Chapter 6 – Reese
OF ALL THE PEOPLE IT COULD’VE BEEN, IT JUST HAD TO BE YOU
REESE
Oh my god.
What the fuck?
What the fuck?
The first naked man I’d ever seen, and it was my weird, arrogant ass of a roommate.
It was almost laughable.
I wished I’d fucking laughed. I’d just—just stood there, frozen, like a dumbass. Staring at his junk like it held the answers to the universe.
And I didn’t know who was at fault—me for not checking if someone was in there first or him for not even closing the door.
Who didn’t shut the goddamn door when they were naked? Huh? And why did he just stand there? Didn’t even cover himself. Just let it all hang out for me to stare at like a depraved creep.
Oh, god, he probably thought I was a huge creep now.
Wait, no, he was the creep.
Yeah.
Not me.
Him.
He had a really nice dick, though. Really, really—
Fuck, I needed to go do something to distract myself. Maybe stay away from that room for a month or so. No, I left my violin in there, I had to go back at some point. Shit.
Well I’d just do what I did last night, sneak in after midnight and pray that he was sleeping again.
The night light was helpful in that regard, though it was a bit…odd for him to have a night light.
He said he didn’t like the dark, but was he afraid of it?
Like Lauren?
She’d loved her night lights.
I kicked at a stray rock on the path and willed myself to stop thinking about that. Nothing good came from dwelling on the past.
Damn it, I was a coward for just running out of there. It was my room, too, and I shouldn’t have to feel like I couldn’t even be in there.
It was just an honest accident. I’d had to go so badly that I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting there.
And the door had been open, too.
Yeah.
We were both guys, what was the big deal? It was just a dick.
Just a very pretty dick.
I can’t tell if you’re traumatized or turned on.
Had he wanted me to be turned on? Did he do that on purpose, hoping I’d walk in there and get a glimpse of him?
Wasn’t that sexual harassment? It was like flashing someone minus the whole trench coat thing.
If he left the door open thinking I’d walk in on him—which I did—then he’d done that knowingly and with intent.
Was this an arrestable offense? Wait, could I be arrested? Oh, god, would Dakota tell his dad about this and get me kicked out?
I must’ve had a miserable expression on my face, because while I made my way to the library, people avoided me even more than usual.
I was never going to get that dick’s dick out of my fucking head.
I found a free table in a secluded corner on the second floor and pulled out everything from my backpack, determined to take my mind off Dakota and do something productive.
I was here for school. I needed to focus on that.
I sifted through a pile of papers that I hadn’t even looked over yet, and the words Composition 404 Syllabus made me pause.
That was the class I had with Dakota—where we regrettably had been partnered for a project.
I needed to know just what, exactly, I had to do with him so I could figure out how to do the bare minimum. Well, how to have bare minimum contact with him, at least.
I scanned the front page, which just had basic class information, then flipped to the second page.
The project wasn’t outlined until the second-to-last page, and I read the requirements.
I stared at the words on the syllabus and read them over and over again, thinking I’d suddenly lost the ability to comprehend the English language.
No.
There was no fucking way that this was a requirement. It was preposterous. Utterly ridiculous. Why would anyone do this?
I threw the packet to the ground—or tried to. It just flopped awkwardly and fell under the table.
I rammed my elbows down onto the table and put my head in my hands, tugging at my hair.
This was going to be a complete disaster.
I needed to get out of this class, to figure out some way to drop it or switch into a different one.
If I’d known we’d be performing on stage, I never would’ve signed up.
It was the same course that I’d been taking at Tagerton, and that hadn’t been a requirement there.
And yet, the stupid professor here at Ashbrook needed us to perform our duets on stage for some reason.
The one and only time I’d tried to perform after the accident was a disaster; having a full-blown meltdown on a stage in front of hundreds of people was not something I wanted to repeat.
So how the fuck was I going to do this?
Maybe I could talk to the professor. I really didn’t want to tell him about my past and my issues, but it seemed like that might be necessary.
What if that didn’t sway him, though? What if he told me to tough it out and just do it, otherwise I’d fail?
And if I got up there and wasn’t able to perform, what did that mean for Dakota?
Would he be penalized too? That didn’t seem fair at all.
Ugh. Fuck this school. Fuck this class. I’d talk to my advisor and see what they could do for me because I didn’t want to deal with this.
Giggles erupted from beyond the bookcase in front of me. A girl spoke, another girl chimed in, and then they broke out in laughter again.
I threw my pen down and sat back. Was there nowhere I could go to get a quiet, peaceful break from everything? Apparently fucking not.
I rolled my eyes and stood up, shoving my textbook back into my bag and slinging it over my shoulder. The stairs to leave were in the opposite direction, but out of curiosity, I peeked around the bookcase.
Two girls were sitting at a table, and one was pointing somewhere. Whatever they were looking at was something that was clearly distasteful to them; their judgmental and scornful expressions were so familiar that a flare of anger heated my skin.
But when one of them said, “Oh my god, there he is. Ugh, if it weren’t for that scar he’d be so hot.”
“And if he wasn’t crazy,” said the other one.
Disgust spread through me as I listened to them talk shit about someone.
I looked right, toward the unfortunate target of their vitriol, and sucked in a breath.
Fucking Dakota. Of course it was Dakota.
He was walking past a row of tables, not looking this way.
I wasn’t sure I’d met a single person who talked about or looked at Dakota with kind sentiments—including me, I supposed.
I could understand that, sure, but it still pissed me off. He might be annoying, but he wasn’t a total douchebag that warranted talk like that.
No one deserved to be criticized because of their appearance.
Fuck those girls.
One of them spotted me and stopped smiling immediately, then tapped her friend, who turned to follow her line of sight.
Shit.
I pulled back, praying they didn’t come over here.
Actually, I kind of wanted them to. Then I could let them know how ugly they were.
I heard the girls talking in hushed murmurs, then the sound of backpacks being zipped.
Were they leaving?
I turned and braced my hands on the shelf in front of me, then peered around it.
They were walking toward the stairs.
Good, they were leaving.
“Who are we hiding from?”
I jumped and tripped backwards at the sound of that low, raspy voice in my ear. Two hands gripped my shoulders, and anger quickly replaced the terror that had almost stopped my heart.
“You asshole—” I tried to turn around, but Dakota was holding me firmly in place. “What—hey, let go of me!” I whisper-shouted.
This fucking prick thought he could manhandle me? Why? Just because I was smaller than him?
I tried turning again, but Dakota moved with me and it felt like he was holding onto the bottom of my backpack, too, but both his hands were on my shoulders so I wasn’t sure how.
“Reese—hey, stop moving,” he said quickly, and the serious tone of his voice made me pause.
And then I remembered that everything was a game to him and I wasn’t going to let him keep playing with me. I pushed backwards until he hit the shelf behind us. He grunted, then squeezed my shoulders. “Reese, stop, my belt is—”
I tried to pull away from him and rip myself out of his grasp, but my backpack got caught on something again. “Let go of me! Are you this fucking bored with your life?”
Dakota made a frustrated sound, then wrapped his arms around my chest and squeezed me back against his body. His voice was right next to my ear when he said, “My belt buckle is caught on your bag, so if you could just calm down for a second before you rip my dick off—”
“Oh, fuck your stupid dick!” I snapped, thrashing in his arms. He was holding onto me so tight that I could barely move, and goddammit, I wished I wasn’t so much smaller than him.
“You don’t really think before you speak, do you?”
I hated the amusement in his voice, and I wanted to get far, far away from him. His belt was caught on my bag? As if I’d fall for that.
“I swear to god I will fucking hurt you if you don’t let go of me right now!”
I set my feet on the bookcase in front of me, then shoved off with all my strength. Dakota stumbled back into the bookcase behind him so hard that his arms loosened from around my chest, so I darted forward to get away from him—
And went all of two inches before my bag caught on something.
Dakota pulled me back into him as he walked forward into me.
He pushed me up against the shelf in front of me, gripping it with his hands on either side of my head, caging me in with his arms and using his body to hold me still.
“Reese—seriously, stop fucking moving and let me fix this. Goddamn you’re vicious. ”