Asch
My wrist bumps against the mug on my desk.
I glare at the mug and pick it up to place it somewhere less likely to get in my way.
Unfortunately, the desk is piled high with books from the library, several other mugs, a t-shirt that probably needs to go into the wash, and of course my laptop, which I’m supposed to be using for studying.
Maybe I should study downstairs in the dining room. Or at the library.
Ugh.
I need to clean up, but I also need to study, which is more pressing. It’s not like the mess is going anywhere, after all.
No, it’s just going to pile up and get that much worse, which I know on a realistic level but don’t feel like dealing with.
It’s only a matter of time before Blaze gets fed up and comes in here with his judgment and his “help.” I hate it, and I should deal with it before then.
I sigh, looking down at my laptop and going to sit on my bed instead. I have to move a pile of clothes before I can sit down, but those only get tossed into my desk chair. At least they’re clean.
I think.
I glance at my phone, where I have two texts from my mother, and I consider giving her a call. She’d like it; she hasn’t heard from me since Thanksgiving at Pandora’s, and I’m not used to going this long without talking to her.
But she still betrayed my trust, and I don’t know what to say to her that won’t sound accusatory or passive aggressive. She doesn’t deserve that.
I know on a rational level that she did what she thought was best, but I hate that that was something that kept me in the dark.
I decide to at least send her a text, which has nothing to do with me procrastinating and everything to do with me wanting to assuage my own guilt.
Asch
I’m studying for finals. I’ll call you soon.
Mom
Good luck studying. I know you’ll knock it out of the park. I love you.
Asch
I love you too
I stare at the mess on top of my desk, considering straightening up again. I can take the dishes down to the kitchen, at the very least.
There’s no way I’m going to be able to focus, not like this.
Before I can make up my mind about what to do, my door swings open. I tense and glare at the intruder.
Pandora. How had she managed to sneak upstairs without me hearing her?
She smiles and waves at me. “Hey, boyfriend! Blaze said you’ve barely left your room in the past two days. Something about studying for your fake scholarship.”
The words are like a knife to the gut, and I narrow my eyes at her. “I still need a good GPA,” I tell her, my voice stiff. “Whether the scholarship is real or not. Shouldn’t you be studying for biochem?”
“Yep! I did that yesterday though.” Pandora steps inside, walking around a small pile of papers and over a discarded sweatshirt.
She also steps directly onto one of the shirts I think might have been clean with her heavy boots.
“You need to pick up your stuff,” Pandora says as she sits down on the bed, smoothing down her skirt over her legs. “How did you even accumulate this much after the fire? It’s only been like, six weeks.”
I grit my teeth, my cheeks heating up. “Did you just come in here to make fun of me, or did you actually want something?” I ask her, getting up and starting to pick up some of the laundry from the floor so I can throw it in the laundry hamper.
She’s not wrong that I barely have anything now.
Blaze bought it all for me, and he’s probably regretting it, given that it means I’ve been able to make my room such a disaster already.
Every time something new shows up for me, it crushes my pride all over again. It’s not like I can refuse basics like clothes, though, and even though I’d protested the new laptop, he refused to take it back.
“I came to make fun of you,” Pandora agrees. She picks up the shirt she’d stepped on and adds it to the laundry hamper. “Actually, I haven’t seen you in a few days and I thought you might be missing me. You didn’t even react to the joke I’d sent!”
“That’s because it wasn’t any funnier than any of the other jokes you send,” I tell her. “Blaze really needs to stop encouraging you by pretending any of it is funny.”
Even though he thinks it’s all hilarious.
“Why are you so cranky?” Pandora asks. She picks up the sweatshirt and walks over to me to wrap her arms around my shoulders. “Can I make you feel better?”
“No. And I’m cranky because you came in here and started in on me immediately, and I’m trying to study,” I tell her.
And because I don’t know what to say to my mother, and I’m stressing about exams.
Not to mention the fact that we’ve gone and pissed off the entire Bouchard Syndicate.
“Are you actually studying?” Pandora peers at my laptop. “Blaze said you haven’t even come out to eat with him. River said you skipped sparring. How are you supposed to absorb information if your body and mind aren’t being nourished?”
“Yes, I’ve actually been studying,” I retort, but I close my laptop because there’s no sense in even trying to study when Pandora is in here distracting me.
I’ve studied about as much as I can, but I’m still not sure I’ve retained the information I’ve been staring at. With everything going on around me, how can I be expected to continue like everything is normal when it’s anything but?
Pandora finds more clothes to pile on top of the hamper. “I thought I waited too long to do laundry. Come on, let’s do this load together. Actually, let’s strip your bedsheets too because I don’t want to fuck in sheets that have been marinating for a year.”
My jaw clenches. “Lay off, Pandora,” I snap at her. “I washed them.”
I don’t actually remember when I washed them last, but it hasn’t been all that long.
Although these are new sheets, and the last time I’d done laundry it had only been clothes.
“I’m helping!” Pandora insists. She smiles at me.
“It’s fine, Asch. My brothers are pretty bad too.
Kratos especially. He forgets what he’s doing half the time.
He pissed Daddy off so much with how often he left things undone.
Once he tried to hide evidence of… well, he tried to wash away evidence, only he got his clothes down to the laundry room, filled up the soap dispenser, and wandered off without actually putting anything into the laundry machine or hitting the start button.
” Pandora laughs to herself. “Ares and I did not let him live that down. Y’know, after Daddy and Papa laid into him. ”
Knowing the Pavone family, evidence could mean multiple things.
“At least tell me it wasn’t dish soap or something,” I say, sighing as I strip my bed. “Fine, let’s go do laundry, then. I think I have an extra set of sheets somewhere.” I toss the dirty sheets onto the hamper and grab it. There’s no way this is only going to be one load of laundry. “Come on.”
Pandora ends up carrying the items that fall off the hamper, all while chattering away about her family.
Meeting her family had not exactly been the highlight of my year, though enough has happened to where it wasn’t the worst thing, either. I can’t imagine regularly being around so many people. It’s always only been my mom and me, and it’s not like I could ever have anyone over at our house.
If Pandora thinks my room is bad…
Yeah, she’s never allowed to come over to my mom’s house.
Guilt gnaws at me. As bad as I am, I at least helped her keep things under control. Without me there, I wonder how much of a disaster it’s turned into.
I open up the washer, starting to throw clothes haphazardly into it as Pandora chatters at me.
“Boyfriend, you have to do the clothes first,” Pandora says. She reaches in to pull a towel out of the washer. “Save the sheets and towels for the second round. Those will take longer since they’re bulky.”
“It’s not that serious,” I grumble at her, but I fish out the other towel that had made its way into the washer. “But fine.” I shove the rest of the clothes in, filling the cup of detergent to the appropriate mark, and dump it in. “Okay. There. Laundry has been started. Are you happy now?”
Now I have to remember to take it out of the washer. Blaze or River will bitch if I don’t, so I take my phone out of my pocket and set an alarm.
“Yep!” Pandora wraps her arms around my neck and smiles up at me. “Don’t you feel better, too?”
“No,” I tell her.
I’m sure I’ll feel better when I have fresh sheets on the bed; I always do. It never seems worth the effort, though.
“Where’s Blaze?” I ask.
Pandora shrugs. “Studying? He actually wants to get a good grade, unlike us.”
“I was trying to study,” I remind her. “Until someone barged in and interrupted me to do laundry.”
Pandora steps closer, pressing her breasts against my chest. “You studied all of yesterday, and the day before. And this morning. Come on, Asch. When’s the last time you got laid? Has Blaze been dicking you while I wasn’t watching?”
“Would you be jealous if he was?” I retort, but I wrap my arms around her and kiss her jaw.
“Hmm. I don’t think so?” Pandora digs her nails into the back of my neck. “Only if you tried to steal him away from me. Blaze belongs to me. But I’ll let you borrow him.”
“I’d never steal him away from you,” I tell her, tightening my grasp around her and kissing her.
But Blaze is as much mine as he is Pandora’s.
The thought of being dumped by both of them still makes my stomach knot with dread, but I remind myself that Blaze would never do that.
More to the point, Pandora would never do that. She isn’t built for being exclusive with only one man. She has me, and Blaze, and even River, and it takes all three of us to keep up with one of her.
Pandora moans against my lips. I gasp when she jumps up and wraps her legs around my waist. She’s not heavy, but she’s not light either. I’ve seen how she keeps fit, how toned her muscles are.
“I’m not fucking you in the laundry room,” I murmur as I hold her.
“You’re fucking me in the laundry room,” Pandora counters. “Imagine it. My ass on the laundry machine. Your cock in my cunt. The machine vibrating both of us.”
It isn’t an unwelcome thought.