Chapter 9 Noah #2
There’s no guarantee that Torin could protect me if some insane mafia guy got out and point-blank shot at me, but the fact that he was there still gives me a shred of comfort.
If there were an attempted kidnapping, he could have intervened.
And that does something strange in my chest.
So dumb.
Part of my problem with crushing on every girl I meet is that I’m always too quick to give people the benefit of the doubt—if a girl was mean to me, I’d just think she was having a bad day, or if she forgot about my birthday, I’d just claim I didn’t mind, then make an even better gift for her own birthday.
I thought that part of my life was over.
But now it’s creeping in with Torin, a person I never thought I could give the benefit of the doubt.
And that’s a line of thinking that I don’t even want to entertain.
I pull in a slow breath before I text him back.
Stalker freak.
You’re the one who started it. When am I going to catch you sniffing around in my room again?
Try never.
I saw the black car. I was watching it the whole time.
It was fucked up. I called Roman, he said he’s taking care of it.
K. I’m not letting you go home alone, so find me out here when you’re done with class.
I’m not going home after this. I have a gym date with Niko.
A date? You going to experiment some more with cock, being a third for Oliver and Niko?
Very funny.
…
Oh, you aren’t kidding. No. I love Niko and Ollie, but they’re very happy without a third.
Right. Well, then I guess I’m going to the gym with you.
I’m going to study in the library after that. And probably hit up Colossus with the guys after that.
Then I guess we’ve got a big day ahead of us.
Planning to fucking sleep in my bed and hold my hand while I piss, too? I’m fine, Torin.
I don’t do sleepovers, bro. But yes, I’m going to stick around today. Anyway, here’s a pic from this morning. You should take a bathroom break during class and rub one out to it. Kisses.
A picture flashes onto the screen a moment later.
It’s a photo of Torin’s naked body, looking downward as he’s lying on his bed.
The photo cuts off right before his cock would be shown, but it’s an eyeful of his chest, abs, and the planes of muscle that lead straight to his dick.
He has one finger beneath his nipple piercing in the shot, and I know it has to be on purpose.
My cock throbs at the sight of the picture and I lock the phone immediately.
I cut a glance out the window again and I see him out there giving me a little salute.
After he slides his phone into his pocket, I watch him slide his palm between his legs and grip his cock, keeping the motion brief and subtle enough that nobody else on the quad would notice before he takes it away again.
He lies back on the grass afterward, pulling out a paperback to read while he waits there for me.
God, what the hell is with me today?
Or this whole week?
I’m getting so hard it’s starting to ache.
My dick should have shown interest with Bree, but it was nonresponsive.
Then I get a picture from Torin and it’s like a Pavlovian response, when I’ve never in my goddamn life gotten hard from a photo of a naked guy before.
I haven’t looked at many photos of men, either. It sure as hell wasn’t something I’ve ever sought out.
But it’s like my cock is a glutton for punishment, and the fact that Torin loves watching me has somehow developed into a thousand crossed wires in my mind.
I hate that Torin can still see me right now, too.
Anytime he feels like it, he can just look in the window, yet I have to at least attempt to pay attention in class.
I clench my jaw, pulling in a slow breath of air and trying to think about anything that’ll make me less erect.
I’m trying to stave off other kinds of thoughts, too.
Because I’m such a fucking softie inside, and I’m too stupid to control those thoughts.
Like he’s going to stay with me, all day.
He cares.
He actually fucking cares about the fact that I might be in danger.
And as soon as I give any space to that foolish part of my heart, a thousand alarm bells go off inside me.
Nope.
Trusting anyone, or thinking anyone cares about me, always just leads to disappointment. My friends have my back, but Torin Jensen is the worst person in the world for me to accidentally start relying on.
He doesn’t want you, I remind myself.
You could develop affection for a fucking inanimate rock, and even that would be more affection than Torin deserves.
Cut.
It.
Off.
I let the protective side of me rear its head, and I know I need to take action.
Fine.
If he’s going to screw with me, I’m going to do whatever it takes to think about anything in the world other than him.
I need to get him the fuck out of my head.
“Bree,” I tell her right before class is going to begin. “You should come over Friday night. We’re doing poker.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “The fun kind?”
“The fun kind.”
Onyx House sometimes hosts strip poker nights for the three secret societies, and Bree was always a big fan. Strip poker nights used to be our unwritten code for we’re hooking up tonight.
I don’t particularly want to hook up with her, but if I can be with her, I won’t have to think about Torin.
And Bree sure as hell won’t mind. She’s made it expressly clear that she only wants to end up with a doctor, but that she’s very appreciative of my cock, so anything with me is always strictly casual.
Casual.
The word I fucking hate more than anything.
No-strings hookups are a goddamn waste of my time, but the appeal of getting under Torin’s skin is worth it.
I need to show him that he isn’t affecting me.
At all.
Let him stalk me around all he wants.
For the rest of the week, though, I don’t feel like Torin’s stalking me at all.
It’s the exact fucking opposite.
On that day, he kept to his word, joining me at the gym, the library, and then sitting at a nearby booth in Colossus, too.
It was… frustrating. Ridiculous. But it also made me feel safe.
He was more like a shadow than anything else, and he barely spoke to me, even though he was technically accompanying me for hours.
But then the rest of the night, and the morning after, I get absolutely no clues that Torin even exists anymore.
It was seven days before he finally texted me after the one-time hookup…
And now it’s radio silence again.
No texts.
I don’t see him in Onyx House, either.
He may as well be a ghost, and the day after the stalk-fest that turned into a babysitting gig, I keep wondering more and more with every passing hour where the fuck he disappeared to.
Roman didn’t find shit when he searched for the black Benz, but he tells me he’s meeting his cousin Maks soon to figure some shit out. It’s vague in a way that doesn’t exactly soothe me, but it’s all I get from him.
All of Tuesday sucks, too.
I keep glancing up, expecting to suddenly see Torin staring at me from across the reading room.
I don’t know what I expected.
Cuddling and pillow talk from him?
After the day he followed me around, just because we touched each other’s cocks a little last week?
I wouldn’t want pillow talk time with Torin anyway, but it’s like my body is hardwired to crave something after being intimate with another person. I keep opening the picture he sent me and staring at it for minutes at a time. I’ve almost deleted it a few times, but for some reason I can’t.
Fuckin’ sue me for wanting a little more than this.
With women, I was praised for it. Girls would tell me all the time that they loved how cuddly I was after sex, and that I communicated better than anyone else.
So fucking what if I like touch?
Contact?
Some fucking sign of life?
Torin would rather drive an iron spike through himself than ever do something affectionate, for sure, but would it kill him to send a single text?
The days start to melt away, and time moves simultaneously too fast and too slow.
I begin to feel like I’m gradually losing my mind.
The heat breaks 80 for the first time this season, then it breaks 90 the following day, as summer becomes more and more like a pressure cooker. The heat wave is brutal, and when I come back from my class on Thursday I find myself downstairs in Onyx House alone for a short period of time.
I throw off my tank top and shorts and dive into the pool out back, completely naked.
The rush of water hits my skin and it’s the best feeling I’ve had all week.
As I come up for air, the cicadas are almost deafening in the backyard, and I squint up into the blinding sun.
And I’m still looking for him.
I float in the pool for an hour, then two, and my skin is pruny and waterlogged by the time I hop out and beeline for a pool towel. Some of the other guys have returned and are hanging in the kitchen by now, but I don’t feel like socializing.
I head upstairs, rinse off the chlorine, and put on a pair of shorts. My room is just as flooded with afternoon light as the yard is, and dust motes float in the air as I shut the door to my room.
Everything is too warm.
Too stifling.
When my back hits my mattress it feels like there’s a boulder resting on my chest, holding me down and weighing on me.
“Fuck you,” I say out loud.
And I break.
I reach for my phone, doing the thing I’ve been resisting like a sickness for the past three days.
I navigate to my texts with Torin and tap one out quickly, before I have time to think.
You really are the type to ditch people like they’re trash after hooking up with them, aren’t you?
I press send.
Way too fast.
The weight in my chest moves lower until I start to feel nausea clutching at my stomach.
I read the text over and over, regretting it the moment it sends.
I hate that I wrote that.
I want to strangle myself for referring to it as a hookup.
But that’s what it was.
Add it to the long list of mistakes I’ve made… but hooking up with my stepbrother has to take the prize for being the worst one.
I slap my phone face down on my nightstand and try to forget about it.
I restlessly check the screen a few more times, every half hour, and find no response.
Eventually I pass out, and I dream of being at the edge of a cliff, looking over the precipice over and over, almost diving into clear blue waters below.
But I’m too chickenshit to ever really jump.
I spring out of bed the next morning.
I check my phone and when there’s still no response, I leave my room and take the stairs down fast.
Now I’m pissed.
“Yo, early bird,” Rayne tells me as I walk into the kitchen where he’s working on a protein shake.
Hunter is at the long dining table, sipping coffee. He nods at me.
“Has anyone seen Torin this week?” I ask, probably a little too intensely, running my hands through my hair that’s still fucked up from sleep.
“Good morning to you, too, dude,” Rayne says, pressing the button on the blender and blitzing frozen strawberries into this smoothie.
“Sorry,” I say after the room goes quiet again. “I just haven’t seen him in days, and I need to know he isn’t fucking dead, or something.”
The moment I say it, my chest goes tight.
The guys from the loading docks.
How could I be so fucking stupid?
Torin might literally, actually be dead and I’m—
“He left,” Rayne says casually as he pours out his drink.
The tension in my chest deflates, just a little. “What do you mean left?”
Hunter peers up at me. “He had to go on some trip, I think. He mentioned something about it to me beforehand.”
Great.
“Did he seem… worried?”
Hunter frowns. “Why would he be worried? Is everything okay?”
I wave a hand through the air. “It’s fine.”
There’s a reason Hunter is double-checking.
Last fall, Hunter had to deal with his own mountain of traumatizing shit that went down here at Onyx House.
Someone was trying to kill him and his brother, as well as threatening Rayne.
When Hunter fixates on something, he becomes a bloodhound, and I know if he gets a whiff of criminal activity, he won’t be able to leave it alone.
I don’t want to involve him.
Roman’s taking care of things, and I don’t need to worry the other guys with it after the shit they went through last year.
“Damn,” I say, walking over to the fridge to grab one of Torin’s cans of cold brew. “So Torin’s just skipping his summer classes this week, I guess? He always does like being the exception to any rule.”
Rayne just shrugs. “Nah. I’m in one of his classes, and trust me, that teacher loved him from day one. I’m sure he got permission.”
One of his summer courses started a week before mine did, and apparently he’s already made an impression.
I crack the can and try to act disinterested. “When is he coming back?”
“Thought he’d be back already,” Rayne says. “You sure everything is okay, Noah?”
“All good. I’ve got to go work out before I meet up with Bree and Roman.”
Rayne waggles his eyebrows at me. “Yo, Bree’s been close with you lately. Don’t fall too deep.”
I give him a smile. “I’m controlling myself.”
Lie.
Nothing with Bree will ever be more than platonic, these days.
When I don’t hear from Torin for the rest of the day, I feel some part of me going dormant, like the version of me that fooled around with Torin is finally put to rest.
The part of me that cared has to die.
He’s alive.
He left town without telling me.
And he’s not going to answer my text.
It’s over as soon as it’s started, and there’s no use trying to water a plant that was dead to begin with.
When it’s time to play strip poker with Bree and the guys, I need to let loose.
I’m going to be a social butterfly, I’m going to have fun with Bree, and remember who the fuck I am.
Wherever Torin is, it has nothing to do with me.