Chapter Two
My eyes flutter open when I hear the front door slam.
I waited up half the night for Pax’s arrival, but I must have fallen asleep sometime after midnight.
The sound of baggage being maneuvered through the front door is followed by quick footsteps, and the next second, I’m squinting up at a tall figure.
For a second, confusion holds me frozen. There’s a strange man in my house—a tall, muscular, gorgeous guy who looks too old to be a student. I can’t decide whether to drool over his body of his face. Guy looks like he just stepped out of a traveling model show.
The fuck? I know I locked that door. I make to stand, but my feet get tangled in the blanket I threw over myself, and I’m suddenly sprawled facedown floorboards.
Just as quickly, I’m back on my feet, the guy having hauled me up with lightning-quick reflexes. I’m not even sure I hit the floor before I went from horizontal to vertical.
“Who the hell are you?” I demand, a little snappish from the wounded dignity.
“I’m your roommate,” the guy says, his voice low and growly. “Calm down before you hurt yourself, Vynessa.”
Calm down? The dude tells me to calm down when there’s a complete stranger standing in my house.
Despite myself, though, a wave of calm runs through my limbs and chest. This guy isn’t attacking me, and he knows my name.
Maybe it’s these two things that have my heartbeat slowing as I stare into this his breathtakingly, heartstoppingly gorgeous face.
“Roommate?” I squeak.
It’s been three long months since I’ve seen Pax, but this guy is definitely not him.
Unless my best friend grew six inches, dyed his hair dark and grew it long enough to pull up in a topknot, and aged ten years this summer, that is.
Pax is unquestionably a hottie, but this guy is something else.
I take a second to drink in the tall glass of water standing before me, from the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen to his tawny brown man-bun to his tall, toned, muscular body.
One thing’s for sure. This is no first-year student.
He’s a full-grown man-man. And fuck if my lady bits aren’t igniting at the sight of him.
Am I dreaming? Is this some sort of joke from my family, paying a male escort to arrive at my house because I made the stupid mistake of telling Sadie I wanted to lose my chastity? I wouldn’t put it past them to come up with such a ridiculous plan, but there’s no way they could afford it.
“I think you might have the wrong house,” I blurt. “Also, how did you get in here? I locked that.”
The front door slams, and I almost jump into man-bun’s invitingly massive arms. They just look so strong, I know they could protect me. That’s totally the reason.
“We’re here, Nessie,” Pax’s familiar voice calls out, and to my surprise, my eyes suddenly go damp.
Before now, I’ve never spent more than a couple weeks away from Pax in my life, and yeah, I missed the fuck out of him this summer, but I didn’t expect to actually cry when he came home.
I’d never live it down if he saw, so I quickly brush the tears away.
“Pax, you piece of demonling dung,” I yell, jumping up and slipping past the huge hottie.
I thunder into the hallway and throw my arms and legs around my childhood best friend, squeezing him like a koala-monkey hugs a tree.
He smells faintly of coconut and sunshine, like he’s brought the beach back with him from summer training.
“Down, Nessie,” he says, his voice strained and a tad uncomfortable. It’s the same way I’ve greeted him for years, but Pax avoids meeting my eyes this time.
I pull back, climb down, and look up at him. “Sorry! I’m just so excited to see you.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s fine. You too.”
He’s either grown up some over the summer, or the time apart has made me notice things I didn’t when I saw him on the daily.
For one thing, he’s bigger—not as big as man-bun, but Pax has definitely been bulking up.
His wavy golden hair has grown out, and he’s sporting a golden beach tan which makes his sea-green eyes stand out all the more.
Those eyes melted the panties of even the most stoic chick in our village school.
The thought makes my gut clench with what might be jealousy, but I push it away.
Yes, I’ve had a thing for Pax at times periodically over the years, but our friendship is more important.
Plus, I know how quickly the boy moves through partners.
I have no interest in being his next ex-lover.
The pity-screw idea is definitely a no-go.
My chastity will have to go to a hot stranger for sure.
“You look…” Pax trails off, studying me in a way that makes my heart flutter.
“Like a hot mess?” I say with a forced laugh, touching my hair self-consciously. “I was unpacking all night. I passed out on the sofa waiting for you.”
“Yep. Hot mess. Exactly what I was going to say,” he says, chuckling.
“Thanks, jerk.”
He shakes his head and looks like he might banter with me some more, but instead he glances over my shoulder at man-bun, and I remember that Pax brought a friend.
We’ve known each other so long that sometimes we know what the other one will do before they know—at least, that’s what I thought.
But I could have never predicted Pax showing up with a random stranger out of the blue, and suddenly, I feel like there’s something off between us, a distance I don’t know how to deal with.
But Pax and I moved far from home to study at this academy, and I don’t know a single soul at DLSA but him, so I’ll have to figure it out. I cannot fuck this up.
“Who’s your new friend?” I ask as we step into the dingy sitting room.
“This is True,” Pax says, touching the back of my arm as he gestures to the gorgeous guy who walked in to find me sprawled on the sofa, probably snoring or something equally embarrassing, like drooling on myself.
“What’s true?” I ask.
“I’m True,” man-bun says, his face overly serious.
“Wait,” I say, laughing and shaking a finger at him. “I think I get it. It’s true, your name is True.”
“Why don’t you just show us our rooms,” True says instead of humoring my attempt at a lame joke.
Okay then. Not so friendly.
“Your…rooms?” I ask, glancing back and forth between him and Pax. “There’s only two bedrooms, Pax.”
“Great,” True mutters, casting a frown Pax’s way. “We’re sharing a room?”
Pax shrugs, his gaze bouncing around the unit.
“I had no idea Pax was bringing home a guest,” I say, a little pissed that he’s acting like I was supposed to know he was coming. I’m not running a boarding house. This may be a rundown hovel, but it’s my rundown hovel. I already feel a little defensive over it.
“Not a guest,” Pax says. “He’s our third roommate. He’s going to live here.”
“For good?” I stammer, stepping back. Heat rises in my face, and I can’t help but be annoyed at Pax for putting me in this position.
Yes, his family is paying the bulk of the rent, and if he wants to move someone else in, I’d probably be okay with it.
But he could have talked to me before he made the decision—and not in front of the guy.
I try to be diplomatic though, since we’re apparently all going to be staying under the same roof for the foreseeable future.
“I took the bigger bedroom, since the other one has a washroom,” I say.
“I know how you like your space to get ready, Pax. But I can switch rooms with you guys, so you’ll have the bigger room. ”
“Don’t worry about it,” Pax says. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“It’s pretty small.” I chew at my lower lip, suddenly uncertain.
Pax isn’t with this guy, right? I know he’s hooked up with guys before, but he’s never courted any of them.
Actually, he’s never courted anyone. Maybe all that training led to something more intimate than the village school experience.
“He said it’s fine,” True says, heading down the hall without waiting for me to show him to his room. It’s a small house, so it’s not like he’ll need help finding it, but it still seems abrupt and kind of rude. He has a bit of an accent I can’t place, so maybe it’s a cultural gap.
I make a mental note to do what I can to make things right between us.
If he’s Pax’s friend—or lover—he’s a friend of mine.
Pax may not be discerning about who he’ll screw, but he’s a good judge of character for the people he keeps around.
I don’t know how many guys he warned me away from in the village back home.
He wouldn’t bring anyone who was less than a hundred percent trustworthy into our home.
“The place looks nice,” Pax says, no irony in his voice, or at least none that I can detect.
“Pax, it’s a hovel. You’re allowed to be annoyed at me for my fuck up.”
He shrugs.
The fuck is this? Pax seems different, not the jovial, testosterone-fueled prankster I went to school with. I touch his arm, trying to find comfort for myself as well as offer it with a familiar gesture.
“Is everything okay?” I whisper. As protective as Pax has always been of me, I’m just as protective of him. I don’t know what he got mixed up in, or if he lost a wager or owes this guy, but I want to make sure it’s nothing that could cause trouble for him at school this year.
“Yeah,” he says with a thin smile. “Maybe a little tired from the journey.”
“Oh.”
Even though he says he’s tired, I halfway expect he’ll want to stay up and talk, at least for a few minutes to catch up on what we’ve both done over the summer. But True calls from down the hall, his voice more than a little demanding, and to my surprise, Pax doesn’t tell him to fuck off.
Instead, he gives me an apologetic smile and squeezes my shoulder.
As his calloused fingers brush over my skin, a tiny flare of warmth ignites at the point of contact, and tingles travel down my arm.
Pax clicks his tongue once before following True’s voice.
Dread sinks into my stomach when I realize that the ghost of our brief contact lingers well beyond the actual touch.
I shouldn’t have agreed to move in with Pax if I’d had even the slightest interest in him.
I can’t imagine anything worse than the awkwardness of living with an ex if things didn’t work out.
Which means it’s a good thing that he heads down the hall to his new room, leaving me standing in the middle of the living room alone.
Totally a good thing.