Chapter 13
Dmitri
Water drips off my hair as I pace the living room. Eric insisted I needed a shower and pushed me into the bathroom with a pair of his shorts and a shirt. He called over his shoulder that we both needed to eat before we have this conversation, then walked out the door before I could object.
I thought it was a ruse to buy him more time, but I caught a whiff of my armpit and decided he was right. Whiskey oozed through my pores, strong enough to get a secondary buzz off the fumes.
Not an ideal way to wake up in his bed for the first time.
I showered and got dressed, but now the apartment is empty and I can’t sit still.
My nerves fire at the thought of having this conversation, rolling in my gut and making me restless.
I head back into the bedroom and strip the sheets off the mattress, grimacing as I catch a pungent whiff of whiskey sweat from the side I slept on.
Another retch chokes me as I hold the balled-up sheets away from my face.
The small apartment makes it easy for me to find the washer, and as soon as I close the laundry room behind me, the front door opens and Eric walks in. It hits me how surreal it is to be wearing his clothes, in his home, after waking in his bed.
I definitely don’t hate it.
He’s carrying two drinks and a brown paper bag with suspicious grease marks on the bottom. My stomach chooses that moment to let out a very undignified warble.
“Hungry?” he asks with a twitch of his lips.
I give him a small, nervous smile. “What was your first clue?”
He deadpans me as he shakes his head, then walks to a counter between the kitchen and living room with two stools scooted underneath. He sets our breakfast down, busying himself and avoiding my eyes.
“The pterodactyl screech from your stomach the second you smelled food was a pretty good indicator,” he says as he pulls out a giant biscuit loaded with eggs and cheese.
“Holy shit, that looks amazing,” I groan as I walk closer.
He's still fixated on the food as he pulls a stool out and drops onto it. “I, uh, wasn’t sure if you still took your coffee the same as you used to.”
“What, with enough cream to turn it white and so much sugar it puts me into a diabetic coma?” I take the other stool and eyeball the cup that he slides across the counter. The pale coffee is exactly how I like it.
He remembered, and that simple gesture makes my stomach swoop.
“That’d be correct,” I say, trying for nonchalance, but it doesn’t come easily. I take a giant swig, and this time, my loud moan slides free. “That’s perfect, man. Thank you.”
Eric’s lips twitch as he watches me, and the fragile truce between us feels like glass underfoot—one wrong step and it shatters.
I'm braced for the snap, for the moment his unnatural calm fractures and the old animosity returns.
For the insults to sharpen into barbs again and for his eyes to harden and his mouth to spit the words that send me away.
I'm waiting for him to run.
The thought coils in my gut. It's half dread, half desperate hope that this time he won't. That maybe the quiet between us isn't the prelude to another ghosting.
But I know him.
I know how fast he can turn, and how easily he can vanish.
He waves his hand in front of him as he unpacks his breakfast. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not,” I insist. “Not just the coffee, but… this. All of this. Coming to get me last night, taking care of me even after I acted like an idiot. You didn’t have to do any of it.”
He tears his eyes away from his biscuit and clears his throat as we stare at each other for a long moment. “You would’ve done it for me,” he finally says.
I would do anything for you.
“Yeah,” I agree out loud, “but I don’t hate you.”
He runs his tongue over his teeth before he flashes me a smirk. “Obviously not, with the way you were begging me to—”
I groan his name, taking a giant bite of my food to distract myself from the embarrassment.
We eat in silence, but his smug expression remains.
Eric’s insistence we needed to eat was spot on, and by the time we’ve finished breakfast, my energy levels have improved dramatically.
My nerves missed the memo, though, and are firing once again.
“So, are we going to talk about it?” I ask when the silence becomes too much.
He pulls his straw between his lips, and I try not to stare as he takes a long swig of his iced coffee. Eventually, he sighs and leans back on his stool. “Yeah, I guess we should.”
“Something tells me this won’t be an easy conversation for either of us, but it’s long overdue.”
He nods, his lip caught between his teeth in a nervous grimace. “I know.”
I lean forward, trying to read his body language, but his guard is up.
“Try to understand my side of this, Eric. You pushed me away overnight. We used to be inseparable, but then you wouldn’t even speak to me.
You shut me out and didn’t give me any explanation.
” Without thinking, my hand slides across the counter to cover his as his eyes collide with mine. “I missed you so fucking much.”
Real, unfiltered honesty seems like the way to go.
He hesitates before his hand flips and squeezes my fingers. “I missed you too.” He pulls away, staring at his hand as I try not to let myself hope.
My voice wavers, exposing my nerves as I continue.
“For months, I tried to pinpoint when things changed between us, and what I’d done.
It killed me, Eric. Then I got my new room assignment, and I thought the stars had aligned to give us a fresh start.
But sharing a space with you only made it worse. ”
“Did you know it was my dorm?” he asks suddenly.
The question throws me, and I tilt my head as I consider it. “What do you mean?”
His agitation spikes as he crosses his arms over his chest. “When they gave you the room placement, did they mention my name? Did they tell you who your roommate was going to be?”
Those memories from so long ago are fuzzy at best. “I don’t remember,” I say slowly. “They would’ve had to, right? I knew it was your room when I knocked.”
The housing office is nothing more than a blur of faceless forms, echoing footsteps, a distant murmur of paperwork. Meaningless.
But this part of the story?
This part is cruelly vivid, every detail burned into me as though it happened yesterday in the kind of clarity that hurts.
Standing there in the dim hallway light with my pulse roaring in my ears, loud enough to drown out everything else. Ten excruciating minutes of raising my fist to knock then letting it fall limp to my side, defeated.
Again and again.
Over and over, repeating the rhythm of cowardice and terrified of the certain rejection that waited on the other side. And still I kept raising my hand. Kept letting it drop. Until the loop finally broke, not with courage, but with sheer exhaustion and acceptance.
“You would’ve known that was my room,” Eric says, and the infinite quiet of his voice only deepens my confusion.
“Why?”
“Because…” He trails off and stares at me again, something in his eyes causing me to squirm. “Because you’d been there before.”
“What?” I ask as I shake my head. “Absolutely not. You think I would’ve forgotten that?”
“Except you did,” he counters. “You forgot.”
My heart pounds in my chest as I finally recognize what his eyes are projecting at me.
Hurt.
Intense, life-changing, agonizing hurt.
“What do you mean?” I ask carefully.
He swallows roughly, leaning forward and dropping his face into his hands. “You want to hear why things changed between us, Dmitri?”
“You know I do,” I whisper, terrified of what’s going to come out of his mouth.
“The Kappa Sigma spring party… what do you remember about that night?”
I frown, but those memories aren’t as hard to pull out as a visit to the housing office. “It was a typical frat party… drinks and dancing and douchey music playing way too loud. And then I found you… and accidentally chugged your drink.”
“My South—”
“Do not finish that phrase if you don’t want to risk that biscuit making a reappearance,” I warn. “After that, we sat outside and talked until late.”
His slow nod against his palms is encouraging, like he’s waiting for me to tell the rest of my story. When I say nothing else, he asks, “And then?”
And then I realized I was head over heels in love with him and could never act on it.
Pushing away the thought, I dig through the memories but draw a blank on anything past sitting on that porch. It was freezing, but I didn't say a word because I didn't want our time together to end. “And that’s all I’ve got.”
He lifts his eyes to meet mine again, and the earlier pain is magnified tenfold. All I want to do is take it away and make him whole.
“What is it, Eric? What did I do?”
“You… you…” His hands slam on the table as he shoots up from his seat, balling the trash from breakfast and stomping over to the garbage can. After he throws everything in the trash, he stands there with his back to me. “You blacked out that night, didn’t you?”
“I must have,” I choke out, utterly helpless, “because I’ve got nothing else.”
“What about the next morning?” Anger cuts into his voice, and I’ve never felt as fucking useless as I do right now. “Where were you the morning after the party?”
A deeply ingrained memory resurfaces, waking up to the intense ache in my heart that's just as painful today. Madly in love with Eric, there was no question about that. Incomplete, as if a part of my soul would forever remain out of reach.
It had hit me all at once—he was meant for me, but would never be mine.
Everything was different, but I didn't know why.
“In my bed,” I answer. “I woke up with a splitting headache in my bed. Eric, please.” He turns to face me and we lock eyes. His are pleading with me, begging me to uncover the memories that vanished in my drunken fog. “What did I—”