find.” Bru draped his long arm behind me. The hairs on his arm brushed the back of my neck, and I fought the chill in my body. A chill in a great way.
He’s not into you.
He wasn’t, and it didn’t matter what he said that day at Legacy House. He’d said that he was into me, but there was someone else. Even if there wasn’t, I’d be delusional to think someone like him could actually be into me. He was perfect, and I screwed things up.
Jeopardy turned out to not be on, and Bru ended up turning the TV to some regency show. Wells had dropped eggs into a skillet by then. I could hear the sizzle coming from the kitchen and whatever he was frying up with the eggs smelled heavenly.
Wells was such a great cook, and he really didn’t need to do his thirst-trap content. His cooking skills could be respected without it. I respected him without it.