Chapter 23 Weston
Weston
When Sev sits right next to me at the big booth in Colossus Dining Hall, I know it’s going to be bad.
I have my phone open on the table in front of me and before I can lock it, Sev glances at the screen, and he sees everything.
Cal Thorne: Waiting for the next deposit. We said it would be weekly.
You’ll have it by tonight.
What if I want it sooner?
The transfers take as long as they take, Thorne.
Maybe next time I come get it from you in person, then. A little trip to the bank.
My stomach feels sick every time he messages me.
It’s been a week since the alumni dinner, and almost everything else feels like it should be perfect.
The Daggers and Luros members are very happy with the amount of internship and job offers they received.
It feels like things are slowly starting to heal, and even Kieran is seeking help from a counselor and finally quitting his pills for good.
And Sev has been an angel. A dark, chaotic angel, to be sure, but he’s been making an effort to see me every day, and isn’t pressuring me at all to tell the other guys that we’re hooking up.
Cal Thorne is a problem, though.
A problem I don’t know how to fix.
“You let him text you like that?” Sev says quietly.
The other guys are still in the main area of the dining hall, gathering food on their trays. Sev and I are parked at the table, holding it down so that no one else takes it.
For now, we’re alone.
“What choice do I have?”
Sev clenches his jaw. “I wish I could fucking kill this guy. Wes, you have no idea how badly I wish that.”
I pull in a slow breath. “I don’t want another moment of more violence in my life, Sevan. I hate him, too, but I couldn’t live with myself if we hurt him. He does have the power to destroy us.”
Sev looks like he’s ready to smash my phone to bits just from looking over the texts again.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I have to do something. You don’t deserve this, baby.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. I reach under the table and grab his thigh.
I love when he calls me that, now.
I might be delusional, but every moment with Sev feels better than the last. I trust him. I can’t help but trust him.
I lean over and press my lips to his in a kiss, and he relaxes finally, melting under my touch. He kisses me back slowly, and when he pulls away he looks at me, raising his eyebrows a little.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says, his voice a little sultry. “Just surprised you’re willing to kiss me like that when all of your boys are over there grabbing food. They could look over and see.”
I shrug one shoulder. “Maybe I’m ready for them to see.”
He hums as he reaches for my thigh now, giving it a hard squeeze. “Wes, you don’t have to do that. I can keep things on the down-low for as long as you need. I’m used to being casual, trust me.”
Suddenly I’ve forgotten about anything else going on in my life other than him.
Butterflies start to riot in my chest, and I watch Sev’s gray eyes.
“You want to stay casual?”
“No. I sure as fuck don’t want it,” he says. “You can’t tell me anything between us feels casual to you. But I can do it, easily, for as long as you need.”
I swallow hard.
I feel like I’m on a tightrope, walking between two different versions of my life.
The safe version, where I just try to follow the rules and do everything right. The version I’ve been living forever, slightly scared, and always rigid.
But on the other side of that tightrope, there’s something that I think might be incredible.
I think I’m sick of putting up walls.
Walk forward.
Cross the tightrope.
Take the fucking adventure.
“Are you talking about a relationship, Sev?” I ask him. “You’ve never wanted one before.”
He squeezes my leg again.
“Fuck it. Maybe the only reason I haven’t wanted a relationship before is because no one else has been you.”
The guys are coming over now.
I see the group approaching, with their food trays in hand.
I let out a nervous puff of a laugh. “You can’t seriously be saying you want a boyfriend—”
“I want you to be my boyfriend,” he blurts out, a wide smile spreading over his face that makes me go weak inside. “Yes. I am saying that.”
I start to get a rush of feeling.
It’s small, at first.
A tightening in my throat, and a steady thump in my chest.
But then it becomes a tidal wave as Sev holds my gaze.
I lean in and press my lips to his, kissing his mouth, then his cheek, and then his temple.
“I’m like, shaking,” I whisper to him.
I know the guys might even see us, now. Maybe they don’t. Maybe it doesn’t fucking matter.
“Good shaking or bad shaking?”
“Good. I think it’s really fucking good,” I tell him.
“I want you to be my boyfriend. You don’t have to say yes now. Think about it for the next month, for all I care. But you should know that I want it.”
Someone is choosing me, and me only, for the first time in my life.
“Okay,” I say softly.
“Fuck yes, Weston Knox,” he tells me a low tone. “You aren’t even close to ready for this. If you’re my boyfriend I don’t want to be quiet about it. I’m not secretive, or ashamed, or nervous. I want to be all in. Are you okay with that?”
I nod at him. “I like the idea of that. A lot.”
He presses one more kiss to my lips, giving me a fiery look.
“Then get ready, baby.”
The moment the other guys get to the table and slide in one by one, Sevan grips my hand, holding it tight above the table.
“Hi, boys,” he tells the assortment of Onyx guys who are currently congregating around the table with their burgers, slices of pizza, and energy drinks.
I swear my heart could pound right out of my body.
“Sevan,” Rayne says, giving him an upward nod.
“Just want to let everyone know that Weston is my boyfriend, and he’s very much off the market for anyone else. If anybody has a problem with that, you can take it up with me. Cool?”
“Holy shit, Sev,” I mutter under my breath, but I can’t keep a giant smile from spreading across my face.
Sev leans over and kisses my neck like he’s marking his territory.
“Old news,” Niko calls out from the side of the table, sitting down next to Ollie.
“I mean, yeah, we kind of suspected, bro,” Hunter says, giving me a sly grin from his seat at the table.
Even Rayne looks up. “Didn’t know when the fuck you were going to tell me, but I was letting you take your time.”
I furrow my brow, dropping my mouth wide.
“No fucking shot everyone knew,” I tell them. “Rayne? Even you?”
“I’ve known you for too long, Wes. I knew you had something going on, but I thought it would be… I don’t know. Just a hookup.”
“It isn’t,” I declare proudly. “It’s not fucking casual at all. Hands off. Know what I mean?”
Sev turns to me with the proudest look on his face I’ve ever seen.
“Sickening,” Noah calls out as he comes over to the table. “No one is allowed to be in love around me anymore until I find someone.”
Noah has a smoothie, some applesauce, and soup, still only eating liquids for now. The other guys start asking Noah about his injured nose like they do most days now, some of them actually asking him to remove the bandage and let them see the nasty healing process beneath it.
He tells them to fuck off, pushing a straw into his smoothie and taking a drink.
As the guys break off into their other conversations, I realize how natural it already feels to be here like this.
At the table with my boyfriend.
And there’s no part of me that feels timid about that anymore.
“They love us,” Sev leans over and murmurs in my ear.
“Wouldn’t care even if they hated us,” I tell him. “But I still can’t believe no one was shocked.”
“People know you better than you think, Weston. You have a lot of people who care about you, you know that?”
I let out a long breath. “I’m lucky, I guess.”
And he has no clue how monumental that is for me to say.
I’ve never felt lucky.
I was the unlucky brother, the unlucky son.
I don’t feel anything like that anymore.
After we have dinner all I want to do is spend the next 48 hours or so in bed with him, but I know he has a lot on his plate.
“Listen,” he tells me before we leave. “The engineering ceremony is tomorrow night, and I need to focus on finishing my project. But after that’s done, the only thing that’s important to me is figuring out a way to get Thorne out of your fucking life. Okay?”
I bite the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Can we forget about Thorne? I hate paying him, but Dad did leave us enough money. I’d rather pay him than have him threaten Onyx House.”
Sev nods. “But you don’t have to pay him at all, if I take care of it. Trust me, Wes.”
My chest tightens a little.
I know Sev has a long history with violence. I know he’s comfortable using his fists to get his way. But I’ve never been comfortable with that.
“I’m just so afraid it will blow up in the face of the rest of Onyx. I don’t want anyone else hurt for something that’s my fault.”
“It isn’t your fault, it’s your father’s,” he corrects me. “But I understand. I’m never going to let that happen.”
I reach over and grab a fry from Rayne’s tray across the table, popping it in my mouth.
“Since when do you eat those?” Rayne asks.
I shrug. “I’m learning to live a little. That doesn’t mean I’m about to change up my diet, but one fry isn’t going to hurt me.”
Rayne reaches over and fist-bumps me.
“You’re fucking cute,” Sev tells me.
“Good luck working on your project. I’ll be in the auditorium cheering for you in the front row tomorrow night. That engineering ceremony is going to be like a hockey game with all of us there rooting for you.”
Soon I see a very rare blush landing on Sevan’s cheeks.
There’s nothing in the world he acts bashful about other than this competition he’s in, but I love seeing every aspect of him, including the parts he thinks are boring but are actually impressive.
“If you insist,” he tells me.
“Not missing it for the world.”