Chapter 5
5
I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm, and I went to grab my phone to shut the alarm off when an arm reached around me and did it for me. What the fuck? I looked over, and suddenly, all of last night’s events came tumbling back. Remi Taylor was in my bed, practically naked, smiling at me, and if what I was feeling against my ass was his hard cock, then the morning wood rumor I had heard so much about was very accurate.
“Good morning.” He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
“Um.” Did I have morning breath? Was my hair a mess? What did I look like? Oh my God, I felt the panic rise in me, and it felt paralyzing not knowing what I was supposed to do next.
“Is your mom home?” he whispered.
“Not yet. She finishes work around now, but her hospital is like an hour away, so I’m always gone before she gets back,” I told him, throwing the blanket off me and sitting up to get ready for school.
“Okay, good, so we can be as loud as we want then.” He snaked his arm around me and pulled me back against his chest.
“Remi!” I shrieked. “We have school. Let go.” But I was laughing as he tickled my sides and kissed his way down my face.
“I’ll be quick,” he said as he nipped along my chin. He filled his hands with my ass, and I knew my pajama bottoms had ridden up as I slept, so it was basically handfuls of bare skin.
“Fuckkkkk,” he moaned out as he made my ass jiggle. “I swear your ass is just perfection.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Hey, can you wear that little green skirt you wore to one of my games? Goddamn, your butt looked fine in it.” He was back to kissing his way down my face and then began sucking on my neck.
“I wore that in February,” I told him, feeling surprised that he remembered such a small detail like what I had worn months ago.
“Oh. I know. It’s been burnt in my memory ever since,” he told me as he lifted my T-shirt and put his mouth on my nipple. This time directly on my skin.
“R-Remi. We do not have time. Liam is going to be here in thirty minutes,” I groaned out.
“How long do you need to get ready?” My nipple slipped out of his mouth, and I saw how shiny he had made it.
“Like all thirty minutes,” I admitted.
“Well, I can’t argue with that.” He rolled over and slapped my butt as he did. “Let’s go to school. We’ll pick this up another time.” He winked at me. I gestured to his obvious hard-on and said, “Sorry.”
He laughed as he stretched, then unplugged his phone.
“Babe, I am so used to this, just ignore him.” Then he unlocked the door and went to the bathroom, where I heard the shower start up.
I texted Liam to remind him to bring clothes up for Remi, and then I went to my closet, taking out the flared, short green skirt that Remi apparently liked so much and a white short-sleeved scoop-neck T-shirt that said: “I’m not shy, I just don’t like you” on the front in black letters. I did my skin care routine in the kitchen again and went back to my room to do my makeup. Remi walked in with a towel around his waist and his hair all wet as I was finishing up my hair.
“Fuck, babe, you look so hot.” He literally stopped in his tracks to look at me. I giggled and did a little spin.
“You like?”
“Very much,” he said, sounding really serious. My phone buzzed, and I saw it was Liam saying he was at the front door.
“Liam is here. Act normal,” I warned him quietly and went to open the front door. I was so anxious about what was happening with Remi that I didn’t have any room left to panic that Liam would now be seeing my apartment for the first time too. As I opened the door, Liam rushed in, looking overly concerned and holding a shopping bag which I assumed contained Remi’s clothing. He gave me a quick hug and then said, “Shaen, the drama is bad. His dad threatened my dad. My mom was literally livid… where is he?” Liam tried to catch me up quickly, yet his concern turned to shock when he saw Remi coming out of my room clad in only a blue towel.
“Da fuck?” He looked at Remi and then looked back at me. “Shaen Collins, is that a motherfucking hickey on your neck?!”
Was it? I didn’t know. I didn’t answer. Which probably made it worse.
“Oh my God, you whores!” Liam seemed more excited than either of us at this turn of events. “Remi, you can’t be sucking on a girl’s neck like that. Where are your manners?” Liam scolded his cousin while laughing. Remi actually looked kind of ashamed of himself as Liam snapped a photo on his phone and showed me that I did, in fact, have a large bruise on the side of my neck.
“Oh fuck.” I rushed back to my makeup bag and took out a color corrector and concealer. “Come here and help me. I can’t see it well enough to cover it,” I called out to the boys in my living room. Remi had gone into the bathroom to get dressed, so Liam came over and helped me dab on the product until he said it wasn’t noticeable anymore.
“Are we gonna talk about this, Shay Shay?” Liam asked as I grabbed my bag, turned off my light, and went into the kitchen to make all of us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Talk about what?” I asked innocently, licking peanut butter off my fingers as I put each of our sandwiches on a paper plate.
“Uh, that you fucked my cousin!” Liam looked at me like I was stupid.
“I didn’t fuck her,” Remi corrected as he left the bathroom wearing a black T-shirt and washed-out jeans. Liam scowled at me, trying to figure out if we were lying, and then looked over at his cousin.
“Okay, we do not have the motherfucking time for this, let’s go to the car. Lia had a doctor’s appointment, so you’re up front, big guy. We have to leave now if we’re gonna make it in time.” Liam handed Remi his breakfast and took a big bite out of his own sandwich as he rushed us out the door like a mother hen. I turned around to lock the door and followed the boys down the four flights of stairs to where Liam’s car was parked. Remi was silent the entire time, and I was starting to feel super weird about the whole thing. Remi opened the car door for me and waited till I was inside to shut it. Then he got into the front seat as Liam started the car.
“Best breakfast ever, babe,” Liam thanked me around a big bite of bread and Jiffy. The babe sounded different coming from him than it did when I heard it from Remi. Liam had been my best friend for so long, and I had never felt anything but platonic feelings for him, while Remi sent my whole system into overdrive.
“Did you guys study for the lit test?” Liam asked as he stopped at a red light. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was biding his time, but I knew the minute he had me alone, he would be grilling me for details. There was no way he was going to let it go this easy.
“Nope,” I heard Remi’s deep voice respond. Liam looked at me in the rearview mirror and laughed.
“I’ll be fine. It’s just an essay. I’ve never had an issue with essays,” I said, giving Liam a “shut the fuck up” look with my eyes. He winked and looked back at the road as the light turned green. I stared out the window, taking in the scenery as I tried to calm myself down from all the anxious thoughts that were filling me. I hadn’t processed anything that had happened since last night, and I was starting to really freak out. As if Remi could hear the noise in my head, I suddenly felt his hand on me. He had reached behind him through the space between his seat and the door, and his fingers were making small circles on my ankle. I let out a shuddering breath. He wasn’t looking at me. He had barely said a word since we got into the car, but I had never felt more seen in my life.
So this is what not feeling alone feels like.
The bell was ringing just as we ran into school, so with some hurried goodbyes and some serious eye contact from Remi, we split ways and went to our different classes. I saw the boys when we sat for our literature test, but I didn’t see them again until lunch. When I walked into the lunchroom, I saw that Lia was back from her doctor’s appointment, and she was sitting next to Liam, eating fries off of his plate. Everyone had a burger except Carter, who was opening up his container of weighed-out chicken and broccoli. It looked like I had missed a “what do you want to eat” message in the group chat. Fuck me. I sat next to Rachel, who had her head down and was resting her eyes, as she called it, but it was really a full-on nap that she tended to take during lunch.
“Scoot over.” Remi was standing next to me, holding two burgers. I moved over quickly, causing Rachel to jolt out of her nap, but she just laid her head down again and went back to sleep. Remi sat down next to me, and I was uncomfortably aware of how warm he was with his side pressed to my side and his thigh touching mine. Liam turned and gave me a look as the rest of the table paused to stare. Remi never sat next to me, let alone this close. I could feel my cheeks heating up, and I avoided looking at anyone for too long.
“What?” I heard Remi ask when Eva and Dee wouldn’t stop looking at us.
“Absolutely nothing,” Eva replied around a bite of fries. But she was grinning, and Dee was making kissing faces at us.
“You can all go fuck yourselves,” I announced. “I don’t know what Liam has said to you, but it is false.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lia mumbled around a mouthful of milkshake.
“You wanna swallow and say that again? Being that you’re so good at that, it shouldn’t be too hard for you,” I snapped, but I had a smile on my face. I heard and felt Remi let out a laugh next to me.
“Oh damn.” Carter laughed as well and leaned over the table to high-five me.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck off.” Lia took another big sip of her drink and swallowed in an overly exaggerated way. I had managed to divert the group’s attention for now, and I felt relieved as I unzipped my bag to pull out my water bottle because, in the chaos of the morning, I had forgotten to pack myself lunch. It was then that Remi pushed one of the burgers in front of him over to me. I looked up at him, and he shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips.
“Lia said she didn’t see an order from you, so I got what I thought you’d like,” he told me, talking quietly.
“That is so nice. You didn’t have to do that,” I told him as I unwrapped the burger and bit into it because I was so famished. “How much do I owe you?”
He stared at me for a moment and then took a bite of his burger without answering. When did Remi eating become hot, I wondered, watching his throat and Adam's apple move as he chewed. Fuck me, I was in trouble. I didn’t join the conversation but rather let it all float over me as I ate. I heard Remi joking around with some of the team that passed by our table and stopped to hype him up for the game they were playing tonight. The official season had ended, but the school had all the sports teams keep playing until the school year was over. Liam and Lia were talking quietly to each other, and he had his arm around her, holding her back to his front. Eva and Carter had left lunch early to study for Carter’s math final. Carter was in eleventh grade, while Eva would be graduating with the rest of us. Rachel was still sleeping, and Dee had gone over to another table to talk to a girl she thought was cute. I was feeling kind of hot due to being stuck between a sleeping Rachel and a very warm Remi. I also noticed that I felt well-rested, which I usually never felt. I was sitting in a bit of a blissful state from the intensity of the orgasm I had last night, and I just felt sort of… happy. Happiness scared me because it always felt like it was something that could be taken away from me at any moment, but for now, I let myself have it. I would deal with shoving the feelings back down later. As I finished my burger, I felt Remi shift in his seat, and I knew he had to be looking down at me.
“Was it good?” I heard him ask.
“Was what good?” I responded without looking at him.
“Your burger? What else would I be asking about?”
I heard the grin in his voice, and I shrugged, trying not to let my thoughts go to the fact that I now knew what he sounded like when he came.
“Yes, it was good. Thank you. I still need to pay you back,” I told him as I put my water bottle back in my backpack.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he responded, his jaw flexing as he drank his electrolyte water. He grabbed my garbage together with his again and got up from the table.
“See you later, baby,” he said so quietly as he walked off that I almost thought I had imagined it.