FRAT PARTY PART TWO #2
It’s like a fucking train wreck. I can’t fucking look away, no matter how gruesome or painful the scene is. I thought the kiss was meaningless, but I know both Qiang’s and Cade’s reputations, and there isn’t really any other way to translate Cade leading them up to his room.
There’s an urge–deep-rooted and all-consuming–to march across this house, grab Qiang and carry them home, to stop this nonsense right fucking now. But there’s a force that’s driving me back, moving me away from it.
As they disappear from view, it’s not until a door closes behind me that I realize it was Imani, dragging me away from the dancefloor, who was the force keeping me from crossing the room.
I mean, if I’d been even a bit more tuned in to my surroundings at the moment, I could have easily not been led away, but I was too fucking gutted to pay attention.
I’m not even completely sure I didn’t just let her lead me here. I don’t remember moving while the world flipped upside down. I don’t even know where we are. A dark, empty room of some kind, but I’m too overwhelmed to really take it in.
My hands tingle, and for the first time in a long time, I’m itching for a fight. I want to rearrange someone’s face, and I know just who I want to hit, but before I can reach for the door and search for Kingston, Imani finds her way into my arms.
Her lips crashing into mine is the final piece that brings me back to reality.
I’ve been so stuck on how everything came about that I hadn’t bothered to ponder why Imani brought me here.
It bothers me that I don’t remember enough of the evening, being so completely focused on Qiang and those flocking around them, that I don’t even know how I’ve been acting towards Imani.
Have I been flirting back? Leading her on? I can’t recall hardly a single thing with her this evening, other than agreeing to dance with her after Qiang slipped onto the dancefloor with Cade.
The thought reminds me of what happened on that dancefloor, and something so ugly and forceful rears through my head that I crash my mouth back down to hers, like kissing her hard enough will somehow erase the pain that seeing Qiang kissing Cade, and then letting Cade take them to his room, has caused.
Her hands wrap around the back of my neck, and my body is on autopilot. This is by far not the first party I’ve ended up in a back room with a gorgeous mouth on mine. My body knows how to react, and maybe if I just close my eyes, she can make me forget, just for a minute.
I’d thought about this earlier, slipping back into this lifestyle.
Obviously, Imani isn’t the best candidate because she’s made it clear she’s hoping for more than a night, which immediately breaks the code, but she’s warm and wants me.
Maybe that’s all I need to get through sleeping with her.
Maybe it’ll even be easy if I close my eyes and let it happen.
The reasoning jars me; it’s not fair to her to do that.
Her hands snake down my chest, rucking up my shirt and flitting across my bare skin.
It’s been so long since I’ve been intimate with anyone that my skin pebbles beneath her touch, but my brain keeps screaming at me that this is wrong.
She’s the wrong person in my arms, and I’m only holding her here to soothe the ache of someone else’s absence.
She may have been the one to bring me back here, but every ounce of my reciprocation is fucked up on every level because not for a moment has it been about her.
I know Qiang left our house in a mixture of emeralds and sapphires with eyes hiding more pain than they allow their countenance to show.
I know they were wearing their favorite boots, and their hair was curled around their face.
I know they had on four different-colored scarves and no fewer than a dozen different lengths of chains around their neck.
But without looking at Imani, I haven’t the faintest idea if her hair is up or down, or even what color her clothes are, or whether she’s in pants or a skirt.
This isn’t me, and Imani deserves way better than some guy having to get through sleeping with her to help him not think about someone else for five minutes. It’s absolutely cruel, and something I would deck the fuck out of someone else for doing.
I pull back, gently pushing her off of me until her eyes clear, and then tilt up at me with more defeated understanding than confusion.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Imani, but–”
“You’re just using me to forget about Qiang?” she interrupts me sadly, her head nodding more to herself than to me as she steps farther away.
“I’m so sorry,” I practically whisper, completely at a loss as to how to salvage this kind of situation.
She lets out an airy bark of a chuckle, a simple sound that carries her disappointment, understanding, and acceptance.
“I hoped, when I saw Qiang and Cade kissing, that maybe the attraction between you two wasn’t as reciprocated as it always seemed.
Kind of hoped that since you two weren’t actually together that I might still have a chance, but evidently I was mistaken.
” She shrugs lightly, trying to hide the weight of her disappointment behind a feigned nonchalance.
I shake my head, feeling like a toolbag asshole. “I don’t have words beyond you deserve better than what was gonna happen, and better than the intentions I had behind it.”
A genuine smile spreads across her face, and she nods. “Yeah, I know. I just hoped, you know. But for what it’s worth, thanks for stopping. I think I knew it wasn’t gonna be that simple, but sometimes hope obliterates reality.”
I grimace at that. “I shouldn’t have let it get this far.”
She shrugs. “I probably shouldn’t have tried to take advantage of the situation either. So, maybe, just friends then?”
I close my eyes with relief, still feeling like a dick, but at least the damage isn’t irreparable. “I would be extremely honored to be just your friend.”
“Yeah, then as just your friend, do you wanna talk about what happened tonight?” she asks, her face curling into a new kind of smile that I’ve never seen before, one that’s genuine and full of camaraderie, instead of the flirty smirks I’m used to.
“There’s only so much I can say,” I point out, knowing there are massive gaps in Qiang’s and my story that I can’t reveal without their permission.
She shrugs again. “Then say what you can, if you want to. It just looks like you could use a friend, too, you know.”
I nod, excessively grateful because I fucking hated tonight, and getting some of that off of my chest could definitely help.
“Are you sure you don’t want to head back out there?”
She shakes her head. “Naw, I think if you don’t want to talk, I’ll probably call it a night anyway, so…” she trails off, letting me know she’d rather talk as just a friend than go back to the party, and I take a deep breath of relief as I slide down the wall.
For the next hour or so, I just talk, letting out all the parts I have the liberty to share, while taking comfort in her friendship, which is honestly much more fulfilling than the night would have been if I’d shut my brain off and selfishly taken what she was offering earlier.