Chapter 18 Hunter #2
“I want you to start a rumor about me.”
“That isn’t what I expected.”
“I’m not good socially, and I’m not very subtle. But you clearly have subtlety down to a science.”
“I try. Clearly I didn’t escape your notice tonight.”
He smiles. “I want you to help me start a rumor that I’m great in bed.”
I lift an eyebrow. “You think that’ll work?”
“If it’s done right, it’ll work,” he says. “If you think the Confessional is bullshit anyway, then use your paper to write something good about me. Say Oliver gave you the best night of your life. No one will know you wrote it.”
“How drunk are you, Oliver?”
“Very. But I don’t care. The Confessional is anonymous. If you’re worried about them knowing it’s your handwriting, I’ll write it for you, or type it and print it out, I don’t care.”
“If I do this, I’m telling Rayne.”
Ollie gets a pained look on his face. “I don’t want anyone to know.”
I nod. “Rayne is good at keeping secrets. As you can tell, apparently. But I don’t want to live in a world where he thinks I fucked you or anyone else.”
Ollie’s expression softens. “Oh. I didn’t realize you guys were… like that.”
“Like what?”
“Boyfriends. Exclusive. Sorry. If you’re really worried about Rayne thinking you cheated on him, you can tell him. But only him.”
I chew my lower lip. “We aren’t exclusive, and we aren’t boyfriends. Why the fuck am I telling you all of this? Oliver, why not just write your own secret about how goddamn perfect your dick is, or something?”
“I’m going to. But if it’s just one piece of paper that’s about me, then people will catch on that it’s me trying to pump up my own image. If there are two secrets about me, though? That’s the start of a rumor.”
“Why do you want this image anyway?”
He gives me a purposeful stare.
And I can see a flicker of hunger in his eyes.
“Because I’m a virgin, and I’m sick of it. It needs to change.”
I click my tongue. “I thought you were the one who was so focused on honesty. You want to start a false rumor, though?”
“Because it isn’t false. I fucking know I’ll be good in bed.”
I can’t help but commend the guy for his certainty.
He sure seems like he believes in himself.
“How?”
He groans, looking up at the lanterns above us and shaking his head.
“Because I’m the most sexually frustrated person in the universe.
I’ve wanted to fuck since I knew what fucking was.
I want to fuck girls. I want to fuck guys.
But I can barely make conversation about the weather, let alone translate a conversation into sex. ”
I bite back a smile.
Liquor does very interesting things to a shy guy, and Oliver is apparently no exception.
“You seem pretty good at talking right now, frosh.”
He sighs. “This is different. I’m drunk, I have a clear goal, and you’re the perfect person to help me with it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re not afraid of anything, as far as I can tell. You do whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Ollie.”
He’s looking over at the crowd at the fair now, and I can sense the years of built-up tension inside him.
“I know I’ll be a good fuck,” he says softly. “I want to see the look in someone’s eyes when I make them feel good. When I give them exactly what they want. I want to worship someone, because nothing in the world gets me off like that does.”
From the way he’s talking, he probably will be good in bed.
“Whoever gets you will be lucky, freshman,” I tell him. “I mean it when I say that you can’t tell a soul about what you heard in my bedroom, though.”
“Scout’s fucking honor, Hunter,” he tells me. “Won’t tell a goddamn soul.”
I give him a little shove. “Now get out of here. I’ll write a damn secret about you. Don’t worry, your big virgin cock will be getting action in no time.”
The thankful look on his face is the dictionary definition of adorkable, and I shake my head as I watch him make his way back out into the crowd.
Crimson College is cutthroat, and the secret societies can make it even more so.
Ollie has no idea what his next four years are going to bring, but I know one thing for sure. He will make someone very, very satisfied one day.
Over in the crowd, Rayne, Wes, Noah, and Roman are now gathered around a stand where people can win Crimson College tank tops.
Rayne’s looking down at his phone, though.
I watch him for a while, as he bobs his head to the music. He keeps pulling out his phone anytime there’s a spare moment, and otherwise, he gets pulled along through the stalls by Weston and Noah.
When I slide my phone out a few minutes later, I realize why.
I have more than a few texts waiting for me.
All from Rayne.
Are you even coming to the lantern fair?
Or are you too good for normal things like that?
You just always have to be special, don’t you?
It’s clear that Oliver wasn’t the only one getting courage in the form of strong liquor tonight.
The first three texts all came ten minutes ago, in rapid succession. But there’s one more, from only a minute ago.
I miss you.
A slow satisfaction spreads through me when I read that last text.
Can’t believe you’d admit that.
I watch from my place at the tree as Rayne pulls out his phone, messaging me back.
Where are you?
You need to know my whereabouts all the time now?
You clearly fucking know mine.
You’re welcome for the protection, king. If anyone comes at you, they’re dead.
You actually *are* here, aren’t you? Goddamnit, Hunter.
He slides his phone back into his pocket and suddenly his head is craning around as he looks all over for me. He doesn’t find me in the crowd, and then he takes off, heading behind the stalls.
I pull out my phone, looking down at the screen to tap out another message.
You’re not going to find me.
But right as I hit send, I see movement beside me and for the second time tonight, I feel like a cat with a raised back.
“Boo,” Rayne says softly, coming up to my side.
He’s smiling. His dimples are showing, and at some point he’d gotten a little sticker of a rose placed on the side of his cheek.
Before I can say anything he’s leaning in.
Sliding his arm around my waist.
He tugs me into a kiss, pushing my back up against the tree as he kisses me.
“Needy when you’re drunk,” I murmur against his lips.
But it feels like I’m needy, too.
The moment he touches me, I want more.
His hands are grasping all around my waist, pulling up the bottom of my sweatshirt to try to get to my skin.
“I said I missed you,” he says. “Meant it.”
He slides his knee between my legs, running his thigh along my bulge as he goes in for another deep kiss.
He’s particularly hungry for contact.
“We’re surrounded by the entire campus right now, Rayne,” I tell him as his kisses move lower onto my neck.
“Ask me if I fucking care.”
I run my fingers along the back of his hair.
“I know you care. When you’re not whiskey-drunk,” I tell him, looking in his eyes as he pulls back a little.
He keeps holding my gaze, his eyes half-lidded, as he reaches behind him. He goes into his back pocket and pulls out a small, fuzzy thing.
“Won you this.”
I look down as he hands me a tiny stuffed animal cat, barely bigger than a golf ball.
I see the likeness immediately.
“It’s Pearl.”
Rayne nods. “She even has the little blue eyes.”
“You won me a little gift,” I say, running my fingertip along the soft, fuzzy thing.
“I know it’s not a knife or some sort of medieval sword, but it’s what I could find,” Rayne says.
I roll the little toy over in my hand as a strange feeling hits me.
No one’s ever won me a gift before. I can’t even remember the last time I got a gift in general. My family stopped meeting up for Christmas after Wes and I went off to college, and since Lune died, it was never the same, anyway.
Rayne’s just being nice to me.
Nice.
Treating me like I’m not a monster. Like I’m not some feral animal to be avoided at all costs, and regarded with fear.
“Do you like it?” Rayne asks, bringing his hand forward again and putting his fingertips into my front hoodie pocket, pulling me a little toward him.
He’s acting downright fucking smitten.
Like he really is my boyfriend.
It’s almost intoxicating after a week of him avoiding me.
“You should get back to your friends,” I tell him. “And yes. I love it, Rayne.”
He’s coming forward to kiss me again before I can stop him, and once his lips are on mine I don’t want to push him away.
I put my hands on the small of his back and pull him as close as I can.
I kiss him like I’m hungry for it, too.
Like I’m making it count. Because I have no clue how much longer I’ll be able to have this.
There’s no world where Rayne and I could be normal. Be at the fair, walking around together, hand in hand.
It could never be my arm around him in all of the stupid pictures.
I have my claim to him in the shadows. In the darkest parts of the night, when it’s just us, in our room.
But then it ends.
It has to end.
Like everything good in my life inevitably does.
“Go back to them,” I say as I break off from the kiss, giving his hips a little shove.
There’s something smoldering behind his eyes, though.
“What if he found out?” Rayne says quietly, his stare burning right into me.
“Nothing good would come of it. We both know that.”
“I want you,” he says in a low tone.
“Dangerous territory you’re in, wanting me. Nothing good can come of that, either.”
He pulls his body away from mine in an instant.
Like he’s depriving me, on purpose.
And the worst part is that it’s fucking working. I miss his contact immediately, and my instinct is to reach out and pull him right back even though we both know better.
“I know you want me, too,” he tells me before he walks back into the crowd.