Chapter 15
Oli
“It’s freezing,” June whined as I sat her down on the sink counter of the girls’ bathroom.
I rolled my eyes. “I told you to put on pants, whiz kid.” I positioned the towel on the counter next to her, lifted her by her hips, and sat her back down on top of it.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
I set her caddy on the edge of the sink and peered inside, fumbling around with all her potions. There were apparently more than a hundred ways that June washed up because…holy shit. What the hell was the difference between shampoo and clarifying shampoo and why were they both necessary?
I did find a shower cap, which was fucking hilarious, so I pulled it out and stuck it on her head, letting the elastic smack her as I released it. She snorted and keeled over herself, laughing into my shoulder. It was awesome.
Giggles bubbled through me as I finally found what I was looking for. I grabbed the plastic bag full of cotton pads as well as the blue bottle of makeup remover and began removing June’s makeup. She stared at me, slapping a hand on her head and pulling the shower cap off with a drunken grin. Truthfully, I had no idea what I was doing, but I dragged the cotton over her cheek and it seemed to be picking up some makeup, so I had to assume this was okay.
“I wanted to tell you I like that you’re an asshole,” she said.
I paused, my brain catching up a few seconds late to inform me that she was referring to the text she’d sent me from the frat house. “What?”
She opened her mouth to speak again, but I rubbed the cotton pad over her lips, turning her words into muffled garbles. Again, she snorted loudly, and I just couldn’t contain my joy. I’d never really been able to joke with June before. This was everything to me. I tossed the dirty cotton pad into the sink and wet another one.
“I said, I like that you’re an asshole, because it means I don’t have to pretend.” But she did pretend. Her walls were very tall. Still, I didn’t hate the thought that perhaps they were a bit shorter for me, even if only by one layer of brick. “I just say whatever comes to mind around you.”
“Evidently.”
I smeared the remover over her eyebrow, surprised to see it come away with brown makeup on it. Did she draw on her eyebrows too? I wiped it again, wondering if it would take the whole thing right off, but it didn’t. There were definitely hairs there. I don’t know. Makeup was never really my thing. Kai and Jonah were way better at it than I was.
While I solved the puzzle that was June’s very real eyebrows, she laid a hand on my beard, scratching two nails into it. I refused to catch her eye, because those scratches felt good. Very, very good. Her other hand touched down on the other side of my jaw, and her thumb rubbed over my cheek.
Fucking fuck.
“I’ve never really looked at him up close,” she said. She wasn’t speaking to me. I’d learned to decipher that. When she spoke to herself, she addressed me in the third person. “He’s kind of handsome, isn’t he?”
Apparently, she was unaware I could hear her. I swallowed hard and tossed the most recent cotton pad.
“You’re handsome, Oliver.”
My hands froze, the makeup remover dripping onto the new pad I’d just picked up. I quickly realized I’d over-saturated it and put the bottle back down on the counter, shaking the cotton pad out and pressing it into another dry one to take away some of the moisture.
“Close your eyes, June.” I stuck one of the wet pads to her eyelashes, ignoring her compliment. Nothing good would come from entertaining it. “I don’t really know how to do this, so tell me if it hurts.”
She still held my face, and I didn’t even realize we were inching closer to each other until our noses touched. We were a breath apart, and I was in way, way over my head.
“Where’s your tongue ring?” she whispered.
My tongue ring? My tongue ring? Why on earth would she ask about my tongue ring if not for...? Oh god. The air around me was far too warm. My mouth became dry and tight, my naked tongue sticking to the roof of it.
“I took it out the other day,” I rasped. “I like to...” I cleared mythroat. “I like to switch it up, I guess.”
“Pity. I was curious about it.”
I downed another thick swallow as my heart rammed at the inside of my ribs. The cotton pad dragged until it jumped from her skin, leaving behind a black trail on her warm, brown cheek. We were inappropriately close, the heat of her lips tickling my own.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Universe, God, Serj Tankian, the powers that be, whoever you are, please don’t make me reject a kiss from this woman.
Somehow, my hand ended up on her hip, and my body ended up between her widened knees. A quiet groan rolled past my tongue as she came so close I could feel the molecules pushing between us. June’s hands sank over my neck, reaching behind me to tuck into the collar of my shirt. Her nails trailing softly between my shoulders practically sent me into the next dimension.
“Please?” she whispered. Apparently, we were on the same page about this incessant need for a kiss, though certainly not in agreement over whether or not it could happen.
I shook my head.
She came even closer somehow, her nose sliding over mine. “Please, Oli?”
Fuck. Maybe just a peck. Maybe I could give her a quick kiss and that would be fine, right? Or maybe I could just bite down lightly on her lip. Teeth-to-skin. That wouldn’t even be skin-to-skin. Right? Right?
Fuck.
I squeezed the cotton pad in my free hand, telling myself I was just going to continue taking off her makeup. And I did, but just before the pad hit her eye, my lips stole a quick touch of that corner quirk on her delicious mouth.
I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, Serj. What the hell was I supposed to do? The woman of my dreams was sending some serious signals, and I was fucking pissed at whoever the hell invented alcohol for ruining this moment. No, not for ruining this moment. For producing this moment and therefore this false hope in me.
“I liked that,” she said quietly.
“Shut up, June.” Forever, preferably.
I forced myself to keep wiping her eyes until the cotton pad came back mostly clean. When I finished with her face, I grabbed a scrunchie from her shower caddy and tied her hair up in a bun.
She turned around to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror, checking out her hair. “Not bad. Seems you’ve done this before.”
“Yeah. Jonah kind of went through a phase last year, so I got plenty of practice tying up long hair.”
She whipped back around to face me, gasping and holding a hand to her chest. “A phase? So he did party?”
I chuckled a bit, though I couldn’t help but envy her as she seemed to be moving on with the night as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, my entire world was caving in, because my lips had just brushed hers. “No. It was more like drinking alone in our dorm room. That’s how we spent most of freshman year. He held back my flannels, I held back his hair.”
“Was that supposed to be a joke?” she asked, draping her hands around my shoulders again. “You’re being awfully goofy tonight, Oli.”
I smiled softly to myself. “A reward for telling me how handsome I am.” I lifted her by her waist and placed her on her feet. She giggled, staring up at me brightly with her front teeth buried in her bottom lip. “Do you want to shower or anything?” I asked, refusing to get sucked back into those eyes.
She looked around herself before sticking her face under the sink, wetting it, grabbing a bottle of face wash from her caddy, and handing it to me.
When June was all cleaned up, we walked back to her room, her fingers tangled in the hem of my T-shirt the entire way. I told myself it was just because she needed something to hold on to. Because she was drunk. Under the influence. Not thinking clearly. Definitely not sober enough for me to take any of her words or wants seriously tonight.
I offered her sweatpants one last time, but she shook her head, stumbling into her covers and letting her shower shoes fall to the floor. She lay flat, and I pulled the blankets around her a little more evenly.
“I should let you sleep,” I said. “Do you need me to go or do you need me to stay?”
June hiccuped. “Neither of those things would be essential for my survival, therefore I wouldn’t consider either of them a need, really.”
God, help me. “What do you want, June?”
She squinted, mumbling to herself. “What should I tell him?” Her pointer and thumb picked at her bottom lip pensively. “Well, I want him to sleep with me,” she said as if the person on the receiving end of her rambles had answered her.
“I’ll sleep on the chair,” I said.
“Honestly, I want him to fuck me.”
Oh god. Okay. That’s it. I dragged a hand over my face, tossing the vision of June screaming as she bounced on my cock right out of my mind. I turned off the light and approached the dinky wooden desk chair, settling in for a very uncomfortable night’s sleep.
◆◆◆
June
I awoke the next day with a sharp pain in my head. When I rolled over to face the room, I found quite a large one in my ass as well. Oliver was sitting on Mary’s rickety, wooden chair, rolling his neck as if he’d slept squashed under a boulder.
“You stayed here all night?” I asked as his eyes fluttered open. It was bad enough he’d even been here in the first place. I couldn’t fucking believe I’d texted him.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
My question seemed to offend him quite a bit because he shot me an incredulous look. “To make sure you didn’t get sick or fall off the bed. Don’t you remember last night?”
Unfortunately, I did. At least, I think I did.
“I think so.” I rubbed my forehead. Fuck, it was throbbing. “I remember being carried home, getting in bed, and falling asleep.”
His frown turned into a smile. I just stared at him stupidly. He didn’t say anything. Thank god. I was in so much fucking pain. The room around me was a blur of white walls and wooden furniture, and my mouth was filled with the most atrocious, sharp taste.
I pushed out from underneath my covers and onto all fours, leaning toward the foot of my bed to grab the water bottle from my desk. After taking a few long sips, I realized there was way too much air passing between my legs. I dropped the bottle back in its place and looked myself over. “Fuck!” I jumped my ass back down and swirled my blankets around me. I wasn’t wearing any fucking pants. Or underwear. Fuck.
Oliver leaned back in his seat, his hands clasped in his lap and his gaze on his shoes. I appreciated the fact that he wasn’t staring at me, but his cocky smile was fucking infuriating. Letting my mortal enemy see me this way was hands down the most degrading thing to ever happen to me.
Suddenly, memories of last night began flooding back, images of Oliver’s face far too close to mine, the sensation of his fingers on my thighs, the… Oh my god.
“You kissed me!”I screeched. I jumped out of bed, ensuring my T-shirt was down around my thighs, and grabbed my foam flip-flop off the floor, chucking it at him. I missed, obviously, as I had no real intention of hitting him with the shoe, but he still held his hands up to protect himself, giggling without control. “You think that’s fucking funny?!”
“I did not…” He had to swallow his laughter to continue, holding up his pointer finger. “I did not kiss you.”
I growled and stomped a bare foot on the ground, desperately searching for my sweatpants. My ass was swinging around in the open fucking air and Oliver fucking Awad was in my room. What the actual fuck had my life become? My hands were sweaty but freezing, and the contents of my stomach felt like they were going to explode. Out of which end, I honestly wasn’t sure, but this was quickly becoming my least favorite college memory. I couldn’t remember a time I’d been so fucking mortified.
Oliver had been the one to place my sweatpants down last night, so he reached them first when he realized I was searching for them and held them high above my head to tease me. I jumped at them, trying to keep my shirt down with one hand.
“Oliver, you dick!”
“Okay, okay,” he said almost kindly, using his free hand to gesture me down. “Maybe I kissed you just a little. But, you made it very hard not to.”
“Oh, because I was drunk, vulnerable and naked? Really fucking classy, Oliver!”
“Drunk, vulnerable, and naked?” He stuck his chin out with an obnoxious smile on his face. “If you’d like to get technical with it, I can list all the things you did leading up to it. Or would you prefer to hold on to a bit of your dignity?”
Dignity? Dignity? I was practically butt-ass naked, jumping for my sweatpants in front of my archnemesis! And now I was suddenly being hit with even more memories. Hooking my arms around him, calling him handsome, holding him tight. Oh god. Oh god. I was never going to live this down.
“Do you remember what you said before bed?” he asked, his grin reaching his ears.
His words triggered the final and most humiliating memory of them all. I stopped my efforts to retrieve my pants, taking a step back and covering my face with my hands. My mouth fell open. Oh. My. God. The memory of Oliver standing over me as I settled into bed overtook my mind. I remembered staring at him as I pondered what I wanted him to do last night. And…I’d said it aloud. Oh my god, I’d said it aloud, hadn’t I?
I want him to fuck me.
“I am never drinking again.”
“Hey.” He handed my pants to me and leaned down to catch my eye. “It’s fine, Juni. I’m just fucking with you. And I am sorry about the kiss. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable? I was downright crawling out of my skin, especially given I was the one who 100% came onto him. He did nothing wrong. I belonged in a fucking cage.
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, gripping my sweatpants. Bending down to put them on in front of him somehow felt like the icing on this very ignominious cake, so I simply didn’t. I was a wreck and, apparently, I was forcing myself to own it. At least until this asshole got the fuck out of my room.
“Fine,” I said, opening my eyes and tossing my pants on the bed.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and my eyes snapped to his, my teeth grinding.
“We’re cool. You were drunk. We all say things we truly mean when we’re drunk.”
Argh!Rage boiled from my toes straight up to my crown. I immediately lifted my hands to his chest, shoving him as he laughed. He thought he was so fucking funny. I pushed him out of the room and slammed the door behind him. My red-hot forehead fell to the cool wood, and all I could hear was the sound of my breathing, of my blood racing through my veins. That is, until Oliver’s voice trailed through.
“You know, for the record…I wanted to, too.” He almost sounded gentle as he said it. Like he was laying down his weapons.
My anger was immediately accompanied by another feeling. Something shot from my heart down between my legs. I was left with an odd sort of aching, a heavy tension washing through me like a wave of fog as our bodies stood on either side of the door, inches apart, separated only by something that I could so easily get rid of. I knew he was standing there looking at me. I could feel it.
“Uhm. I’ll see you on Tuesday, Oli.” I refused to let myself open this damn door.
“I’ll be looking forward to it, June.”
“Hey, Oli?” I said quickly as I heard him start to walk away.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for last night. I do appreciate everything you did, even though you’re a dickhole.”
“Anytime, June. I’m glad you texted me.”
I pressed my fingers to my cheek, biting down on my skin and chewing it away. “Right. Get away from my door, then. You’re contaminating it with your stupidity.”
He laughed and, for some reason, it made me smile. He had a deep, dopey laugh. It suited him. “Fine. But before I do, I’m gonna cough all over it.”
I slapped the door. “Oliver!”
Another laugh. “Goodbye, Juni.”
“Goodbye, Oliver.”
I listened as he walked away.