Chapter 5 #2
Lena sighs. “Maybe we’re going about this wrong. It sucks, but I need to just ask straight up—do you want to have sex with me?”
I open my mouth again.
“I don’t mean, do you want to make me happy, or do you want to do what I want. Do you feel any desire to have sex with me?”
My mind feels like a fuzzy old TV screen after the antenna has been disconnected. My heart is beating so fast and hard that I can feel and hear it in my ears.
“I…” I can’t get anything else out.
We sit there in silence for another moment. My eyes start to burn, and Lena squeezes my hand.
“Do you need more time to think?”
I nod.
“Okay. That’s fine, I just…we need to figure this out and set our expectations and goals before we decide if I should meet your parents,” she insists.
I nod again.
For some reason, I can’t speak. I just can’t. I feel small and stuck. It’s happened before, but never with Lena. Not like this.
I’m pretty checked out for the rest of the night. All I really remember is finishing our food and Lena staying the night, sleeping beside me and reassuring me that we’ll figure things out.
The next day, as I try not to think about everything with Lena, I find myself stuck on what happened with Dante. It’s easier to be angry with him for threatening her than to think about the future of our relationship.
I should be researching more—finding a therapist, journaling, going to Reddit—to figure out if I’m asexual. I should be doing anything and everything to help me explain why I feel what I do not only to her, but myself.
Instead, I’m sitting in my car in the campus parking lot, on a morning when I don’t even have a class, waiting to see him. I know his major, so I know one of his classes has only one available option this semester—Mondays at eight in the morning.
There’s a high chance he won’t show up at all. After all, he’s not exactly known for being a model student. Quite the opposite, actually.
I see him get out of a deep crimson car. The doors open and close with just a touch of the handle. The vehicle is likely more expensive than twenty of my own car.
Sunglasses cover his eyes even though the sun is barely shining. My hands curl around my steering wheel.
No, it’s too soon. There are too many people around.
Luckily for me, as other students head to the building, he leans against his car and pulls a cigarette out.
Shockingly, I know exactly what it smells like. What he smells like. It’s a phantom scent in the back of my mind—clove and menthol.
I try to shake the memory out of my head.
Him leaning close to me, practically caressing my hand.
My stomach is hot.
That’s it. I need to confront him and leave. That’s my plan, so that’s what I’m going to do.
I get out of my car and head directly for him. He’s on the other side of the lane, leaning against the back of his car.
It’s not until I see the smirk on his face and his eyes meet mine that I realize…
He knew I was here. He was expecting me to confront him.
How does he know what my car looks like?
Who am I kidding? He can probably get any information he wants.
“Finally,” he says before taking another drag.
I shove my hands into my coat pockets, not wanting him to see the way my fingers twitch nervously.
“You want a smoke?” he asks, and offers me the cigarette that was just between his lips.
A small part of me, perhaps not as small as I want to admit, wants to reach out and take it. Not to smash it on the ground, but to place it between my lips and taste him on the filter.
My pulse is in my ears again, and I haven’t even started talking.
“Don’t mess with me,” I choke out. Not exactly what I’d planned.
Dante laughs at me.
“I can do a lot more than mess with you, baby,” he tells me.
I huff and stand up straighter. “Lena told me you threatened her. I don’t care what your problem with me is, but you need to leave her out of it.”
Dante tilts his head as he takes another drag, then blows the smoke right at me.
I cough, but something inside of me wants him to do it again. I want to smell it on me later, inhale what was just in his lungs.
What is wrong with me?
“I could leave her outta it. Or you could,” he says.
“What do you even mean? Nothing you say ever makes sense,” I tell him, my voice rising a bit.
His voice is low—rough, but not loud, not drawing any attention but mine.
“It does, you just don’t want it to,” he says.
I step closer to him. “What I want is for you to leave Lena and me alone.”
“ Lena and me …Jesus fucking Christ. Do you always talk like this? Lighten up, loosen up. Not everything is a fucking exam.” Dante waves his hand, sending ashes flying through the breeze.
“Just leave her alone,” I reiterate. My face and neck are pink now. I try to tell myself it’s from the colder weather, and nothing else. My hands are balled into fists in my pockets.
“Tell me, Ethan, does the idea of fucking every woman repulse you, or just her?” Dante asks.
I freeze, just staring at him.
“I thought so,” he chuckles. “How long do you think before she figures it out? Maybe she already has.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And neither do you,” I say through gritted teeth. My knees feel weak as he steps even closer.
“I know what a man who needs a good dicking looks like,” he says huskily. “And I know what a woman who isn’t getting it looks like, too. Lena may as well buy stock in Hitachi.”
The blood that isn’t already in my face rushes down past my stomach and into my groin.
No. Stop. Shut up.
“You’re disgusting,” I manage to get out, but my voice sounds shaky and weak.
Dante grabs me under my jaw.
My cock twitches hard, and as his big, warm hand squeezes my jaw tighter, my hips shiver.
“A-Ah.” I pull a hand out of my pocket and grab his wrist, but don’t pull his hand away, just hold him.
“You’re disgusting,” he growls at me. “Little dirty boy who can’t admit what he wants.”
My breath is stuck in my throat. My head starts to spin, and all I can do is whine. The sound sends embarrassment rushing down my spine, and despite everything I think I know about myself, my dick throbs in response.
“Listen to you, whimpering like a little bitch. You don’t want Lena.
You know that. She doesn’t make your dick hard.
If she did, you wouldn’t look like you’re about to fucking jizz yourself in the parking lot.
” Dante’s face moves closer to mine. His fingers dig into my skin, and all rational thought leaves my head.
The only thing that stops me from moaning is the sound of a car pulling into a spot nearby.
I quickly start to compose myself. No one can see me like this.
“Let me go,” I spit out. I squirm and yank myself out of his hold, but I know if he wanted to keep me there, he could.
Dante glares at me as I stumble backward. My legs are shaky.
“I’m going to have you, Ethan,” he tells me matter-of-factly as he steps a bit closer, but doesn’t touch me. Still, I find myself tilting my head up to look at him. “You’re going to figure out what you really want…and I’m going to own every single inch of you.”
I can smell him—his musk, the cigarettes…the hint of sex in the air around us.
“In your dreams,” I manage to gasp.