Chapter 13 #4
I need to stop kneading my own worry before it holds shape. Phone still in hand, I glance down at the text message I’ve typed out, and it definitely doesn’t live up to the standards that Knox is familiarly adamant about.
ME
Hi, Leif! I’m so happy you texted me! I’ve been waiting forever. I can come over right now if you’re free? I really want to see you too!
Knox, who leans over my shoulder, tallies up my abhorrent overuse of exclamation points like he’s analyzing forensics rather than the insecurity-projecting truth of my lovelorn heart.
“Yeah, absolutely not. Keep typing so the text bubble shows up on his end, but don’t actually send anything,” he instructs jadedly, as if he has a master’s degree in flirtation.
My brows squeeze together. “What? Why?”
“It’ll drive him crazy. Trust me.”
With nothing to lose, I do as my new love guru says, keeping the text bubble open as I wait for some satisfactory results. And sure enough, within seconds, Leif’s own bubble pops up in the message thread, disappears, reappears, then repeats that cycle a countless number of times.
I think this is the first time Knox hasn’t led me astray.
“Oh my God, it’s working.”
“See? Now just type out ‘Sure’ with a period. No exclamation points, no paragraph-long response, and especially no emojis. Make him work for your attention.”
Knox and I have been physically close before—whether it’s because I’m trying to scoot past him in a tight space, or he’s eclipsing me with that six-foot-three height of his—but feeling the plumage of his warm, minty breath on my neck is a first.
From our position, I can make out the map of veins over his forearms, the mere size of his one-man gun show honed to raise my goose bumps from the dead.
The addictive scent of his cologne is more powerful than morphine, healing a painful loneliness that I hadn’t realized I even had.
I don’t disclose the golf-ball-sized lump that has since formed in my throat.
Wordlessly, I delete my embarrassing confession, sending a condensed message instead that will hopefully preserve my dignity and Leif’s interest.
ME
Sure.
Leif texts me instantly—something he’s never done in the two years that I’ve known him.
LEIF
Perfect. I miss you so much. Are you free tonight? We can have a trashy rom-com movie marathon and drink every time a character gives us secondhand embarrassment.
My eyes gravitate toward the time. Nine-thirty p.m. On any other normal night, I’d already be in bed.
“He wants to meet up tonight,” I relay back to Knox.
“He can wait. Why should he get instant gratification if he hasn’t bothered to text you sooner? You don’t want him to think that you’ve just been waiting by your phone this entire time.”
“But I have.”
With an earth-settling sigh, Knox pats me on the shoulder. “And that’s something we’ll work on.”
“If I don’t take him up on his offer, what if he never wants to hang out again?” I ask, hating how—like Knox predicted—desperate I sound, anxiety sloshing into my stomach amongst the roadblock of heavy food already there.
Suddenly, anger etches into the angular lines of his features, and the room goes unfathomably cold, as if all the heat has been sucked out through an unknown aperture.
His voice is nearly inaudible—wind-like in softness, yet it cuts me to the bone with the vigor of a monsoon. “Then it’s his loss,” he growls.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Knox so mad before. And considering arguing with him takes up the majority of our agenda, that’s unheard of. I specifically have ARGUE WITH KNOX penciled in from one to three p.m. Sometimes four if I’m feeling spunky.
It feels like we slow dance around the truth behind his outburst for far too long, silence making a meal out of me while testosterone continues to steadily feed into the bedroom.
Eventually, Knox rips away from me, brooding. “Just send him a picture of your boobies.”
Weird, but alright.
Without question—in hindsight, it would’ve been great to question—I lower the neckline of my sweater, holding my phone at a certain angle and pushing up my boobs with my other hand.
I’m not entirely flat-chested, but I don’t think my mosquito bites are going to impress Leif. At least the bra I’m wearing is cute.
If I thought Knox was temperamental before, he loses his shit. Right after he stares at my cleavage with a knee-weakening type of lust that kickstarts my pulse.
He shakes his head to free himself from whatever tit-tastic trance had him by the balls.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” he screeches, knocking the device from my grip and immediately yanking my neckline up to my goddamn throat.
“You told me to send him a picture of my boobies,” I wheeze, turning red from mortification and a lack of circulation.
He doesn’t stop covering my cleavage, as if he can’t trust me not to whip those bad boys out again. “OF YOU BEING BUSY.”
Ohhh. That makes a lot more sense.
“I think you need to calm down.” I mean well, but my gentle parenting suggestion misses the mark completely, flying off into the stratosphere only to reemerge on the other side of the fucking equator.
“I am calm! This is me being calm!” Knox insists, dropping his hand from my shirt, though the occasional twitch of his eye belies his fib. I’m pretty sure I can see steam coming out of his ears and nostrils.
“Right…”
Unheeding his lie, I make my second mistake of the night by bending down to try and grab my phone off the ground, but the arm that is bolstering me up buckles into Knox’s very hard lap… making direct contact with his dick.
His gigantic, engorged dick.
A part of me always knew there was an anaconda hiding in his pants, but I don’t think even a snake handler could tame that beast.
I don’t look down—I’m too afraid. I also don’t remove my hand, even though I should. “Please tell me that’s your thigh.”
Knox resorts to floundering around and spewing broken English, slipping out from underneath me with a speed that could parallel his skating time.
Fear fastens to his face, tampering with the color of his cheeks.
For someone who’s probably been in this position before, I’m surprised he’s not taking advantage of it and tearing my clothes off.
Shit. Leif should be the one undressing me in my imagination, not Mr. Hockey!
“I—it’s—I’m going to go. Yep, I should go. Good work today, team,” he blubbers, clambering to his feet and kidnapping one of my packets to hold in front of his erection.
“But we’re not done ye—”
The end of my sentence is sawed to a pulp by the ruckus of Knox’s robust body ramming into every conceivable piece of furniture in my bedroom.
He stops one of my jewelry dishes from crashing to the floor, which is impressive considering he’s still doing everything in his power to hide his growing bulge.
I’ve never seen him so flustered before.
“I’ll cock you later. CATCH you later. I’ll catch you later!” Knox whisper-shouts, his back practically glued to the perimeter of my walls as he slowly but surely inches out of view, taking the only rubric I had with him.
And just like that—with barely any headway made on his essay—my friend with zero benefits disappears into the pewter night, leaving me with a bittersweet feeling in the crumbling colosseum of my ribs.