Chapter 3 #5
“Why don’t you ask your buddy Leah?” Ariana scoffs.
“Since you like her so much. Guess everybody just prefers Leah, guess my life is over and I’m going to die alone.
” With a very dramatic sigh, Ariana sinks down into the water until her eyes are submerged.
She lasts less than thirty seconds like that before surfacing with a gasp.
“Okay, hot,” she splutters, reaching over the side of the tub and grabbing her beer to take a large sip.
Confused, Blake turns to Pax for help, but his eyes look different, closed-off somehow.
Still, he obliges. “She’s concerned that Dani is courting Leah and is no longer interested in getting to know Ariana.
” There’s silence for a moment, and then Paxton lifts himself out of the water, sitting on the edge of the tub before swinging his legs over.
The water drips from his body in a way that would be tantalizingly distracting, if Blake wasn’t so worried about Pax’s dull, disinterested tone. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Pax, wait—” Blake starts, but Pax is already walking away, leaving a dark trail of damp footprints in his wake. Blake turns back to Ariana, scratching his head. “Okay, I’m drunk, but I’m not blackout drunk. The hell did I miss here?”
Down in the water, Ariana just raises her eyebrows, draping her arms over the ledges on either side. “Dani’s not the only one in the doghouse,” she says vaguely, and it takes another moment for Blake’s alcohol-soaked brain to click online.
“Wait,” he says in disbelief. “He thinks — me and Leah? Dude, no.”
Ariana just shrugs, somewhat despondently. “Me and Pax made a club. The Losers Club. We even have a slogan, want to hear it?” She doesn’t so much as give Blake a chance to open his mouth before continuing. “We Hate Love. It’s good, right?”
“Kay, first of all, you’re an idiot,” Blake replies, holding his hand out for emphasis.
“I mean, I can’t speak for Dani, but if she’s dumb enough to pass on the coolest chick here, that’s her goddamn loss.
And hey, there’s still the money. But don’t get ahead of yourself, alright?
Pax sure as fuck did. Me and Lee — there’s nothing there, Ariana.
” He glances off into the dark, in the direction Paxton walked.
He’s long gone now, but Blake has a pretty good idea of where he went.
“Go on,” Ariana tells him, giving a “get-lost” wave before pointing in the direction of Matt, who’s rounding the corner of the house with his giant, over-filled drink in hand. “I think this Jacuzzi and that concoction are all the therapy I need right now, anyway.”
“Thanks Ari,” Blake replies distractedly, already moving off of the patio and into the night, pulling his t-shirt on over his head as he goes. “I’ll check in with you later, okay? You need a bed buddy, I’m here for you.”
Ariana snorts. “That’s just what I need, to be the tuna in yours and Pax’s peanut butter sandwich.”
That makes Blake stop in his tracks, pulling a disgusted face. “Not touching that one with a ten-foot pole,” he says.
“Go,” Ariana replies, her teasing tone fading, replaced with a new urgency in her voice that worries Blake, just a little. “He really believes you were playing him.”
A pang of fear Blake’s never felt before strikes his heart, and he takes off like a shot.
He’s shoeless and bumbling as he walks, all of the drinks he’s had seemingly catching up to him in an instant.
At some point, he steps on a shell or a rock or some shit, cursing and nearly going to his knees from the pain, but Blake keeps going.
It seems like forever until he gets to Pax’s smoking spot, but that’s mostly the inky dark and Blake’s own altered state distorting things.
Even before he turns the corner, Blake can smell the sweet, pungent weed pervading the air, and it brings him a rush of relief.
Not that Pax could actually go anywhere (though, Blake’s not convinced he wouldn’t steal a boat or a car if he really wanted to), but this shit means something to him.
The Retreat, and more so, Pax himself. The idea that Pax has got him all wrong — it sits terribly in the pit of Blake’s stomach.
The vegetation-framed little space behind this wing of the house has no light at all, save for what spills over the edges from the path Blake steps off of on his way there.
It’s not even enough to reveal Pax’s presence.
If Blake couldn’t smell his smoke, he wouldn’t have any idea he was here.
Distantly, Blake wonders if there are any of those night-vision cameras around, the kind their sleeping quarters have bolted in every corner.
Probably, he decides. Seems unlikely production would leave any part of the resort unmonitored, considering the stakes. Right now, someone is probably a wall away, watching this whole thing go down on monitors and cheering over the drama. Blake sighs.
“Pax,” he calls out, and as he blinks into the dark, his eyes begin to adjust. The outline of Pax’s body becomes visible, and he steps forward, towards Blake. The cherry on his joint comes into view, a burning ember in otherwise pitch-black.
“Hello, Blake,” Paxton says carefully.
Now that he’s here, Blake feels a little silly and at a loss for words. “I’m sorry if I—”
“I apologize for overreacting,” Paxton says, virtually at the same time. “If I was.”
“You were,” Blake assures him. Firm, but not rude or with any judgement.
He takes a deep breath, dropping his hands to his sides.
“Pax, I’m bad at this. I don’t know how to do anything right with you.
Not only that, but I don’t know how to be just friends with people I might’ve slept with, otherwise.
Dude, I’m trying. I really am. I wasn’t flirting with Leah.
The only person I wanna do this dumb “deeper connections” thing with is you, okay? ”
It’s humiliating to spill all that out without even being able to gauge Pax’s reactions.
It leaves Blake anxious and near-shaking, sure that Pax is going to tell him to get lost, that he’s blown his chance.
But Pax just steps into his space, tucks his face into Blake’s neck and hugs him around his middle.
Relieved, Blake sinks into him, hugging back and running his hands over Pax’s shoulders and hair and whatever else is in reach (like his ass — hey, Blake is only human).
“This is so foreign for both of us,” Paxton says quietly. “It’s only natural there would be… misunderstandings, miscommunications.” There’s a pause where they just hold each other, Blake relishing the way Pax’s hard body feels against his own and then, “Thank you. For coming to find me.”
Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the soft vulnerability in Paxton’s voice, but Blake suddenly knows what he wants to do, and damn the consequences.
Pax deserves something, deserves to see that Blake’s serious about him, that he’s willing to not only put him first but to sacrifice for him.
Even if that sacrifice is something stupid, in the grand scheme of things.
He shifts back enough to find Paxton’s hand, take the roach, and kick it.
This time, when Blake leans in to exhale into Paxton’s mouth, he follows it with a kiss. The smoke drifts and dissipates around them, and Blake kisses Pax like his life depends on it.
It hardly feels like a sacrifice, that’s for sure.
The sparking pull that draws Blake to Pax in general explodes and amplifies times a thousand when they’re like this.
Pax’s body, naked save for his swim trunks and a towel around his hips, is pressed up against Blake’s, their tongues sliding together in earnest. Pax doesn’t pull back for breath, just gasps into Blake’s mouth, maybe so that this all counts as one kiss, maybe because he can’t bring himself to stop.
Blake decides to believe it’s the latter — it definitely is for him.