13. Roman
Roman
Tate and Ollie go for the flask again five minutes later, and I’m so close to stepping in and ripping it from his hand for a second time.
Is Tate trying to punish himself?
Or punish me?
He keeps checking his phone, then shoving it away. He’s trying to forget his life, and it’s so clear to see. Ever since he got to Crimson College, he’s been on a one-man mission to forget his own reality, but it’s reached a new high tonight.
Niko and Oliver get distracted by the tarot card reading booth, Tate starts throwing rings at the ring toss, over and over, surprisingly super accurate while he’s drunk.
Clouds move through the night sky, gradually covering the stars in a blanket of grey.
I lean against a tree trunk between two stalls and I watch him.
A few minutes later, a guy with blue shaggy hair walks up to Tate while he’s throwing rings at the ring toss booth.
“Holy shit, you are fucking good at that,” he tells Tate, smiling wide at him.
“Guess I’m a natural with hand-eye coordination,” Tate says, looking back at him with a bleary, faraway expression. “Hey, Kian. Sorry I hadn’t texted you yet. I was going to, in a few minutes…”
“Don’t sweat it,” Kian says.
Kian looks like he must be a freshman or a sophomore, and his hair is clearly freshly dyed, the cobalt blue radiant. He’s wearing a white T-shirt that says in rainbow letters “Ready to play.”
I watch as Kian leans in to give Tate a quick hug hello, and my fingers twitch. They start competing on the ring toss a moment later.
It’s obvious right away that this guy is harmless.
But it’s also obvious that he’s flirting with Tate.
Tate never looks around or scans the area to see where I am, like he normally does. He’s purposely trying to act like he doesn’t give a fuck, and with every passing minute I feel a tension radiating from him, threatening to snap.
It has to be why he keeps looking at his phone.
Tate never usually does that.
He isn’t distractible like other people.
He focuses on exactly the person in front of him, and nothing else. But tonight he’s going for his phone like it’s a habit, his face falling into a frown every time.
What is different with you tonight?
And why can’t I fucking stop worrying that there’s something wrong?
They walk from booth to booth, trying out different games.
Kian squeezes Tate’s arm after he makes a particularly good throw on the apple-shot game, and I think of how easy it would be for me to break his bones.
First the tibia, then maybe each tiny, fragile bone in his hand, one fracture for every time he’s touched Tate tonight.
Innocent boy, I tell myself. You don’t hurt innocent people.
I can tell Tate’s getting drunk by the way he shouts when he gets a good shot. He leans against the pole of the tent a little too much.
But then Tate stumbles on his foot, tripping over a little rock on the ground. When he sways, he catches himself, and doesn’t fall.
The blue-haired boy looks at him and laughs.
“Hey,” I call out, finally stepping out of the shadows toward the two of them.
I drape my arm over Tate’s shoulder, pulling him in close to me. “You want to head over to the photo booth?”
Tate doesn’t look up at me, but he doesn’t pull away from my touch.
He smells like green apple, and his cheeks are flushed with rosy pink slashes.
He leans into me, the side of his body pushing up against the front of my torso. I’m hard from the moment I feel his warmth.
My cock can’t handle being near him anymore. I’ve lost all control of my brain’s link to the rest of my body.
At least a hatefuck is understandable: the person pisses you off, but you still want to fuck them, only for their body.
This isn’t like that at all.
This feeling is much worse.
I don’t hate Tate even a little bit. I hate how I feel. It’s like I want to merge with his body, to possess him, while I also want to punish him for everything he’s doing to hurt himself tonight. He has to know he drank too much.
I don’t want to cage him.
But I also have to have him.
With me, and me only.
“I’m Kian,” the other guy says to me, holding out his hand, and I’d forgotten he was standing there at all. “Nice to meet you.”
“Roman.”
I shake his hand and I see the way he looks between me and Tate.
I hope he fucking feasts his eyes on the two of us.
I hope he can tell Tate sleeps in my bed.
“Going to grab another cider. I’ll… be right back,” Kian says, walking off in the opposite direction.
I don’t say a word to Tate once Kian is gone.
I stay there with Tate close to me, running my palm over his arm, situated between the ring toss booth and the edge of the stage where the live band was playing before.
He’s the first one to break the silence.
“Roman,” he asks me, “Hunter said he would instantly get an alert if my stalker was on campus, right?”
“Yes. He knows the guy’s unique phone identifier, as well as the geolocation of his accounts. At this point, he wouldn’t even have to make a post. Hunter always knows where he is.”
“So we would know if he was in town?”
“Immediately.”
I’ve never seen more obvious relief on Tate’s face.
He seems particularly glad to hear it, and I’m not sure why.
“Kian was just telling me that there’s a house party tonight,” Tate says. “I’m going to go with him. They have a keg.”
He doesn’t slur a single word, but he’s talking to me with a pointed, bitter undertone. I feel his hand come up to shove against my chest, and I clamp my arm around his shoulder harder.
“You need water, not a house party,” I tell him, leaning close to his ear.
“Fuck that,” Tate says softly. He turns his head to glare up at me. “Tell me why you agreed to this job.”
I cock my head to one side, looking down at him. “I don’t have to tell you fucking anything. Shut your mouth.”
He gives me a little shove on my chest and I reach up to clutch his wrist in my fingers, gripping tight.
“Jesus,” I whisper, looking down at the gold flecks in his eyes.
Whatever doubts that were still lingering inside me about my sexuality may as well have been obliterated by now, because of… this.
Him.
His smile is usually so sweet, but right now his expression is absolutely ferocious, like he’s ready to annihilate me, or something.
“Just tell me what you want—”
“You are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” I utter, squeezing his wrist while he grips the front of my shirt in his hand. “I can’t fucking stand being around you because I want to fuck you, all of the time. I’ve never wanted to fuck someone so much. You’re impossible, Tate.”
“Stop.”
“You are this fucking angel, and yet… you are an absolute feral freak, all wrapped up into one person. You make me obsessed.”
A flash of blue appears in my peripheral vision and I glance up to see Kian again, a faint smile on his face.
I drop my hand from Tate’s wrist and his hand gently lands on my hip.
“Um, I found my friend Zoe by the cider,” Kian says. “We’re going to head to the house party. Did you guys, uh, want to join?”
“I think I’m going to call it a night,” Tate tells him, pulling out his phone and glancing at it for the millionth time. “It was fun, though.”
Kian gives Tate a little salute, then nods at me. “Catch you guys later.”
I nod my head. “Goodbye, Kian.”
“Was nice to meet you,” Tate calls after him, but he’s already looking in my eyes again.
“Come here,” I tell Tate, and I take his hand to lead him around to the back of the tent stalls. I take him behind the music stage, shrouded by a stack of tall boxes of equipment.
“Sorry to interrupt a date with this blue-haired boy,” I tell him. “Did you have fun, drinking into oblivion?”
“Kian’s cute, but he isn’t my type.”
“Did he make you uncomfortable?”
“I wasn’t afraid of him, if that’s what you’re asking—”
“You’ve looked uncomfortable about a dozen times tonight,” I tell him.
“I just wanted to have a fun night at the fair.”
I reach out and squeeze his arm. “You haven’t been having fun?”
The truth is that Tate hasn’t looked at his phone since the moment Kian left.
“Kian never made me uncomfortable. Just was trying to find a way to let him down easy. Was flattering when he told me I’m fuckable, though.”
“Well, he will never get to do that.”
Tate lifts an eyebrow. “Roman.”
I speak more slowly, drawing out every word. “Kian is never going to fuck you.”
Tate’s eyes sparkle. “Because you really do dictate when I decide I need to get fucked.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want him.” Tate sighs, leaning his forehead on my chest for a moment. “I only want you.”
A breeze blows through the trees, fluttering the tops of the tents on the stalls in the fair.
It smells like the start of rain.
The clouds are thicker in the sky now, and the air is even colder than it was when we arrived.
“There is nothing that feels as good as you feel,” I murmur.
“But we aren’t safe, Roman,” he whispers. “So what the fuck are we supposed to do?”
I bring my hand up under his chin and gently tip his head back.
“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another person,” I tell him.
Holy fuck.
That is the truth.
It feels like something is pushing at the seams inside my body.
What am I going to tell him? That I’ll snap my fingers and not have Bratva blood anymore?
His eyelashes flick up and down, and when he looks at my lips then my eyes like that, I feel like something in me is about to blow.
“Sleep in the bed tonight,” he says. “Not on the floor. Sleep with me. I can’t be alone tonight. You don’t understand, Roman. There’s so much…”
“If I’m in that bed with you, I will fuck you until the sun rises,” I say. “And then I’ll fuck you again after it does. Your ass will be raw and aching and you’ll still beg for me.”
“I’ve wanted that for weeks and now I’m so goddamn afraid we’ll be dead, Roman. Fuck—”
It’s like the breath is knocked out of me all at once when I see the fear flash through his eyes.
All traces of anger are gone from his expression now.
And I’ve never seen his expression so scared.
Rain starts to fall in tiny, cool drops on my hair, the pattering sound hitting the leaves and the tops of the tents.
I draw him close, putting my arms around him and pulling him close.
“Hey. You’re okay,” I tell him. “Stay with me. Let’s walk home. What is going on?”
“I have to tell you something,” he says, his voice shaky.
I put my arm around him as the drizzle comes down along the walkway toward Red Row.
And I keep my arm there for the entire walk home, as Tate opens his phone and reads me things that break different pieces of my heart, one by one.
He reads every text message.
In detail.
He shakes, and looks up at me every once in a while, like he’s worried I’ll explode.
But I’m only thinking one thing.
I will kill him.
For making you this scared.
All of this needs to come to a brutal fucking end.
Immediately, after I hear all of the texts, I call Hunter, even as drops of water fall over my phone as we walk. Hunter checks through every single one of Lucian Farina’s accounts, and all of them still say he is in the city, hours and hours away from us here.
For now, we are safe.
But I’ve never been more certain that I’m no longer sticking to my duties of simply watching over Tate on campus.
I’m going to find the guy.
And eliminate him from the face of this Earth.
I'm also not surprised or even fucking bothered to hear about the police record. “There are ways to access crime records like this online. It’s not always easy, for the general public, but for a psychotic man addicted to the dark corners of the Internet, it’s not impossible.
The document was meant to scare you, but it does not scare me. ”
By the time we arrive outside Onyx House, both of us are soaked from the rain.
Tate pauses in the cobbled driveway, leaning his head against my chest. His hair glints with tiny water droplets in the low light.
“I don’t want to go inside yet,” he tells me. “I can’t be around other people right now.”
I run my palm down the side of his head, my thumb skating over his jawline. “Do you want me to leave you to yourself?”
He quickly grips my wrist. “No. Stay… please stay with me. And tell me you aren’t upset with me.”
I frown. “Why would I be upset with you?”
“Because I didn’t tell you the moment I got the messages. I was keeping a secret. I wanted to have a good night so badly that I drowned it out with liquor, so stupidly, and of course it still didn’t fucking work. When is my life going to be normal again, Roman? When will I ever be able to live—”
“Tate, I am so proud of you,” I say with zero hesitation.
And when he looks up from the ground and meets my gaze again, the look on his face is so broken.
“I’m not someone to be proud of.”
“You told me, Tate. You could have kept it secret. I know it took you a while to warm up to it, but you told me. Every word I told you on night one is still the truth. You are safe with me.”
I keep one arm on Tate as I reach in my pocket for my car keys.
A little beep-beep sounds out behind us, and I open the back door to my Escalade.
“In,” I tell Tate. “It’ll be just us. We aren’t going to go inside the house yet.”
I climb into the long back seat of the vehicle and he follows after.
When he closes the door, it shuts out the sound of the world. Rain patters gently on the windows and the roof, and now it’s just me and him, shrouded from the world.
He shoves off his bomber jacket and lets it drop to the floor, pulling in a slow breath.
His damp white long-sleeve clings to every muscle, and he still looks so strong, even now.
“It’s weird how my chest feels heavy as fuck and hollow, all at once,” he tells me. “Is there some scientific reason for that in the human body?”
I run my knuckles gently down the center of his chest. “A lot of emotion rests here. Yes, it is normal, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The sound of the rain is soothing, and for a while we just stay like this.
And I realize that I’ve never felt more comfortable with another person before.
I know he’s not just waiting for me to speak. He actually trusts me, and he’s comfortable in silence, even if he’s the best talker in the world.
“Fuck,” Tate whispers softly a few minutes later. “Thank you, Roman.”
I hum deeply. “Always.”
I feel his eyes land on me. “What are you thinking about?”
“You. I’m always thinking about you.”
He exhales. “Yeah, I think about you all the fucking time, too. What were you thinking about me?”
I release his hand and then drag my palm up his thigh, lost in thought.
“Would you have let that boy fuck you tonight, Tate?” I murmur. “If I weren’t there?”
“Is that what you’re thinking about right now? Kian?”
I run my free hand through my damp hair.
“No. I am thinking about shoving you down into this seat, and fucking you until you forget anyone else’s cock other than mine.”