Chapter 9
NINE
Asher Montgomery
For the frat party, I let Theo pick out my outfit. I hovered in his doorway while he rifled through my closet, pretending I didn’t care even as my pulse ticked up. Parties weren’t my thing, and neither was trying to look stylish, which made his confidence feel both comforting and dangerous.
I told him I wanted to look good for him tonight. To not embarrass him. The corner of his mouth lifted as he glanced at me, slow and knowing, and I had the distinct sense he didn’t believe that was the whole story.
He dressed me in wide jeans and a black sweater, tucking it in with a precision that made my face warm. It was nothing like my usual uniform of sweatpants and a graphic tee. The mirror showed someone cleaner, sharper, someone who stood a little straighter just looking at himself.
Then he stepped closer, fingers brushing my neck as he worked my loose black waves into place.
He shaped them into a soft, layered sweep, coaxing volume where I never bothered before.
When he finally stepped back, my hair looked effortless, intentional, like I belonged in whatever room we were about to walk into.
“I ordered our Uber,” Theo said when he appeared in my room, changed from earlier. He looked damn good in high-waisted black pants with a brown cropped knitted sweater. As always, he managed to look elegant and border between femininity and masculinity, and it fit his personality.
“I can’t believe you’re dragging me to a party,” I said, shaking my head, even though my mouth was already giving me away.
Theo just grinned and stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him before he touched me. His arms looped around my neck, easy and familiar, like he belonged there. “It’s for me,” he said lightly. “And you’d do anything for me.”
He wasn’t wrong.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Theo to go alone. We weren’t even exclusive. We had rules, conversations, and contingencies. If one of us hooked up with someone else, we’d talk about it afterward. Simple. Clean. Supposed to be.
But I wanted to go because he asked me to.
Before this summer, Theo hadn’t existed in my orbit.
No one like him had. I hadn’t been invited anywhere by someone whose presence rewired my sense of gravity, someone I wanted to keep looking at just to confirm he was still real.
The invitation itself felt intimate, like a hand extended and held open.
And as someone who barely drank, it felt natural to keep an eye on him. Party boy Beckett certainly wouldn’t.
“Of course,” I said, winking.
I watched the color bloom across Theo’s cheeks, slow and unguarded, and it sent a quiet thrill through me. For a second, the space between us thinned, charged, and I thought he might close it.
Instead, he pulled back just enough to look me over, his gaze lingering like it was tasting something. “You look good, Asher.”
The words landed low in my stomach.
“You look fucking perfect,” I said before I could stop myself.
We stood there, the air thick with everything we weren’t doing. I wanted to reach for him, wanted to see what would happen if I did. But intimacy, real intimacy, was still a line we hadn’t crossed. Nightmares, confessions, our videos—that has been our language so far.
And then there was what Theo had told me about himself.
Something fragile. Something Beckett didn’t know yet.
I’d decided to leave it in Theo’s hands, no matter how badly curiosity burned.
I was his roommate. His friend. Whatever this almost-thing was, I didn’t want to fracture it by stepping wrong.
Still, when he looked at me like that, it felt less like restraint and more like standing at the edge of something dangerous, thrilling, and inevitable.
His phone chimed, and before he could speak, he looked at the screen. “Our Uber’s here,” he declared.
Since I was in a sweater, I decided to skip the jacket. We both grabbed our shoes from the closet—opting for black loafers—except his were designer and mine were a cheap knockoff brand. Less than a minute later, we were in the car, comfortable and close, as we rode to the party.
Theo, often affectionate, seemed to be opening up more, and I wondered what was going on inside his brain.
He started to feel more like mine with every little domesticated thing we did, but I knew he had feelings for Beckett.
And yet, that wasn’t even the main reason I hated Beckett Harrington. I had many.
The party was crazy when we arrived. I hadn’t known what to expect at a frat party, but the lawn was littered with people fighting, throwing up, and smoking.
Inside, the place glowed with neon, LED strips tracing the upper edges of the walls and washing everything in artificial color.
People danced near a DJ booth, and on the other end, people lined up to play beer pong.
I looked around the room, and like a magnet, my eyes immediately landed on Beckett. I wasn’t looking for him. In fact, I hoped he had canceled, but here he was. And he had a woman slung around his body, whispering in her ear, their bodies too close for comfort.
I could tell when Theo spotted them as his hand squeezed my arm. “I have to get out of here,” he rushed out.
Before I could grab him and stop him, he flew across the room and entered another room. Hopefully, an unoccupied one. When he didn’t run out, I figured the room was empty. At the frat, you never knew. People snuck into the rooms constantly, even people who weren’t the guys staying in them.
My eyes darted back to Beckett and the woman, but under the intense heat of my gaze, he ran off, only after whispering something to the pretty woman. I thought maybe he told her to meet him in a room, but then I saw him head to the same room as Theo.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I stormed off in that direction, angered by how Beckett could flaunt a woman in front of us so easily, as if we hadn’t agreed to be exclusive.
Was he done with the experiment he had started?
Had he decided that he didn’t want to continue?
Either way, we deserved honesty instead of being led on.
We? Fuck, no. I meant Theo. Theo deserved better. Beckett and I were nothing. If he ended this thing right now, we’d always be nothing but enemies. It was fine to fuck your enemy, but anything more was out of the question. Everyone loved a good hate fuck—it made for a good stress reliever.
I threw the door open myself, before slamming it shut again, locking the three of us in the room. My eyes shifted toward the bed, taking in Theo’s appearance.
He’d tried to hide it. I could tell by the faint shine clinging to his lower lashes, by the way his knuckles hovered near his eyes, like he’d only just dropped his hands. Whatever tears he’d shed were gone now, scrubbed away too roughly to leave anything but red rims and a tight jaw.
Something ugly and hot tore through me.
I crossed the room in three strides. He didn’t have time to move before his back hit the wall, the sound dull and final. My forearm came up against his throat, not choking, not quite. A line drawn close enough to threaten.
I told myself it was a reflex. That I was keeping him steady. That this had nothing to do with the way my chest burned.
His breath stuttered once, then evened out. I felt his pulse hammering beneath my skin, fast and alive. The knowledge sank its teeth into me.
I shut it out.
I didn’t have feelings. Not for him. Not for anyone.
Hatred was safer. Hatred didn’t ask questions.
A quieter part of me whispered otherwise, but I had learned how to silence that voice long ago.
I was already lying to Beckett about too many things.
Whatever this was, it had nowhere to go.
No future. No ending that didn’t cut someone open.
Besides, Theo wasn’t the point. He was the overlap. The thing Beckett and I both wanted. That was all.
“How dare you!” I yelled, arms shaking.
My face hovered inches from his. Close enough that my breath stirred his. Close enough that, to anyone watching, it would look like the moment before a kiss instead of a collision.
His eyes flicked over my face, searching, assessing. When he spoke, his voice was calm in a way that made my grip tighten.
“How dare I what?” Beckett questioned. He seemed genuinely confused.
“We saw you with that girl. If you weren’t interested anymore, you could’ve said something. Theo doesn’t deserve this,” I said.
Beckett smirked; he actually fucking smirked.
I felt the fury burning inside my veins.
“And that’s what this is about? How Theo feels?
” He cocked his head. Beckett looked past me, his eyes focused on Theo, who hadn’t moved from his spot on the bed.
“I’m all in. She was nice, but she’s not my type, and I’m not hers.
Our arrangement stands. I’m sorry I haven’t made you both feel secure in my choice, and made you feel like I’d give this up the first time a woman gave me attention.
This isn’t an experiment for me,” he spat.
He looked hurt that we’d think the worst of him, but he was never a trustworthy guy.
“You’re right. It’s not. It’s an income source, because that’s all we are to you,” I responded.
“Sorry if I struggle to place my trust in Beckett, the player. The first time I saw you, you were kissing my sister, who was visiting our first weekend here. She thought you were so cute, thought you were interested in her, until you were with another girl the same night. Then you threw up in the bushes. Imagine my shock to find you the next day in one of my classes, finding out you were allegedly just as smart as me.”
“That’s why you hate me so much? Why you look down on me? Jesus Christ. I’m sorry. It was one kiss, not a commitment. I was drunk during my first weekend away from my family.” Beckett chuckled, low and dark. “Or, is it because you’re jealous that she got to me first, Montgomery?”
I turned to look at Theo, to see his reaction to our conversation, and Beckett flipped us so my back was against the wall.
It was easy, since I relaxed my arm and hadn’t put any pressure into holding him there.
“Don’t think I don’t notice how you’re hard for me, Asher.
Throwing me against this wall turned you on,” he teased, whispering near my ear.
He wasn’t entirely wrong. But it wasn’t him.
It was the control I thrived on. The aggression.
It was part of why Theo and I worked so well, and why I preferred being with men.
When I threw one around, I didn’t have to worry about breaking him.
But I wanted to break Beckett. I wanted to watch tears fall down his eyes as I fucked his face one day.
My eyes widened when I realized Beckett had suddenly pressed his lips against mine when my attention had wavered.
The kiss was unexpected and took my breath away.
My brain screamed at me to push him away, but my heart won this round, and I melted into the kiss as his tongue sought mine.
Together, our tongues and bodies tangled for dominance, until I came to my senses when I heard myself moan into the kiss.
I pulled away from Beckett and pushed him away. I meant for him to step back, but instead, he fell to the ground, landing on his ass.
“What the fuck are you doing, Harrington?” I questioned, wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my sweater.
“Giving you what you wanted.” He shrugged. “Hey, I guess we’re equal on those assault charges, eh?” He winked.
I wanted to punch his smug face, but I’d be no better than him if I did. I still felt the bruising on his fist from when he hit me. Normally, I’d hate that, but when it came to him…it didn’t feel the same.
Theo stood up from the bed and offered his hand to Beckett, who took it. Once he helped him up, they took a seat on the bed, Theo’s hand on Beckett’s thigh.
“I was upset because I saw you with her and my mind went to the worst-case scenario. I thought…I thought maybe you’d want to be with her instead of us.
That we weren’t enough.” My heart skipped a beat when he said us, but I didn’t correct him because my feelings toward the situation were confusing at best. It didn’t feel beneficial to keep reminding Beckett that I hated him, but was willing to fuck him for money.
Beckett’s hand gripped Theo’s cheek. “Never, Theo. We agreed on sexual exclusivity, and I’m following that.
There’s no reason to flirt with a woman.
You have to trust that just because I’m bi doesn’t mean I want both at the same time.
I don’t need to complicate things further.
They want me for my money and my looks; you want me for who I am. ”
“And for your body,” Theo whispered, cracking a smile.
“Trust me…if I don’t want to do this anymore, I’ll end it. And it’ll probably be because the idea of Asher repulses me,” Beckett said, winking.
I didn’t give in this time. I wanted to get out of this room before I did something stupid like fuck Theo on some random guy’s bed.
“Let’s get some drinks, dance, and then tomorrow we’ll fuck while hungover and make money. Sounds good?” I offered up, refusing to look in Beckett’s direction even as he looked at me.
“Sounds good to me. I want to dance! And you both look…so fucking hot,” Theo said, fanning himself.
“I’d take you both in this room right now if we weren’t in some random frat guy’s bed.
” Theo licked his lips, looking between the both of us.
I could tell he was thinking about going for it before he stood up. “Not the time,” he mumbled.
I rolled my eyes and followed him out the door, ready to dance the night away and give him everything he wanted, even if the idea of dancing in front of people made me physically ill.