Chapter Three - 3. The Substitute
CHAPTER THREE
The Substitute
Your package has been delivered.
As soon as I read the email, I dropped my phone, ditched my toast, and ran out of my room. Taylor was at the kitchenette, making some protein breakfast thing. I ignored his gaze as I shoved on my shoes and left the dorm.
Valentina Hall’s mail room was on the ground floor, with letter boxes for each dorm, and packages of all shapes and sizes left on the floor. I scanned them all until I spotted a label addressed to Archibald Hayes. The box was light, but I heard something slide around inside.
I hurried back to the elevator, and it was only when it opened, revealing a group of girls who stared at me in horror, I realised I hadn’t dressed, wearing hotdog-patterned purple boxers and a grey unzipped hoodie.
By the time I returned back to the dorm, my face was hot, both from embarrassment and tiredness from sprinting down the hallway. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, catching my breath.
“What’s got you so wound up?” Taylor asked, hip propped against the kitchen island. “I haven’t seen you so excited since —” he cut himself off abruptly.
My stomach dropped as I guessed what he’d been about to say. “Fuck off.” I stepped around him, finding a pair of scissors in a drawer.
His hand brushed my shoulder. “What have you got there?”
“Nothing,” I said, too quickly, slapping his hand away
He smiled. “Did some online shopping?”
“Sure.” Didn’t he have better things to do than annoy me?
“Let me see what you bought.” He reached out a second time, but I elbowed him aside, maybe too roughly.
He stared at me, a crease forming between his brows and I knew what he’d do a second before he did it.
Maybe it was years of being on the soccer field together.
He lunged, and I scrambled to get out of the way, dropping the box and scissors in the process.
“Why are you so obsessed with me?” I demanded, scrambling to pick the things up.
He grabbed the box at the same time. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You literally don’t have any hobbies apart from staring at me like a creep.” My voice raised with every word, mostly from panic, as we both fell on the floor, wrestling with the box.
“Yeah, okay, Archie,” he said dryly, but his nonchalance was an act, because he was gripping the box so tight his knuckles were turning white. “You clearly don’t want me to see what you got —”
“Because it’s not your business!”
“Everything you do is my business.”
“This is what I mean!” I shouted, letting go of the box. Taylor tugged it close, eyes scanning the postage label. That’s when I jabbed my fingers into the soft part above his hip bones. He made a startled noise, twitching like he’d been zapped, and I yanked the package from him.
After picking up the scissors too, I stepped over his body, disappeared into my room, and locked the door behind me. Thankfully, the website was true to their word when they promised discreet packaging, as the sender was simply ‘STGA Group’.
Using scissors to slice through the tape, I opened the package, revealing another box with a plastic window, showcasing the dildo.
I swallowed. It looked bigger than I expected.
I pulled it out and wrapped my hand around it, pleased at how soft the silicone was — it was almost velvety, and the toy itself had a good amount of flexibility.
It also came with a satin storage bag, which would come useful when hiding the toy.
I wanted to use it immediately, except I couldn’t, not when Taylor was right outside. Idly, I wondered if he was still on the floor, and the thought made me laugh.
What a psycho. He’d made a whole speech about how he didn’t care about me, that he’d just used me, and yet he still wrestled with me over a box. A box! I’d blurted it out in the moment, but I was right: he didn’t have hobbies. He just watched people and found reasons to belittle them.
Now, I read the dildo box carefully. Since it was a silicone toy, it was important to use water-based lube.
It could be washed with soap and warm water, and the suction base would stick to any flat surface.
I’d use the toy later that night, when Taylor was either out or asleep.
I hid the toy in the back of a drawer in my bedside table, and returned to my breakfast, which I’d left on the desk.
The toast had gone cold, but I chomped it down and took the plate to the living room.
Taylor sat on the floor, eating breakfast off the coffee table.
When I came out, he set his phone down and watched me rinse my bowl in the living room.
I tried to avoid looking at him in the face, but I couldn’t help myself and met his eyes.
I expected a glare or a scowl, but instead his mouth was a flat line.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know why you eat that stuff.” At my confused expression, he huffed. “Nutella toast. It’s all sugar and carbs, no protein.”
“What’s it to you?”
“You’re not getting enough protein.”
“And how do you know that? Do you track what I eat? Creep.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a diet of toast, instant ramen, takeaway pizza and the occasional broccoli isn’t giving you the protein you need.” He paused. “That’s why you’re smaller than me.”
“I’m not smaller than you,” I snapped. “We’re almost same height and —”
“The reason you’re not growing despite going to the gym,” he continued over me, “is because you’re not eating well.” He tilted his head. “Is it because your mummy isn’t cooking you dinner anymore?”
“Piss off.” I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured, and I was especially annoyed because he was right.
I made chicken and greens maybe once a week.
I tried to make pasta, but it always tasted like shit.
My mum made delicious meals like beef stir fry or roast chicken.
I should’ve asked her to teach me to cook when I had the chance.
I slid my gaze down Taylor’s body. Maybe he was a teensy tiny bit bigger than me.
“You know what this is?” Taylor asked, interrupting my thoughts, using his spoon to point at his breakfast.
“Brown sludge?”
“Overnight oats. I added a scoop of protein powder and that’s almost forty grams of protein right there.”
“It looks like brown sludge.”
“You can try some. I have a spare jar in the fridge.”
I stared. He looked back, gaze steady.
“You are aware murder is illegal?” I said.
“No. It is? My goodness, who could’ve guessed?” He dropped the tone. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“If you’re trying to poison me —”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You know what? Forget I asked.” He actually threw his actual hands in the air, and I bit back a laugh because despite playing it cool most of the time, he was kind of a drama queen.
I thought that the overnight oats was a one-off blip, but that was only the first strange thing of the day.
I went out to study at the library and catch up with Matty — Taylor watched me very carefully as I left, so carefully that I made sure I had locked my bedroom door — and when I returned in the evening, Taylor was standing at the stove, cooking.
“Sit,” he said, pointing at the coffee table.
I toed my shoes off. “Excuse me?”
“Sit. I made us dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.” That was a lie. I was starving, and I wasn’t looking forward to the single packet of ramen I’d left in the pantry.
“I cooked for you. You’re eating it.”
“What are you, my housewife?”
“Sit your ass down, already.”
I sighed, but after dumping my things in my room and washing my hands, I did sit at the coffee table, legs crossed like a primary schooler. Taylor brought over two plates, which featured slabs of chicken breast, brown rice, and asparagus.
“Wow. Looks gourmet.”
“It might be basic, but this hits all the food groups.” He went back to the kitchenette for cutlery, and came back, shoving a fork and knife in my hand.
“Thanks.” I cut into the chicken and took a bite. It was salty, peppery and lemony, and most of all, it tasted healthy. Actually healthy, unlike the greasy burritos I’d had for lunch with Matty.
Taylor watched me with a strange expression as I chewed.
“It’s good,” I said, thinking that was what he was waiting for. “Taking applications to be a personal chef?”
“Piss off,” he said without venom, cutting into his own meal.
“Seriously, though. Why are you doing this for me?”
“Because you’re so tiny, I could snap you like a twig.”
That was so absurdly untrue, the jab didn’t even hurt a little bit. “Yeah, because you’re so big and strong.”
“You’re being sarcastic, but if we fought, I’d have you pinned in fifteen seconds.”
“You would’t.” I scooped up some brown rice.
“I would.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wanna try?”
I swallowed my bite. “No.”
“Too scared?”
“No. I’m just not doing another competition with you.”
That shut him up.
We ate the rest of dinner in silence. I was finishing up my last piece of asparagus when he spoke.
“What are you doing tonight?” The question was innocuous enough, but something about the way he said it — his studied blank expression — made me pause.
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s just a question. Jeez.”
“Just chilling.” I thought of the dildo waiting for me. “I’ll probably have an early night.”
“Yeah?” His gaze lingered.
The back of my neck suddenly felt itchy. “Yeah.” I got to my feet. “Thanks for the food.” Then, because my mother taught me to have some manners, even with crazies like Taylor, I said, “I’ll wash.”
I took his plate and cleaned up, including the pan and utensils he’d left by the stove.
In my bedroom, I grabbed my shower stuff, and the dildo, which I needed to clean.
After showering, I washed the toy thoroughly in the sink, then hid it in my bundle of clothes, so there was no chance of Taylor accidentally seeing it when I left the bathroom.
It didn’t matter, though. He wasn’t in the living room anymore.