Chapter 21

“I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.”

Brooks

I’m definitely going to fuck it all up

Tilian: Ur too perfect to embarrass me. See u soon.

I tapped my fingers on the counter as I stared at the message. Going skating with him hadn’t seemed like a big deal, even with his family there. Now, it felt like there were expectations. Maybe I was reading into it too much.

It was difficult to figure him out because he wasn’t one-dimensional. At first glance, a lot of people would think that, but they were dumb. He’d surprised me so many times already and now, I worried that I would miss something again. I needed to get a grip on the relationships in my life before I lost control of them and they began to spiral.

I could invite someone to tag along. I’d used Dean as a buffer a couple of times. Tilian was smart enough to see that. If I felt such a strong need to do that, I might as well not hang out with him at all.

I wanted to, though. I just needed balance, which felt like more of a luxury these days.

He sent me a picture of him on the ice. His cheeks were a little pink and his hair was adorably messy. I was in my car not five minutes after I saw it. I may have gone a tad over the speed limit on the way to the rink.

As I walked into the building, I felt more nervous than usual. It wasn’t a normal state of mind for me. Even when I had a twinge of anxiety, I had the capacity to nip that shit in the bud. Around Tilian, nothing felt rational anymore.

I’d barely walked past the arcade games when I saw him on the ice. He was with a kid that couldn’t be more than a pre-teen. I knew he had two siblings, so I assumed it was his brother.

Tilian’s smile was bright as he raced right behind him. When he took the lead, he laughed loud enough for me to hear it. With a whoop, he turned and started to coast backward while he raised his arms in triumph.

That was the smile I told him about the other day. It fucked up my stomach like it had a personal vendetta against it.

“Drooling?” someone asked from behind me.

Since I recognized Sen’s voice, I carefully controlled my reaction. “Just chilling.”

“Mhm. Looks like you’re ogling.”

“He’s nice to look at. Disagree?”

“No, but there are plenty of attractive people you see every day.”

Not like Tilian. He was something else entirely.

“I like him,” Sen said.

“You date him, then.”

He nudged my shoulder. “Why so prickly?”

“I’m not.”

“Sure. Or maybe you’re freaked out by the prospect of something real.”

“Stick with what you know, Sen.”

When I turned to him, his lips were pursed. I immediately felt bad for snapping at him.

With a sigh, I slung my arm over his shoulders. “Just don’t start thinking you need to solve my life or something. It’s exactly how I want it.”

“I thought that back when I was trying to be straight.”

“That’s completely different.”

“Sure, but I wouldn’t let myself be happy and, judging by the look in your eyes just now, you’re doing the same thing. Different, obviously, but I don’t see the point of denying yourself something.”

“One, your shit was worse. Two, you don’t know everything.”

“Like?”

“I just can’t. It doesn’t matter what I want.”

He tipped his head to the side, resting it on my shoulder. “Everything has the potential to hurt us. If we constantly agonize over the possibility, we miss the chance to live. We’re young, Brooks. We should act like it.”

As if I had that luxury.

I watched Tilian spin in a circle before he darted after a girl who seemed about his age. She shoved his chest, which sent him back a few feet, but he wasn’t fazed. The boy latched onto his neck from behind, nearly making him fall. They were all noticeably related- blonde hair, similar smiles, and an easy familiarity between them.

I’d rarely wondered what it was like to have siblings. They always seemed like another piece to a Rubix cube I had to keep in order at all times. Everything that happened threw the colors off balance and I had to find a way to put it back together.

Me and my parents. Those were simple enough, regardless of the specifics. No matter what happened, I could organize those three pieces and turn them into what they were supposed to be.

Perfect.

“Have they eaten?” I asked.

“Not since they’ve been here.”

“Will you send over a few pizzas?”

“Of course.”

He flicked my bicep playfully before he left. I felt strangely alone without him beside me. It was like being in my apartment, but this time, I was surrounded by people. That feeling wasn’t new to me either. It just hadn’t surfaced since I left home.

I stretched out my lips, then fashioned an agreeable expression before I continued toward the rink. There was a man and a woman on a bench, each of them watching the ice with smiles on their faces. She had deep brown hair with tan, olive skin, an intense contrast to his dad, whose features were more like Tilian’s. She leaned on his shoulder and said something to him and he kissed the top of her head, then pointed at the ice.

After a deep breath, I closed the distance between us and let a soft smile form on my lips. They looked up at me, appearing both surprised and curious.

“Hi, I’m Brooks,” I said. When I held out my hand, Tilian’s dad took it firmly.

“I’m Ross.”

I flashed his wife a smile. “If you tell me your name is Rachel, my brain will explode.”

“Aren’t you too young to know about that?” she laughed.

“Only the uncultured haven’t seen Friends.”

“Miranda, not Rachel, but I appreciate the laugh, Brooks. Um, do you work here or…”

“I’m a friend of Tilian’s.”

“Oh. Okay.” Her eyes widened. “Are you his-”

“Brooks,” Tilian said from behind me. “Hey, I didn’t know you were here already.”

“My car is fast.”

He moved over to me a little awkwardly on his skates. “Right, uh, this is Brooks. He’s a friend from school.”

“A friend,” Miranda said suggestively. The way she looked between me and him was enough to betray the direction of her thoughts.

God, I loved that awkward expression on his face. His cheeks didn’t redden any more than they were from the cold, but they didn’t have to. Regardless of the way he tended to surprise me, there were some parts of him that I could read like a book.

“Friends.” I threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer. “Things are constantly in motion, though, and who could blame me for seeing the beauty in him? I’m sure you agree that he deserves the world.”

I swear, Miranda was about to melt into a pile of goo. “He does.”

“What are you doing?” Tilian whispered in my ear. It made me shiver.

“I’m not a great skater, but I’m gonna go rent a pair,” I announced to everyone. His brother and sister had come closer and they were shooting each other knowing looks. “Oh, and I ordered some pizzas for us. I hope that’s okay.”

“That’s so nice of you,” Miranda crooned.

I turned around and leveled his siblings with a curious look. “I’m Brooks. And you?”

“Alex,” the boy answered immediately.

“Violet,” his sister replied next.

“It’s nice to meet you. When I get back, maybe I can show you some better competition than your brother. Or I’ll fall on my ass. You probably wouldn’t mind either way.”

As I started toward the pickup counter, I shoved my hands in my pockets. What was I doing? No idea. I’d slipped into ‘impress them’ mode, which was easy for me. I shouldn’t have cared all that much, but apparently, I was losing my grip on myself lately.

Whatever. It was just some pizza and skating.

Until I smelled cedarwood.

Unconsciously, I removed one of my hands from my pocket. When Tilian came up beside me, I brushed my fingers over his.

“You’re being weird,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“Whoever you were just now, I’ve never seen him before.”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “You must be pretty unobservant. I was just being me.”

I could feel his stare burning a hole through the side of my face, but I kept looking forward. Just when I was about to reach the counter, he grabbed onto my arm and pulled me to the side. We stopped inside the arcade, mostly hidden next to a claw machine. When I turned to look at him, his face was pinched, and he was much closer than I’d expected.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I really don’t know what you mean.”

“Stop with the formal shit. If you didn’t want to come, you could’ve said no.”

Running my teeth over the length of my tongue, I tried to avoid looking at him, but it was impossible. His hand was still on my bicep and I felt every inch of that touch. My heart was beating faster than my baseline of seventy-five beats per minute, and I just didn’t think that could mean anything good.

“Brooks.”

Fuck.

I reached up and stroked my fingers down the column of his throat. His lips parted, giving me too much of a glimpse into his own desire. I knew it was a bad idea to come here.

This motherfucker…

Wrapping my fingers around his throat, I tightened my grip and turned us around. I thrust him into the wall hard enough to force the breath out of him. My own were coming too quickly, the cadence glaringly obvious in the way my chest rose and fell.

My head was reeling. Everything I held back every second of every day was trying to escape all because he turned those blue eyes on me. It was an endless beat in my head.

I wanted to beg him to save me. I didn’t know how, but maybe he did.

Maybe he could defend me from… something. The future. My parents. Holly. Me. I didn’t want to be the person I was becoming. After Monday, I might not have any hope left.

See me. Please fucking see me.

“Stop doing this to me,” I demanded.

He gripped my wrist, but he didn’t attempt to remove my hand. If anything, he was holding me to him. “What am I doing?”

I leaned forward, then stopped just before our lips touched. “I don’t fucking know, Tilian.”

He tried to close the distance, but I held him against the wall. It was clear that he wanted to fight me. It was also clear that he didn’t want to. That look in his eyes right now was exactly what I craved. It was too fucking much and it was made worse by the fact that he wasn’t just some random person I met in the city. He was… him.

“I shouldn’t have come,” I said.

Before I could fully release him, he used his other hand to pull me closer by the back of my neck. Maybe I didn’t fight him enough. I knew that I was stronger than him, but I ended up a hairsbreadth from his face anyway.

He shook his head. “Don’t come at me like that, then run away. Over and over again, Brooks. Just stop.”

“Nothing can happen here. You’re not…”

“I’m not what? Good enough for you?”

My brow tightened. “I’d never think that. I just have other things to focus on. Too many things. I can’t do this , Tilian.”

“I’m not asking you for anything.”

“Of course you are,” I snapped. “You want my time, my affection, my fucking pain. I don’t want this.”

“Prove it.”

What the fuck was he on today? Maybe I really had read him wrong. He was timid, but it wasn’t that he was incapable of being forward. Did he just want to go unnoticed? Was it a conscious effort? Clearly, he would go after what he wanted when he set his mind to it. Relentlessly, even.

This was dangerous and I should’ve taken it more seriously.

He reached up and tugged on my hair tie. When he pulled it free, my curls fell over my shoulders. I knew it probably looked wild and messy, but he ran his fingers through the strands reverently.

I pressed my forehead against his. For a moment, we simply breathed each other’s air as he continued to push both of his hands through my hair.

“I swear to god, Tilian… Do not fall for me. I’ll fuck up that beautiful heart and leave you in ruins.”

“I’m tougher than you think.”

“You are, aren’t you?” I mused slowly.

Against all of my better judgment, I tightened my fingers around his throat at the same moment that I let myself finally kiss him.

If he hadn’t been so willing to push his own boundaries today, we probably would’ve been fine. Now, with his lips on mine, things were not fine.

I should’ve just stayed home. Even as I thought that, though, I couldn’t regret the decisions that had brought me here. He tasted so fucking sweet and he was completely compliant beneath my touch. I bet I could ask him for whatever I wanted and he’d give it to me.

When he tried to step closer, I thrust him more firmly against the wall. A delicious moan fell from his lips, all but forcing me to deepen the kiss. It was the same sound that kept me attached to him the first time we did this, even though I’d meant it to be simple and quick.

I pressed my body against his and committed every curve of it to memory. He wasn’t small, but he had the perfect build that felt like it molded to me. When I moved my hips forward, he dropped one of his hands from my hair gripped my side. I could feel his dick against my thigh, which nearly made me abandon every carefully controlled mechanism I’d built inside of myself.

When he bit down on my lip, it both turned me on and drew me back to reality. I pulled back and put my fingers over my lips, cursing myself for getting so lost in him.

I released his throat and grabbed his wrist to pull his hand from my hip. My hair tie was on the floor, so I crouched to grab it, then tied it back again. With my gaze locked on his reddened lips, I took a step back.

“Don’t leave,” he said softly.

“Skates. And pizza. I promised them that.”

Without another word, I left him there. As soon as it wouldn’t be rude to leave, I’d be out of this place. I needed some distance. Whatever he’d injected that kiss with was lethal. I wanted no part of it. I couldn’t afford to care, especially not right now.

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