Chapter 23
BECK
The morning I finally break us out of the sick bubble we’ve been in, I feel… wrong. Out of sorts. Confused and lost.
After spending almost five days together, three of those days wrapped up in each other the way we were, I feel like I’ve blinked and stepped out of some alternate universe, one where Brody Miller slept beside me, pressed warm and solid at my back, and kissed me softly while half-delirious on cold medicine.
Which is why I tell him he has to go back to his own room well before anyone gets back. Both Fish and Cade have texted me, and I know when they’re both due to arrive, but I don’t want to take any chances.
Not because I want him to leave. But because I don’t. I’m not so deluded that I can’t admit that to myself now.
But because the more this time with him sinks into my chest, the more terrified I get of what happens when Brody starts wanting more from me. Things I can’t give him. Things like open affection and honesty. Or like letting myself want him without conditions or excuses.
So I stand up out of bed Sunday morning and tell him it’s time to go. We’re both well enough to take care of ourselves, and we don’t need to play doctor anymore. Or house. Or whatever the fuck it is that we’ve been doing.
Before he leaves, he leans in like he’s going to kiss me. Like he has—like we both have—far too many times in the last few days. We’ve gotten far too comfortable.
I turn my head and cough into my elbow. It starts as a fake cough, but don’t worry, I get properly reprimanded by a real coughing fit that both hurts and leaves me almost as breathless as the kiss would have.
For the next few days, I do my best to pretend everything is normal.
Finals are next week, so if my stress is obvious, no one notices.
Everyone on campus is stressed and tired and wired as they gear up for the end of the semester.
Well, everyone except Brody. As usual, he walks around with the grace of someone who doesn’t have a worry in the world, like he has all the answers to life’s problems and the final exams that everyone else is dreading.
I try to tune him out, to pretend that nothing has changed in our dynamic other than not having time to hook up like we had been before the holiday break.
But Brody doesn’t let me.
He inserts himself into my space with the subtlety of a bulldozer. First by staying by my side and insisting on commiserating about how weak his muscles still feel while we work through morning lift and conditioning. Then by plopping down next to me in the dining hall without an invitation.
Then there’s the library. Caty and I are lucky enough to have a standing booking for one of the private study rooms on the third floor.
I’m midway through a practice test about corporate valuation models when someone pushes the door open without knocking, and Brody strolls in like he was invited.
By the way Caty’s eyes light up instantly, I’m assuming he was.
The traitorous bitch.
“Brody,” she says brightly, lifting one brow in a way that makes my stomach flip because I know she’s up to something. “So nice of you to join us.”
I don’t bother pretending to be happy to see him and stare her down. “What is this?”
“What?” she asks innocently. “I saw Brody in the dining hall, and he mentioned needing to study, and this is such a nice, quiet, private space.”
She’s doing this on purpose. She’s doing this because I told her that he and I spent the holiday together involuntarily because we were both sick, which she didn’t buy.
So she interrogated me until I admitted that, in a drug-induced haze, we spent what felt like meaningful time together, and I’m all fucked up about it.
Caty suggested I not ignore him and talk about my feelings or some absolutely ludicrous business like that, and I am having none of it. So, of course, she’s meddling.
“You don’t even know each other.”
“Nonsense. We both know you, and that’s enough.”
Brody nods. “We’re basically besties now.”
The glare I shoot them would wither even my father. Except both of them grin back at me with equally snarky, knowing expressions that are far too similar to be a coincidence.
I’ve done this to myself, haven’t I? I’ve managed to attract a best friend and a boy… situation that share the ability to see right through me.
“I hate you both.”
“Uh-huh, I know you do, honey,” Caty says while patting my hand placatingly.
Caty spends the next twenty minutes or so making faces at me whenever Brody isn’t looking. Which should be more often considering Brody is really bad at studying or isn’t even trying to fake it. He glances at me every three minutes like he’s waiting for me to meet his eyes. I don’t.
Except when I flick my eyes over to him to make sure he’s studying, not for any other reason, and catch him watching me. Our eyes lock like magnets, and my face heats when I can’t seem to look away.
Caty snorts and closes her laptop. “I think I’m done for today. I need some caffeine, or I’m not going to make it through my biology lecture this afternoon. You two have fun.”
That drags my gaze away. My eyes widen at her, pleading for her not to leave me alone in this small, private room. Not with him. Please save me.
Her lips crook into a knowing smirk that rivals one of Brody’s, further proving that I attract sadists.
“You two get lots of studying done,” she sing-songs as she lets herself out, closing the door behind her.
Suddenly the workspace feels overwhelmingly tight.
I’m choking on Brody’s energy, on the tension between us.
All I can think about is the last time we were alone together in one of these study rooms. How he’d made me crawl under the table and read my Communications notes at his feet until I finally broke because I couldn’t concentrate.
Brody scooted his chair all the way back so I could straighten up and looked at me for so long I was worried he wasn’t going to do anything to alleviate my situation, making it impossible to get up and walk out of here comfortably.
It’s one of the first times I initiated contact, where I touched him first. I’d practically climbed into his lap to rub myself on him, but we were in danger of breaking the chair, and the table creaked when he sat me on it.
We ended up on the floor, with Brody on top of me, rolling his hips against me the way I’ve seen men fuck women in movies or porn.
As much as I told myself that I shouldn’t like it, his hard bulge rubbed me just the right way, and I wrapped my legs around him tighter, flexing into him as he thrusted against me.
When I came, he swallowed my cries and breathed in every whimper, telling me how sexy I was and how much he liked making me break for him.
Because that’s what he does. He breaks me.
I’m afraid that he’s broken me beyond repair this time. That I can’t pretend this is a game ever again. Because it means something now. There are feelings involved. I can see it in the way he’s watching me right now.
“I know what you’re thinking about,” he says, his tone light and teasing.
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Tell me then.”
“It’s none of your goddamn business. Now, are we here to study or what?”
“Or what,” he answers pointedly.
“That was rhetorical.”
“I’m aware.” He grins and I hate the twitch at the corners of my mouth that make my mouth want to copy his.
I turn my attention back to my practice test, but the question about enterprise versus equity value and calculating implied share price might as well be written in ancient Greek. The letters and words merge and blur on the page.
Finally, I give up and look up to find him still watching me.
“Why are you here?” I snap. “How did you even get Caty to invite you?”
“I saw her in line at the student union and asked her if I could join your study group. She didn’t even hesitate. Say what you will about that girl, but she knows a good thing when she sees it.”
I ignore his indirect jab at Caty and scoff. “Let me guess, you think you’re the good thing?”
“I think we’re a good thing.”
“We aren’t anything.”
He sticks out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “Come on, Becky. You know that’s not true.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You love it.”
“I do not.”
He’s right. I do love it. But I don’t want to.
I don’t want to like him looking at me like I’m a cute, fluffy rabbit and he’s a big bad wolf about to devour me whole.
I don’t like that the idea of being devoured by him is so enticing.
And I absolutely do not, under any circumstances, enjoy feeling like a soft, delicate thing in his grasp.
I hate being petted and cooed at like a weak little pet.
Even more, I hate turning and presenting myself when he so much as blinks at me the right way, because some primal instinct gets triggered in his presence.
I’ve come to terms with the fact that all these things are true. But I don’t want them to be true.
“Come here, Becky.”
“Brody. Not here. I’m studying. If I fail this finance class, I’ll be fucked.”
Brody leans forward and snaps my laptop shut. “What was the last question about? Get it right and I’ll leave you alone.”
I huff indignantly. Brody doesn’t even bother to smirk like he normally does. He just watches me intently.
“Was any of it sinking in before I arrived, or are you just using my presence as an excuse?”
“It’s not an excuse. And no, it wasn’t sinking in before you got here, but that was your fault too.”
“And why is that, Becky?”
“Because you’re in my head!” I whisper-shout, probably still too loudly.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of the library attendants will come in and I can tell her that Brody is intruding on my study time.
Maybe he’ll be banned from the library, and I’ll have one place on this fucking campus that is safe.
“So let me help you.”