Chapter 9 Dylan
Dylan
She wasn’t kidding. We’re halfway through a movie when my phone buzzes again. I’ve gotten two hundred followers in the past forty-five minutes. I peek over at Cecily, and she’s immersed in the movie. Her phone’s on the table. I take a photo of her side profile, and then she glares at me.
“Are you posting that?” she scoffs.
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“Okay, first rule with social media. I have to approve it. Let me see.” She grabs my phone and looks at the image. “Aw, I look cute and cozy. You can tag me.”
“You approve?” I tease.
She nods. “Approved.”
I open the app to post it to my Story. I repost her tagged Story first, then post this image of her and tag her.
I throw my phone on her lap. “Read the DM’s.”
Her eyes scan the messages, and a smile spreads across her face. “Look at this one. Take care of our girl. That’s so sweet. They like you.”
I tuck my top lip in and show off my front two teeth and cross my eyes. “Will they still like me if I look like this?” I say in a stupid voice.
She takes a picture of me like that. Hell, she’s quick. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
I try to grab the phone from her, but she turns her back to me. I wrap my arms around her as she laughs. I tickle her, and she jerks. I grab my phone and cackle.
“Ha! Not on my watch.”
“Send it to me. It’s going to be your contact picture in my phone.”
“Maybe in ten years.” I glance at the time. “Shit, I should head out.”
“Already?” she says, and then she focuses on the movie again.
She really is cute, and a piece of me will never forget today. Not only did I finally tell someone about my mom, but for the first time, I’m inspired. Cecily has a magic to her that I don’t fully understand, but she embodies a lot of good qualities that I want to be like.
“Let’s do this every Monday, okay? I owe you dinner.” I pat her on the head. “You can count on it.”
She looks up and smiles. “Okay. See you at ten on Wednesday. Don’t forget to listen to more Tony Robbins.”
I nod, putting on my shoes. “See you later, alligator nuggets.”
Before I close the door behind me, I look at her face.
Every step I take away from her front door feels like I’m stretching myself thin. I wish I could’ve stayed, but I have a History quiz tomorrow and a project to work on.
When I get home, the house is empty. I shower and then sit in my room and study.
I’m leaning back, scrolling through Cecily’s profile, when a loud bang interrupts.
“Yeah,” I call out.
Scott opens the door. “Who the fuck is this?”
He has Instagram open to Cecily’s profile.
“That’s Cecily,” I say.
“Cecily?” he storms over. He clicks on a random picture of her. “Look at her, dude. Were you just with her? This is who you’ve been disappearing with?”
I shake my head. “I’m not disappearing with her anywhere. We’re friends.”
He zooms in on her body. “You’re friends with this?”
“Yeah,” I shrug. “I even invited her to Rocky’s this weekend, and she’s coming. So, you don’t have to freak out. You’re going to meet her.”
“She’s single?” he asks, turning back to his phone. “She goes here?”
I nod. “Yup.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“She’s training me,” I admit.
He clicks on the Story and says, “This looks like a date. Dinner and a movie?”
“Wasn’t a date.”
“West!” Scott calls out, and Westley appears five seconds later. “Come here. Look at this chick.”
Westley doesn’t normally feed into this shit, so when he tilts his head and says, “Wow,” I’m extra annoyed.
“Hey, fuck heads,” I shout, but they ignore me.
Scott explains to him everything I just said, and Westley looks at me. “Brother, she’s into you.”
I shake my head. These idiots. She warned me that the girls would go feral. Now I have two in my room going absolutely wild with their imaginations.
Scott adds, “Says he invited her to Rocky’s this weekend.”
Westley says, “You invited that girl to Rocky’s? Are you out of your mind?”
“Guys,” I say calmly. “You guys need to stop freaking out. She’s a––”
“Stop freaking out? This girl is fucking outrageous. Blows every other chick out of the water, bro. And Rocky? Rocky is better looking than you, dude. He’s going to swoop in and steal your girl. Hell, we all are. Right, West?”
I look at Westley, the saint. Or so I thought before. This fucker nods in agreement. “If you don’t want her, I call dibs.”
Scott hits him. “No, I call dibs.”
“She’s not what you guys think. Damn, listen to yourselves. I expected this from him, but you, too, Westley?”
“She’s hot, man. Like, way out of your league.”
I raise my hands. “We’re just friends. You fuckers need a life.”
Scott and Westley walk out of my room as I usher them out. “I’ve never been so excited for a fucking party, man. We’re getting her drunk.”
I shake my head. “No, you’re fucking not. She doesn’t drink.”
Scott takes that as a challenge. “We’ll see about that.”
I close my bedroom door and type out a text to Cecily.
Dylan: You were right. Girls are going feral, baring teeth.
I reread it and delete it. My DM’s are still lighting up with random messages.
When I lie in bed, I wonder if I just outed my best-kept secret. I’ve only known her for like nine days, and it’s going good, sure, but maybe inviting her to the party was a mistake.
Wednesday rolls around, and I have Scott in my ear about her non-fucking-stop. It’s annoying as hell.
When I walk into the gym, the squawking noise catches everyone’s attention, including my beautiful best friend dressed in purple today. She hops off the treadmill and heads my way.
“Gavin,” she greets with a smile. “Dylan.”
“Cecily,” Gavin and I say in unison. She looks at both of us. Her lips are shiny, her brows look thicker, and her hair is braided.
“Upper body today,” she says as we walk to the weights.
“No Pilates again, Pilates princess,” I beg.
She smiles. “I promise I won’t torture you with that again.”
“Thank you.”We fall into silence, setting up the bench for our workout.
When I’m under the bar, she’s encouraging me to push, and I smell Starbursts on her breath.
It’s a fucking struggle because I have Scott in my head, putting her on the pedestal that Cecily is always talking about.
She lifts the bar for me, and then I sit up.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
I nod. “Yeah, just need a minute.” I pace the floor, knowing that I need to stop this right fucking now.
I can’t get territorial. I can’t get possessive.
We’re fucking friends for crying out loud.
But when I show up and notice the small changes in her makeup and the scent on her lips, I wonder if I’m losing my goddamn mind.
All the DM’s were kind, but just like she mentioned, they all think we’re dating.
I have five hundred new followers now. Five hundred!
I sit back down.
Let’s fucking do this.
I push harder, and she’s right in my ear again, telling me to push.
“Call me a pussy,” I say.
And I notice her breath catch. I can’t help but laugh. “Come on,” I plead.
“Are you a pussy?” she whispers.
“No,” I mutter, pushing harder. “No, I’m fucking not.”
“Are you sure?” she questions, and that hesitation in her tone does it. I push harder. Now I’m at the top, and a smile is playing on her lips. I can see it in my peripherals.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Slow and controlled, just like last week. Come on, pussy.”
I let the burn control my fight.
“You know what I think?” she says while I’m trying my hardest to move slowly. When I reach the bottom, she guides me to go back up. I’m squeezing so fucking hard and clenching my jaw. “I think that if your mom reached out to you right now, you could push harder.”
Shit. I inhale and push harder.
“Use that anger, channel it, fucking push! And release what’s not in your control.”
I’m at the top now. “You’re fucking with me.”
She shakes her head. “The only way I could get over my own shit was to push through it. Put myself in purposeful pain just like this.”
I’m shaking, listening to her.
“And when you’re finding demons in here.” She points at my temple, and I smell her perfume on her wrist. “It’s you against you.”
I drop the weight and pace again.
“My turn. Tell me mine this time,” she says.
I wipe my forehead with sweat and jump around, shaking out my jitters.
She grabs the dumbbells and places them on her legs. She uses her legs to lift them. And she’s already struggling, but seeing her like this is hot as hell.
Fucking shit.
I keep my fingers on the dumbbells.
“I know why you won’t drink,” I say.
“Fuck off,” she whispers.
“It’s because your mom’s an alcoholic, isn’t it?” I say, but the moment I do, it feels wrong.
She’s closing her eyes, focusing on her breath.
“Push, Ce,” I say because I can’t say more. Not when it feels like I’m somehow hurting her feelings. She reaches the top and opens her eyes. Her gaze meets mine.
“Don’t be a dick.”
I smirk. “I’m not being a dick if it’s true.”
She loses control, going down quicker than I know she wants to. But then she’s pushing herself, trying to bring the weight back up.
“You’re good enough, Ce. You deserve to feel happy. Push. Come on. You’re stronger than that. Way fucking stronger.”
She reaches the top, and this feels more like it. Her eyes open again, and she nods with approval. She needs praise, not to be torn apart. Me? I want to be ripped to shreds.
We continue this gym foreplay, and I swear I’m trying not to look at how slick her leggings are against her skin, but it’s skin fucking tight.
When we’re wiping down the weights, I say, “Your followers weren’t the only ones that went feral.”
She stands tall. “No?”
Fuck, she’s beautiful. Scott’s fucking right. I can’t bring her to the fucking party. Everyone’s going to be all over her, but I can’t un-invite her. It would be a dick move.
“My roommates, Scott and Westley. You’ll meet them this weekend. They were fangirls over you.”
She chuckles shyly. “What?”
“They stalked you and said, and I quote, there’s no way you’re just friends with a girl like that.”
She blinks, pausing. “Oh.”