Chapter 22 Blaze
BLAZE
Pandora
How many frat guys does it take to turn on a girl in a nightclub?
Blaze
None, she’s wet as soon as she walks in the door.
Pandora
No! That’s not how the joke goes!
Two. One to keep her from stabbing someone, the other to finger her in the middle of the dance floor.
But three would have been better.
We might even have managed to get a cock in me with three guys to shield me from view.
Hello? That was funny. Or infuriating. You’re supposed to text back.
After that, Pandora sends a picture of a disposable coffee cup with the logo from the on-campus coffee shop, and the name “Pandaro” written on it.
I roll my eyes and set the phone aside. Normally I’d banter back, but I’m not in the mood.
My dad had sent a long, angry email about Zayden. About how I need to step up and help Ezio find him. About how Zayden’s parents are people we want on our side. About how Zayden’s disappearance—and the disappearance of those files—makes us look weak.
I’m running out of ways to distract Ezio.
I move from my bed to my desk and tap my laptop awake. It’s too early to go to class, and I don’t feel like doing homework. I have a few emails from my project group, including Monica, who’s hinting she wants to go on a date with me after a study session.
Can’t she read the fucking room? I already told her I was dating Pandora.
Maybe she thinks that’s over and done with.
She must have seen some videos by now.
I’ve deleted every video I can find, but Tate and his friends had sent a few before I’d gotten to them.
I delete Monica’s email, then move on to the one my mother sent.
I received the dahlia seeds! Thank you so much, Blaze. I’m looking forward to planting them next year. I have a spot picked out in the greenhouse just for them.
By the way, I spoke with Mrs. Alvarado. She’s concerned about Asch. I assured her that nothing has changed on our end. Do have Asch call her, though. She made a bit of a scene with her accusations.
I snort to myself. A “scene” could mean anything from a full on shouting match to something as mild as expressing hurt feelings.
Asch not talking to his mom is fucking weird though. He loves his mom and tells her way more shit than I ever would tell my mother. I bet he even told her about Pandora.
I grab my phone and open the texting app again. The last conversation I had with Asch was about taking wet clothes out of the laundry machine promptly.
Fuck. Why should I tell him anything? Why should I worry about him? He’s the one who’s making a mountain out of a molehill.
But apparently he’s fine with fucking Pandora in public or whatever crazy thing she roped them into last night.
Blaze
Call your mom. Apparently she’s been bugging my mom about you.
I wait, but he doesn’t reply.
I know he’s here and not in class, so he has no excuses not to answer me.
Blaze
According to my mom, yours caused a scene.
Asch
What is that supposed to mean? What kind of scene?
Blaze
How the fuck am I supposed to know? Probably got hysterical because her baby boy went two days without calling her.
I hear a door slam open, and mine is flung open within the next several seconds.
“Lay off my mom,” Asch snarls at me.
“I haven’t done anything,” I say. “It’s not my fault your mom’s getting in people’s faces over your bullshit.”
Asch crosses his arms against his chest, his jaw clenching. “I doubt she got in anyone’s face. But whatever. I’ll talk to her. Is that all?”
I give him a once over. I don’t see obvious marks on him, so Pandora was uncharacteristically gentle during whatever happened last night.
That they hadn’t invited me to.
Not that I particularly wanted to join them. I was busy with frat shit anyway. And threatening people so they’d take down videos of Pandora.
“Nope.” I glance toward my laptop. “Oh, Mom said that nothing changed on our end. So you don’t have to worry about money or whatever.”
“She’s wrong,” Asch says, his voice harsh. “Everything’s changed. I already told you, I’ll figure it all out.”
“While also going clubbing with Pandora,” I snap. “Pandora is a full time job on her own. One that you should stay away from, like you wanted me to do. You know she threatened to cut you into chocolate-sized pieces and deliver them to me?”
“And you think me trying to stay away from her would stop her from doing whatever the fuck she wants?” Asch retorts. “She’s more likely to try that if I start avoiding her.”
He isn’t wrong.
My fists clench. “Maybe you shouldn’t wait. You can transfer to some college in NV right now.”
“Maybe I should,” Asch says, his lip curling into a sneer. “It’d be great to be halfway across the country from you.”
“Well, then start doing that!” I growl back. “Get your paperwork together. If you don’t lose it in your piles of trash.”
If he can’t find the paperwork, he can’t leave.
He’ll stay at my side.
But he isn’t safe here, not anymore.
Asch’s cheeks flush red. “Don’t,” he says. “Just fucking don’t, Bouchard.”
“Don’t what?” I grip the edge of my desk chair. “It’s true, isn’t it? Or maybe you don’t want to leave. You lose all your stuff so you’re forced to stay with me. You talk big about how you hate me now, but you really—”
“I really what?” Asch shouts. “You think I really don’t hate you?”
My heart thumps, thumps, thumps.
I stand up, barely breathing, and get into Asch’s personal space. He glares, but he doesn’t back up.
He isn’t scared of me, not like most people.
“I think if you really wanted to leave, you’d be gone by now,” I say darkly. “What’s keeping you here? Pandora? River? I hear you three had a nice little threesome yesterday.”
“Jealous?” he taunts, taking a step forward so we’re almost chest against chest. “Pandora and I have done a lot without you. She doesn’t need you either.”
My vision hazes over in red.
“If you don’t need me, then why tie me up and fuck me?” I smirk. “Pandora was very, very into it. But so were you. You got something you need to confess to me, Asch?”
Asch averts his gaze. “No!” he says. “I only—”
“What?” I ask. “You only what, Asch? Did what she was telling you to? Are you her bitch now?”
“I’m not her bitch. I’m not your bitch. I’m not anyone’s bitch!” Asch snaps at me.
“But you’re acting like a bitch!” I step back. “All because you got some money from my family? You knew you were getting money from us!”
“I thought I earned it!” Asch snarls. “I thought I did something worthwhile, that I wasn’t just… trash. Even being the scholarship student was bad enough. Imagine what it’s like to be someone’s fucking charity case.”
My anger drops away, and I’m left with the rhythmic thump in my chest.
“Why would being a scholarship student be bad? Why does it matter who’s paying for your school?” I shrug helplessly. “I didn’t earn any of this shit either. We all know I’m here because my dad is one of the university’s biggest donors.”
“It’s always been bad,” Asch says, and his voice is less harsh, too. “You don’t know the shit people say when you’re not around. But I at least thought I earned it.” He smiles, but it’s an ugly smile. “I thought I was worth something.”
Shit.
I wanted to hurt Asch, to make him leave and be safe, but not like this.
“Asch…” I sigh loudly. “You’re worth more than all the fucking douchebags in Kappa Alpha. You work harder than any of them. Any of us. Even Zayden was a C student at best.” I shake my head. “Why the fuck was he studying botany? To be part of the flower mafia?”
“The flower—” he repeats, and this time, his grin is crooked, almost normal. “I forgot about that.” He sobers. “It’s hard, Blaze,” he says quietly. “Finding out everything was based on a lie… Did you even want to be my friend?”
“Uh, duh?” I finally step back and sit down on the bed. “If I didn’t want you around, why the fuck would I have pushed you to come with me to Dyschord? I bet your mom suggested you study at some school on the west coast, right?”
He crosses his arms against his chest, then exhales slowly. “Yeah. But I wanted to be here. Not because it’s fucking Dyschord, but because you’re my best friend, man. At least, that was what I thought, but it got so damn twisted in my head.”
He means that Pandora twisted it up in his head.
She twisted me up, too.
“Pandora said she was going to steal you from me,” I say quietly. “Because she knew it would hurt me. She wanted to destroy something important to me.”
“She wanted to destroy both of us,” Asch replies. He closes his eyes, letting his hands fall back to his sides. “I guess she sort of won, didn’t she?”
I let out a bitter chuckle. “Yeah. And despite all that, I still jumped in to help her the moment she needed it. Fuck, how does she do that?”
“I don’t even know.” Asch takes a few steps closer, hesitates, then sits down next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry. For what we did, I mean.”
“What you did?” I repeat, unsure of what he’s referring to. “Going clubbing without me?”
He fidgets, stretching his fingers and staring at them instead of looking at me. “No. The other thing.”
The other thing.
It still takes me another few seconds for it to sink in.
“Oh.” I scratch my chin. “The tying up and fucking me thing?”
Asch winces. “Yeah. That.”
I try to figure out what I should say about that. I end up shrugging again. “It’s fine. It’s not like it was your idea. And we’ve done similar things before. I mean, not the cocksucking, but everything else…”
He huffs out a laugh that I can’t quite read. “Yeah. Similar stuff. I guess.” He turns his head, meeting my gaze. “Maybe Pandora and I should make it up to you.”
“Yeah?” I lean back on my hands and grin. “Like how?”
“Well, I DP’d her with a dildo,” he replies. “It’d only be fair for you to get to feel the same thing, right?” He smirks. “Except not with a dildo.”
I groan. “She told me about that! Fucking teased me with it while I was fucking her in the shower.”