6. Addie #2
While living together at college offered us unlimited time over the summer to prank each other, watch our favorite movies, and create new traditions like our Sunday dinners, it hadn’t been a gateway I’d hoped for with Blake.
I’d spent most of our summer beside him on the couch, staring at the giant elephant in the living room known as my secret feelings. Not acknowledging it nearly drove me to madness.
Because we had moments.
Brief, all-too-fleeting moments where I swore he felt something, too. He often rushed to share news with me first. His eyes lingered on me longer than usual when I walked into a room. And sometimes, he even tensed like touching me affected him, too.
But he never admitted it.
I lost count of how many times I got my hopes up when he opened his mouth and didn’t profess his undying love. He often said something so completely out of left field, he seemed oblivious to my feelings. But there was no way he hadn’t noticed.
Because while Blake could brush his sock-covered feet against my bare legs and resume eating cereal without a care in the world, I didn’t share that talent.
He could touch my bare skin without a full-fledged crisis happening inside him.
I required three-to-five business days to recover.
Unfortunately, no matter how many mornings he tucked in beside me on the couch, even when he noticed I wore my cutest pajamas, nothing changed.
If he returned my feelings, he would’ve said something by now.
Forcing myself to accept the truth and caving under the growing collection of fantasies our fleeting moments created, I’d let Tessa take me to an “Adult Bookstore” to buy a vibrator.
And in all the times I’d visualized Blake Hawthorne in his current position, on his knees in front of me, the scenario had played out differently.
“Save me, Addie-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”
If I claimed I’d never had an explicit dream involving light sabers and Star Wars cosplay, I’d be the world’s biggest liar. Many had occurred, but never for this reason.
“I’m not tutoring you, Blake.”
“Seriously?”
He pouted, a whine leaving his lips that should’ve turned me off, but I found annoyingly adorable instead. I turned away from him, leaving him to beg on the carpet. My three papers wouldn’t magically write themselves, and with two upcoming exams, I had a full plate already.
Relaying this information to Blake did nothing to stop his begging.
As I walked into my room, I glimpsed him in my full-length mirror. He scooted on his knees to follow me into my bedroom. I swung the door closed behind me, ignoring his cry of protest. It hit his hands with a thud as he stopped it from hitting his face.
I closed my eyes, praying for patience as he crawled over to my desk.
When he dropped his clasped hands onto my lap, dramatically throwing his head on top of my legs, a different fantasy played out in a less desirable way. With his face dangerously close to the apex of my thighs, he pleaded. “Help me, Addie. I need you.”
I resisted the urge to squirm and give away how much his proximity affected me.
A girl could only take so much, and with his face inches from where the darkest corners of my brain imagined it each morning and night, desire pulsed between my legs.
My eyes widened at the first wave of it, and I went rigid beneath him, squeezing my thighs together out of fear he’d notice.
He needed to get away before I embarrassed myself.
A second later, he sat upright with wide eyes and red cheeks. “Shit, Addie. Sorry.”
His eyes darted between my legs, and mortification crept up my neck like a spider, sending a wave of anxiety rolling through me. I shook my head, scrambling to explain my sudden arousal with anything other than “Take me, I’m yours.”
“It’s not—”
“It’s your personal space. I know. I know.”
He swallowed deeply before he shuffled back a few inches, his eyes still darting down to my legs before he tore them away.
I wanted the ground to swallow me whole, but I was already in hell.
With Blake still very much on his knees and begging, he pressed his palms together and held them up in front of him. “I seriously need your help, or I’m going to fail. I’ll get kicked off the team, my future will be ruined. I’ll become a fat, drunk has-been at only age eighteen.”
Drawing a breath for us both, I stared at my workload. “I really don’t have time, Blake.”
I didn’t see a way to make it work, but saying no to him had always been impossible.
When he mirrored my frown, the disappointment on his face crushed me.
I placed a hand on his shoulder, regarding him seriously. “Are you that behind?”
He dropped his eyes and nodded. “I thought I was managing okay, but I had a string of practices, and I let my work slip. I bombed my first test in one of my classes…or maybe two.”
“Have you talked to your professors?”
“No. What are they going to say? I remember how that conversation goes from high school, Addie. ‘Sorry you chose football over academics, and now you lose both. Best wishes in your future endeavors.’ Why bother?”
My eyes flew skyward. “Blake, you have to let them know what’s going on. See if there’s anything you can do to make up assignments or get extra credit.”
He stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “But…why?”
“Because they probably know your load is heavier because of the team. Student athletes have a lot to balance, so there might be plans in place for when you fall behind. Didn’t your advisor tell you any of this?”
He scratched behind his ear. “I, uh, may have missed my appointment with him.”
“And he wouldn’t reschedule it?”
“I don’t know.” He looked properly scolded, even though I hadn’t said what I wanted to say. “He called, but I was busy with something for the team. I assumed he wouldn’t help me. It’s not like Mr. Harlow ever did in high school. So, I…I may have ignored it.”
A groan escaped my mouth before I smothered it. “Blake!”
“I’m sorry, Addie!” Blake’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry, alright? I’m not good at any of this. It’s not what I want to do with my life, so it’s hard to find the motivation. Especially now.”
To his credit, the amount of times Mr. Harlow had called me into his office for something about Adam should’ve been studied. Every time I mentioned concerns about guys like Owen, he brushed them off quickly. He had been the world’s worst guidance counselor.
But this wasn’t high school.
“Excuses and bullshit.” I pointed at him. “You know you need all of this in order to do what you want. You just messed up and fell back on familiar patterns. So what?”
Blake didn’t know that much of my annoyance stemmed from the time he spent flirting instead of studying, but he had the good sense not to defend himself against my accusation.
We both knew it was true.
He’d been making out with a girl at our apartment complex’s pool, seconds from doing God knew what else, just last weekend. That image burned in my brain as he begged me for help.
But, as much as I wanted to make him learn his lesson, we showed up for each other.
I reached up and grasped the pendant on my necklace, fiddling with the small charms. My fingers traced over the one he’d given me as I settled on a compromise. “You still have a chance to fix it.”
“You’re right.” He nodded emphatically. “That’s why I came to you, Addie. I messed up, but…I want to fix it.”
With a huff, I leaned back in my chair. “Look. If you email your professors and talk to your advisor, I’ll set aside time for you this week. In the library. So you can’t get distracted. But you have to email them first.”
If he refused to take this seriously, I couldn’t tutor him, and I needed him to prove it.
He threw his arms around my neck. “Thank you. Thank you, Addie! Thank you!”
My breath caught. Electricity zipped up and down my spine, startling me. Butterflies in my stomach took flight so quickly, I had to swallow a squeak of lust before it burst out of me.
I patted him on the back awkwardly, needing to touch him as little as possible. “You’re welcome. Now, get out of here so I can try to get ahead on my stuff. Keep me posted on what your professors tell you, and what your advisor says.”
He scrambled to his feet, promises trailing behind him as he left my room.
Once he was out of sight, a smile spread over my face.
I couldn’t stop it. My cheeks hurt from how wide it was, and I had to tell myself to chill out several times before I’d calmed down enough to focus.
Still fiddling with the charm on my necklace, I tucked it back into my shirt. I’d gotten my hopes up enough, and I refused to over analyze the elephant in the room for the thousandth time.
But I couldn’t help the seed of hope sprouting in my chest.
Maybe it hadn’t been the right time, initially.
Living together—without the intervention of my parents—often left Adam and me at each other’s throats. More so than Blake and I had ever been in high school.
Mediating twin sibling arguments did not a steamy romance make.
Of course, he’d continued to see me as a surrogate little sister. But now that we’d settled in, he’d chosen to come to me for help, seeing me as more than a bickering family member.
Maybe tutoring him could give us a chance to connect on a new level.
I groaned and buried my face in my arms on the desk.
Maybe I needed to get a life.