Chapter 4
FOUR
Seth
The door creaked open, waking me from deep sleep. I didn’t know what I’d been dreaming about, but waking up felt like a splash of cold water that washed all the color out of the world. Then I remembered last night. I remembered where all the color had been used.
I’d heard that some drugs made you feel so good they drained you of any sense of joy for hours or days after. Damon was that drug to me.
The figure that dragged itself into the room in tatters wasn’t an intruder from some nightmare, but my roommate, disheveled and lifeless.
“Silas?” I murmured, groggy from sleep. Daylight made him look worse. “Are you okay? What happened?”
He took a deep breath and looked at me. “Last night…” He shook his head, lost somewhere between a dreamy lover and someone who’d looked into the bowels of hell and had never forgotten what lay there. “Girl, I saw God last night. And he told me to call my mother.”
“That bad, huh?” I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“Good, bad, depends on how you look at it,” he said and dropped into the chair by his desk. “Those guys have magical cocks, I’ll tell you that. I think they cured me of every mistake my parents ever made in raising me.”
“A hookup so good it healed all that’s broken. First time I’ve heard of it,” I said, sitting up. Dev’s hoodie was on the floor next to my pants. By the time I’d come back, the run had done its job, and I’d passed out without another thought, Damon playing before my closed eyes.
“What about you and that famous hockey guy?” Silas asked. “Did you do it?”
“Damon’s an old…” What was he? A friend? “We used to know each other.”
“Don’t keep me hanging,” Silas said, chuckling. “Did you get reacquainted or not?”
I looked at him, trying to seem serious and mysterious, but I couldn’t do anything about this stupid smile on my face.
“You did!” Silas said, then immediately grabbed his aching head. “Shush. Hurts. But it was worth it. Also, I’m disgusted by myself. Basically, it’s a regular Sunday morning.”
“You do this a lot,” I said.
He shrugged. “We’re young, we’re hot, and none of us has the slightest idea of what we’re doing. Not the best time to go around falling in love.” He inhaled a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “But it is the best time for a nap.”
It was just after seven, and I couldn’t go back to sleep if I wanted to. His words played over in my head, oddly profound. Maybe those guys’ dicks really did have some prophetic abilities.
None of us knew anything. How were we supposed to fall in love and make it work? There wasn’t a way. Not that I knew of, at least. “I think I’ll explore a bit, get familiar with the place.”
“You do that,” Silas said, peeling off the tattered tank top to reveal the whole three square inches it had successfully covered last night, then relocated himself from the chair to the bed by toppling into it.
By the time I’d brushed my teeth and washed my face, Silas was snoring in the bed.
The morning was gray and the sky overcast, promising the first September rain and the official start of the cozy days.
Gray sweatpants were back in fashion, and Damon would look like a million dollars when he strutted around.
And I would probably just be within the field of vision to catch the way his hips swung. It wasn’t a bad prospect.
But, speaking of bad prospects, I had a lunch with Nick in my diary, and I still needed to find my way around campus.
I went out in search of coffee and croissants, finding them both in a bakery that shared an alley with a bar called Thirsty Thinker.
The huge neoclassical library was there, too, forming the student center that was complete with a couple of fast-food joints, a gym, and the student council offices.
I ate my croissant and drank a sugary coffee with milk and caramel, catching myself a few times mid-sigh. It felt like being a lonesome maiden in a Renaissance painting, one of the dreamy ones.
The first order of business was to put a dot on what had happened last night. It was a hot mistake I was bound to repeat for as long as Damon was around. And I didn’t much regret it. I never had.
So long as I could walk away after, I could come back to it without a shred of fear that things would get complicated.
Damon was a fun mistake to make and make again.
But Damon didn’t date people. He didn’t stay in touch.
Fun was now, not tomorrow and never, ever yesterday.
He was, without the need for empirical evidence, like a cat.
If you caught his interest, you were in for a ride, but as soon as you were out of the frame, he forgot about you.
That suited me just fine. I had stuff to do here.
The last thing I needed was a distraction from putting the best lab in the tristate area to good use.
I’d worked hard last year and earned my place at Northwood.
I’d earned the scholarship by fighting every day, tooth and nail, to be at the top of my class.
Had I done that in my senior year at high school instead of writing lovesick poems on the margins of my books, I might have earned this scholarship sooner. One kiss had taken a year of my life.
Fooling around with Damon in the grass under an apple tree was a consolation prize and a goodbye gift.
I finished my coffee and walked around a bit, enjoying the breeze that wiped away the last lingering traces of summer from the air. Fall was just around the corner, and with it came the promise of new beginnings.
People usually thought spring did that. For me, a new academic year was the start of everything. Fall was when energy returned, when ambition soared, and when I was finally in my element.
The idea of a sexy summer and beach parties had always excited me in theory, but it had only once come close to being real. Then he’d gone away, and so had I, and there hadn’t been much to say after that.
So why couldn’t I get him out of my head now? Why couldn’t I just be happy that we had fallen back into it so easily last night? He could have had Silas if he’d wanted to. Frankly, with that ridiculous reality TV crap under his belt, he could have them all. But he’d picked me.
I walked around the science buildings that would be my home for the next three years, sat on a bench reading an anthropology textbook about the Neanderthals—I couldn’t pick one lane.
My interests were everywhere—and I checked the time on a million occasions, counting how long I had left before having to sit across from Nick and pretend I hadn’t had my cock in Damon’s mouth for half an hour last night.
My brother was not a bad person. He was a controlling person, yes.
A meddling person, too. But he didn’t do these things out of malice.
Sure, he and Damon had a history of breaking each other’s bones in the most literal sense and of spreading nasty rumors about one another, but what two small-town rivals didn’t do the same?
It was all nice and fine except that it had been two years since they’d left high school, and Nick was still bringing Damon up in conversations.
I did dread the lunch. He’d been floating Damon’s name yesterday, and I had cut him off. The rest would come, I’d bet a year of blowjobs on it.
And when I found myself sitting face-to-face with Nick, I could sense that my worries were justified. Sure, we could do two minutes of normal conversation, but what would follow?
“Settled in alright?” he asked, running a hand through his light brown hair, slicking it back.
“I unpacked,” I said, glancing at the menu.
“Met your roommate?” Nick asked.
I nodded. “He’s, uh, fun. Chaos incarnate.”
“Yeah?” Nick quirked one side of his mouth into a half smile.
“Not sure he’s here for the academic advancements, to be honest, but he’s a good guy,” I said.
“That’s good,” Nick agreed.
The waiter came around and took our orders.
I took a sip of my water. I was far from hungover, but the few drinks I’d had last night left me a little thirsty and a bit more grumpy than usual.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Nick already knew everything that had happened at the Alpha Clan’s party.
It wasn’t like there had been a bouncer outside the door stopping non-Northwood students from entering.
“We went to a party,” I said, sacrificing a bishop for the big prize.
Maybe he would react a certain way, reveal his plans.
And sure enough, his eyebrows flattened above his blue eyes. “Frat party?”
I nodded. “Silas needed a wingman.”
My brother sighed with obvious disappointment. “Seth, do you have any idea what goes on in those places?” He brought his glass to his lips.
“Booze, drugs, and orgies?” I asked.
He choked on a sip of water. “Don’t tell me you…”
“Fuck’s sake, Nick, are you kidding? No. I didn’t sleep with ten guys while high off my balls.” The look of passing guilt on his face reassured me a little. If he didn’t call me out on the exaggeration, then he didn’t know the pertinent details of it having been one guy and no drugs.
Nick glanced around the restaurant to make sure nobody had overheard my little outburst. The waiter brought Nick’s trout and my salad after a few moments of awkward silence.
My brother picked at the fish, pulling out the bones with focus and care, something teetering on the tip of his tongue.
“You shouldn’t do those things. What if someone thought you were like them? ”
“It would be the end of the world as we know it,” I agreed overly seriously. “People would die, Nick. I’m not oblivious.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want people to think you’re…”
“What? What will they think I am?” I chuckled. We were a year apart, yet he’d never let you know it. In so many ways, my older brother was a Victorian window. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he straight-up called me a harlot.
Nick’s fork scraped the edge of his plate. “You know who hangs around those parties?” he asked, tone casual, eyes anything but.
I kept my face smooth, spearing a cherry tomato. “He’s hard to miss. Plays hockey. Big deal around here.”
Nick’s gaze flicked up sharply. “Yeah. He’s always been a big deal, hasn’t he?” He said it like a curse. “Just…watch yourself. Guys like him don’t change.”
My pulse ticked faster, though I gave a half laugh to hide it. “Don’t worry. Damon Pierce isn’t exactly a recurring character in my life.”
“Good,” Nick said, leaning back. “That’s the only way forward, Seth. Trust me.”
The way he said it, quiet, almost sad, made something twist in my chest. He looked older suddenly, like the weight of whatever had shattered their friendship years ago had never lifted.
I used to think nothing could come between the two of them.
They’d been a matched set, and I’d been the kid brother tagging along.
Now, even mentioning Damon made Nick’s shoulders tighten like he was bracing for impact.
I chewed slowly, thinking that maybe the reasons didn’t matter anymore. Some things, once broken, stayed that way. If I were smart, I’d keep my distance from Damon, too. But I wasn’t feeling particularly smart lately.
“So,” I said, forcing brightness into my tone, “any chance you’ll take me to the flea market later? Could use something for the dorm. Maybe a cursed lamp or two.”
Nick huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah, sure. Sounds like fun.”
Truce declared. At least for today.