Chapter 1 Niko #2
I do the mental calculations of the sheer amount of scheduling. All of this on top of trying to keep up passing grades in class?
As I stand here listening to Weston tell me all of the things I’ll need to participate in, it all starts to rush in.
Pressure.
Expectations.
This is the reason I avoided college. Why I moved in with my ex to begin with, hoping to start a career in modeling rather than ever stepping foot in a school again.
My hoodie suddenly feels too hot.
I pull it off, but even the T-shirt I’m wearing underneath feels cloying and tight.
Gripping on my skin.
Constraining me.
Like I can’t. Fucking. Escape.
I tell Weston I need a sec to myself, and I start to walk away. But across the room, it only takes another minute before things become colossally worse.
Oliver Ashford is here.
Oliver.
Oliver fucking Ashford.
When I see him at the corner of the room, it’s as if someone’s pushing on that deep, dark bruise until the skin fucking breaks.
My former high school hockey rival is apparently an Onyx member.
He’s in an expensive-looking dark blazer with a crisp white collared shirt underneath. I haven’t seen Oliver in nearly a year, and his light brown hair has grown out a little. He has natural sun-bleached highlights now, and he looks like he belongs in a catalog.
All fucking perfect, as usual.
I see him before he sees me, and for a split second I consider running.
Getting far away from here before Oliver realizes I’m here.
But he turns a moment later, and then those green eyes are on me.
And he comes closer.
He has the fucking nerve to approach me, after everything that happened?
Something fizzes in my blood.
The top few buttons of his fancy shirt are undone, and I can see a little constellation of freckles at the top of his chest. Little mottled brown marks, like someone flicked a paintbrush over his tan skin.
Memories flood back in, things that I thought I shoved away when high school came to a bitter end.
“Niko,” he says as he approaches me. “Was wondering when you’d get here.”
He’s tall.
Strong.
The shy, quiet version of Oliver Ashford has been replaced with someone who looks right at home among these elite frat jocks.
I cock my head to the side. “You knew I was coming?”
“Gotten in any fistfights yet?” he asks me. “Maybe out in the parking lot?”
I feel my fingers twitch.
I’m two seconds away from snapping.
Stay cool.
“And clearly you’re still thinking of shit I did back in high school. Obsessed with me much?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You punched someone because they told you I was better on the ice. Means you must have thought it was true.”
“He also hit me first. That parking lot fight was ages ago, and you can’t pretend you’re any better than me. You loved fighting back sometimes when I provoked you, too.”
Oliver shakes his head. “Okay. Let me try again,” he says as he holds out his hand to shake mine and flashes a smile. “Welcome to Onyx, Niko. I'm so glad to have you in the same house as me.”
I slowly reach out and shake his hand like we’re two cowboys shaking before a quick-draw pistol fight.
I hold his grip a little too long before I let it slide away.
“I get it,” I tell him. “You belong here, I don't. But I'm not going anywhere. You can quit acting like you’re any better than me.”
I try and fail to keep the acid from my tone.
“You can’t fight me here anyway, Niko.”
Fire surges through my chest as I see the cool, confident look on his face. “Is that right? You’re the one who keeps bringing it up. Try it. You know I’ll win.”
He looks me up and down. “Only reason you want to fight me is because you can’t admit you’d rather fuck me.”
I pause.
Oliver definitely has gotten bolder since high school, too.
“When did you become delusional, Ollie? Seems like when your looks changed, something got screwed up in your brain, too.”
He regards me with that unwavering, calm gaze. “I know I’m not delusional. I know you want to fuck me.”
The cocky look on his face hits my nervous system like an electric shock.
You really aren’t shy anymore, are you?
Or is this all just a bluff?
Are you really this confident now, or are you hiding something?
“You’re just that full of yourself to think I want you that badly,” I tell him.
He shakes his head and a slight smile pulls at one corner of his lips. “No. I heard you moan about it into the camera, two weeks ago.”
A flare of heat hits my body.
Wait.
What?
“The fuck are you talking about?”
He holds my gaze. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Something shifts in my body, like the beginnings of an earthquake reverberating inside me.
He can’t possibly know.
There’s no chance he could mean—
“You’re full of shit, Oliver.”
He leans in closer to me, getting near my face.
And I listen as Oliver Ashford repeats a line from one of my CamboyChaos livestreamed videos, whispering in my ear.
“Feel free to ask me anything, chat. Oh, you want to know my biggest sexual regret? Hmm… I regret that I never fucked the shit out of my hockey rival. God, I would hate-fuck that guy ‘til he screamed my name, but I never got the chance—”
He knows.
Oliver knows about my private account.
I don’t know how, or if he’s told anybody else.
And the last remaining control inside me snaps.
I see red. Before he can finish talking, I feel my body going into overdrive, and my brain switches into fight-or-flight mode.
And I always choose to fight.
I close the gap between us quickly and my fist connects with the side of his jaw, but he moves fast, too, almost like he was expecting me to lose control.
The punch only grazes him. He dips to one side and I end up stumbling to one side, my ass hitting the ground.
I land on the hardwood floor and the side of my hipbone radiates with pain. A few people around us gasp, noticing that a fight broke out.
Oliver ignores them.
He crouches down next to me, watching me, lifting his eyebrows like he’s trying to prove a point.
My whole field of vision is filled with him.
And again I stare at the open front of his shirt as he speaks.
“We don’t have to do it like this,” he says. “I just want to talk. I want… I want to make a deal.”
The fuck?
For a moment his body relaxes.
And I act on instinct.
I take the opportunity to strike again. I move fast and manage to grip his arms and push him backward onto the ground. I use the surprise to my advantage and get my body on top of his, pinning him with each of my limbs before he can fight back.
He might be strong now, but I have a lot more experience fighting.
He can’t win.
I hold his arms on the ground and straddle him, looking him dead in the eyes.
This is a mistake, Niko.
Overkill.
Already fucking up like I always do, and I just got here.
But I don’t stop. The pain that radiates in my ass and my knuckles is well worth the look I see in Oliver’s eyes when he realizes he still doesn’t have the upper hand on me.
More and more people turn to look.
Oliver tries to struggle, but I pin him there, one leg on each side of his hips and both of my hands on his wrists.
He’s immobilized.
“You cannot ruin this for me,” I tell him.
He furrows his brow. “Why do you care about being at Crimson College so much? You hate places like this.”
“I need to be here. You don’t need to know why.”
Because I have nowhere else to go.
My mother’s house is a cold, lifeless, loveless place.
My ex’s house is raw trauma wrapped in manipulation, increasingly dangerous by the day.
And I can’t live alone.
“Then just talk to me,” Oliver says, and for the first time I hear a slight desperation in his tone.
What does Oliver need so badly?
“You expect me to make a fucking deal with you?” I ask him in a low tone.
He breathes deep, closing his eyes for a moment like he’s trying to center his thoughts. “How about you get off me so we can talk about it?”