Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
WELLS
Iwanted Kellan O’Reilly off-kilter when he saw me for the first time in more than six years. Trevor, a guy in my current hook-up rotation, was good for a sloppy make-out session that I conveniently scheduled for a few minutes before Kellan was set to arrive.
I’d wanted that oaf to barge straight into the room like he owned the goddamn place, catching us in the act. Forcing him to say or do something homophobic that I knew would get his ass in hot water.
But no, he waited outside politely, knocking every thirty seconds like he actually has manners. He must be on a tight leash with his hockey coach, because the Kellan I knew was brash and loud, with a mouth on him that hurled insults like they were fists.
What I really want, in my heart of hearts, is to smack that perfect, toothy smile off his face, but I figured I’d have to settle for knocking him around emotionally instead of physically.
I’ve been sitting across from him for the last minute–waiting. For him to realize who I am. For the recognition to dawn on his face. Even for him to get his fucking econ book out of his bag.
And yet… nothing.
He’s rummaging around in his backpack like a neanderthal who’s trying to strike flint to make fire, oblivious to the inferno already raging inside of me.
I’m angrier than I expected. Because over the last day, as I’ve imagined the scenarios of our reunion, I didn’t anticipate that the hell he put me through all those years ago was so irrelevant to him that he wouldn’t even recognize me.
I know I’ve changed. These days, I’m even taller than him, thanks to a growth spurt that didn’t happen until my junior year of high school.
And once I decided to stop being the world’s punching bag, I got my own.
Now, it’s my greatest source of stress relief, along with hot yoga that forces me to maintain extreme control and, as an added bonus, keeps my long frame limber.
All of my sexual partners are welcome for that one.
When Kellan knew me, I was five-three and a hundred pounds soaking wet, with glasses and braces that, in his own words, “gave me an unfairly punchable face.” And then he’d said that he felt like it was his responsibility to make the world a more fair place.
And I know that physically, I look like a different person. But still, it makes me boil with white hot rage that he’s so depraved as to have looked in my eyes, inflicting his torture day-after-day, and not even remember me.
I figured he’d pretend like it hadn’t happened, or he’d mention remembering that I just disappeared after fall semester of freshman year and laughing it off, never acknowledging that he was the reason.
Maybe, if he had any sense of personal growth, I figured the best I’d get is that he’d tell me how he remembered being a jack-ass, but I know he’d be looking back on those days with the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality that causes men to do heinous things.
So, it’s not like I was expecting an apology, not that I would have accepted it anyway, but I also wasn’t expecting… this.
The pain twists and coils and wraps itself around me, like a cancer I can feel spreading through my body. I have no idea how I’m going to get through however long this lasts.
Kellan O’Reilly, the star of Radford University’s D1 hockey team, was the reason that I was bullied mercilessly when I was younger.
He was the kid in high school that made me the man I’ve become.
Who kicked off a campaign of teasing and torment that made me the easy target for any kid above me on the pecking order who wanted to seem cool.
He was so profoundly impactful–in all the worst ways–and I’m not even a footnote in his story.
My freshman year at Radford, I learned that he was here, too. I’d already transferred out of the public high school that we attended together by Sophomore year, even though it was one of the best in the state of Massachusetts.
Luckily, Radford is a big school. And the only time I ever have to look at his stupidly attractive face–with his dark hair and even darker eyes–is when I see his banner-sized photo hanging in the student union like he’s some gift from god.
Radford University makes it to the Frozen Four too fucking often, and generally has a good chance of winning it when they do. Which I would never know, except that it’s shoved down our goddamn throats every possible second.
We’re both seniors, and thus far, I’ve managed to never run into him.
We move in completely separate worlds, which is exactly how I like it.
And I was less than a year away from keeping it that way, except for fucking Julie and her inability to accept that her future baby daddy is a cheater who’s not nearly as straight as he professed to her.
Straight guys don’t beg to suck me off. Ipso facto, Julie.
Kellan’s rich, throaty voice draws me from the spot I’ve been staring at on the wall, and my hands instinctively clench into fists with the sound. “I can’t find my econ book.”
Typical. I’m surprised they don’t have babysitters who wipe their asses after they take a shit. But the only way out is through, and I’m not letting Kellan be the reason I end my college career with a less than stellar record as a tutor.
I run my hands along the worn grooves in the old wooden desk, liking how the smoothness feels beneath the pads of my fingers.
It’s soothing, and I cling to that. In this room, in this moment–I have the power.
And with power comes control. Kellan, and his unstoppable trajectory to a life of super stardom, hangs in the balance of my support. He needs me to keep his eligibility.
I wonder for a second, looking at those full, pouty lips, exactly what he’d do to keep it? How far I can push things? How low I can make Kellan O’Reilly go so that he can attain his shiny, hollow future?
Fantasizing isn’t the revenge that I want, but it’s the best I’m likely going to get.
I look down at the paper with his class schedule on it. “Well, it looks like you’re struggling in–” I run my index finger slowly down the page, “a lot. So, what books did you bring?”
Each little jab invigorates me. It will never be justice, but maybe it will slowly recharge a battery inside of me that’s never fully recovered.
He looks up at me, his face flushed. I’m sure he’s not used to being called out for a single goddamn thing. And it looks good on him, but the unfair reality is that everything looks good on him. Beauty doesn’t have a morality clause, sadly.
He’s wearing an oversized Radford sweatshirt that, even a few sizes bigger, wouldn’t hide his muscular build.
The joggers that hang low on his hips, which I tried not to notice when he walked through the door.
His clown-sized hightop sneakers that somehow only serve to make him look even more imposing.
Don’t even get me started on his perennially stubbled face.
How the friction would feel underneath my fingertips.
I’m a big enough man to admit these things, even if I wish he didn’t look like a demi-god or that he was, at the end of the day, exactly my physical type.
I’ve only made it to where I am today because I can be real with myself, and I’m a better person for it. Maybe, I’ve considered over the years, that I go wild on an instinctual level for a big, muscled man that I control completely because of my past.
Because of him.
Kellan doesn’t seem to struggle with the same need for personal growth, and I love the little muscle in his jaw that I can see flexing from anger that he’s trying to hold at bay. The way the color rises high on his cheekbones, fanning across his skin and wrapping around his neck.
The idea of controlling Kellan–owning him–makes my jeans grow tighter. And I’m beyond a point in my life where I’d hate myself for it. I like what I like, and a man like him submitting to me is exactly what gives me the type of orgasm that nothing else can match.
And the idea of it being him, specifically, has made me harder than I’ve been in years. Casually, I run my hand over the seam of my jeans, allowing myself the smallest amount of friction to enjoy the moment.
I’m disgusted by him, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to fuck his brains into oblivion if given the chance.