Chapter 7
Before
Jason takes me to the back of the school, in a corner of the parking lot, darker than the rest. My heart has been racing since I left home, unable to calm down.
I don’t do this.
I’ve never given Nate any reason to think I would sneak out of the house while he’s asleep, and if he knew where I was right now, I don’t even want to know what he would do.
“On your knees,” Jason says, the first thing he’s said tonight, tugging on his belt.
“Um…” I look around, and it really is dark. Thirty minutes past midnight. Not a car in sight. “Shouldn’t we kiss first?”
“I’m not fucking kissing you. Get on your knees.”
Okay. That’s okay. We don’t have to kiss. I never thought I would find a boyfriend at all, living in Rosehill, so if I have to sacrifice kissing, that’s fine.
I fall to my knees in the gravel of my high school parking lot.
Now
What was that?
I try to tell myself I imagined it.
Mike wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the girl behind him. The pretty blonde with the big boobs.
But that doesn’t stick.
I can’t do this again. I know exactly where it leads. And I tried so hard to prevent it. I stayed away. I pushed down these feelings I’ve had for him, but still.
Look where I am.
Pacing my bedroom, my heart pounding and my hands shaking, and my stupid dick still thinking he’s some sort of option.
He’s not.
The front door slams shut sometime early in the morning, startling me awake. I don’t even remember falling asleep, but I must have at some point. Exhausted from my shift, and bar hopping with Ryan, and seeing Mike—
I drag myself out of bed, determined to get this confrontation over with. We both know there was a moment back at the bar, and if he’s gonna say something about it, it’s better that he does now, while I can beg him not to tell anyone.
I stumble out of my bedroom door, still half asleep, and run into the last thing I ever expected to see.
Mike against the wall at the top of the staircase, his lips attached to another man’s. I should leave, go back to my room before they see me standing here.
But I can’t.
I feel a surge of adrenaline go through me so sharp it almost has me charging over there.
If Jason hurt me, what could this guy do to Mike?
And I know that’s unreasonable. That maybe I wasn’t ready to stop seeing my therapist. But that doesn’t matter right now because my brain is telling me Mike is in danger, and if I do something about it, I’m gonna seem completely insane.
So I stand here, my heart in my throat, watching this man I’m positive Mike doesn’t even know, wouldn’t be able to trust, touch him everywhere.
His hands move from his waist to his ass, and Mike moans, but this time, my dick doesn’t perk up at the sound. The guy moves from his lips to his neck, pressing him harder against the wall, their clothed cocks rubbing together.
It would be hot, is the thing.
Two years ago, if I had seen this on some porn website, I would have gone off in a second. Because Mike’s got his eyes screwed up in pleasure, and he’s always so vocal. He never seems embarrassed about what he feels.
In another life, I would’ve admired that.
In this one, I’m worried for him.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here. Too long. I really need to move, to pretend this never happened. Earlier could be written off, but this—
He looks up.
From one second to the next, he goes from being blissfully unaware to staring straight at me.
The guy kissing his neck still hasn’t noticed me, but Mike doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t push him away, scandalized that someone who isn’t them is seeing their intimate moment. He meets my eyes head-on, while I stand frozen.
While he was distracted looking at me, his partner must have gotten his hand in his jeans because Mike lets out a startled little moan at the contact, his gaze never leaving my face.
And that does it. I’m finally able to get my feet to move.
I stand against my door for a long time, trying to gain control of my pounding heart. And my cock. Mike’s door shuts a moment later, but I know it’s not safe. The walls aren’t soundproof. I hear things, mostly the girls he brings home, but him too sometimes.
I definitely will tonight if he lets that guy fuck him.
I press my hand to my crotch to relieve some of the pressure. I don’t know how long I’ve been hard, maybe I have been this whole time. These sweatpants don’t leave much to the imagination.
He definitely saw.
“Fuck,” I breathe out, dropping my head against the door. Why does this keep happening to me?
I squeeze my own eyes shut, trying not to let the tears fall. I’ve cried enough to last many lifetimes. I told myself I wouldn’t do this anymore, but I can’t stop it this time.
God, I hope he’s okay in there.
When I wake up the next morning, after a terrible sleep, I jump out of bed, putting on a t-shirt from the floor while I bolt downstairs, taking the steps two at a time, an earbud still in my ear that I rip out once I make it to the living area.
I have to make sure Mike’s okay.
One of the weirder things about Mike Pierce is that he’s always up before me, even though he doesn’t get home until the early morning most days, and when he does, he’s got somebody with him.
The dude has to be running on three hours of sleep, maximum.
But every morning without fail, I hear him rattling around the kitchen by seven AM. I’ve tried to tell him he wouldn’t need so many naps if he got eight hours of sleep like a normal person, but he brushed me off. Chalked my very reasonable advice up to being boring.
So, usually it’s annoying and has me starting my day off in a shitty mood.
Today, I’ve never been happier to hear the sound of a blender making a smoothie I know he’s not going to drink.
He stops the blender when I run in, stopping myself with the door frame, breathing way too heavy for someone who just woke up. “Are you okay?”
“Um,” he pauses, taking in my current state with a confused squint. “Yes? Are you?”
“You— that guy—” I step closer, going right up to him, my concern outweighing any sort of proper protocol for how to handle this situation. “Did he hurt you?”
He purses his lips, looking up at me with the same eyes that looked at me last night, while another man had his hand wrapped around his dick.
“Why would he hurt me?”
“Because he was a stranger and you let him—” I pause, remembering our confrontation from last week.
Are you trying to imply that I’m a slut?
“What? Fuck me?” He says plainly, finishing my sentence for me. I expect him to be mad again, to storm off, but that would be okay, as long as he’s okay.
But he laughs.
Out loud, full body, perfect smile, laughs.
“Were you really worried about me?” He asks, unable to get control of his laughter, even though I’m not sure what’s so funny. “You came down here all freaked out because you thought I let some rando fuck me, and you were worried about me?”
“Well, yeah, I was worried,” I tell him, completely serious.
“Alex,” he says, hopping up onto the counter, without a single wince. “Am I giving bottom vibes to you?”
“Uh…” I notice for the first time this morning, now that I’m seeing that he really is okay, that he doesn’t have on a shirt again. My eyes stop somewhere around the tattoos I wouldn’t mind tracing with my tongue. What was I saying? “Um… you’re… you know—”
He raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t call me out for the way I’ve been staring at his surprisingly toned torso since he sat on the counter. “I’m what?”
“Isn’t the smaller one the bottom?” I ask genuinely, forcing my eyes away from him. That makes him laugh again, and I still don’t know what’s funny.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, roomie,” he says, hopping off the counter and going back to the blender, turning it on before I can say anything else.
I turn that over in my head all morning.
You’ve got a lot to learn, roomie.
What does that mean?
It takes me until I’m sitting at my desk, procrastinating doing my homework for stats, to remember that we didn’t even talk about last night.
The song, the way he looked at me, the way he had to have seen what it was doing to me. He didn’t feel like we had to talk. He wasn’t even mad.
It all starts to make sense.
He knows.
On some level, he must know how I feel.