Chapter 34
KAI
The second I get out of the locker room showers, I race through the orange tunnels to get to Mellonbaum’s class.
I check the time on my phone. “Putain!”
I’m already fifteen minutes late. I groan, hurrying towards the Schiefele building.
Someone suddenly barrels into me.
“Oh, shit–”
“—āiyā!”
I grind to a halt, my head snapping up from my phone. “Diana?”
My heart breaks when I see her standing there. Her face is washed in glowing orange light, yet she’s never looked more drained.
“Hi.” Diana’s dark eyes are wet with tears. She looks down and wraps her arms around herself. My hands twitch, desperate to hold her and crush her to my chest.
Keep your distance.
You have sex and nothing more.
I force my hands into my pockets where they curl around some loose vending machine change.
“What are you doing in the orange tunnels?” I ask.
“I wanted to walk to class without anyone staring at me. Except that was a horrible idea because I’ve never been down here alone.” Diana huffs. Her cheeks puff out with an angry scowl. “I got lost a few times.”
I hold back the smile teasing my lips. Diana always looks so regal in her heels and designer clothes that it makes me weak whenever I see her slightly lose her cool like this. It’s cuter than it should be.
“Well, if you’ve bumped into me, you’re most likely going the right way.” My smile fades as Diana shuts her eyes, rubbing her forehead with a sigh. I swallow hard. “I’ve been texting you all morning to see if you were okay, Di. I heard about what happened.”
She smiles bitterly. “Actually, things have changed just now.”
“What do you mean?”
Diana tells me everything that went down this morning.
From marching into Benedict Vanderkoff’s office, wrestling down a chance to appeal their decision, and then walking out with a deal that might bring her back half of what she’s lost. Pride burns hot in my chest. Diana could’ve given up and let the board step all over her, but she kept on fighting with that fire I love so much.
“What happens now? Did you hear back from Benedict?”
“I did.” Diana draws out her phone and shows me the email.
Diana, I’ll cut to the chase: The point you brought up about Felix Russo was fair. We don’t want our reporters thinking that we stand for discriminatory practices. For that reason, I’ve persuaded the board to agree to your proposal. You have fourteen days to overturn our decision. Good luck.
“I don’t get it. If they don’t want people thinking they’re discriminating against you, why can’t they just reinstate you as editor? Why make you jump through all these hoops and prove yourself if Felix never had to do the same?”
“So they can have their cake and eat it, too.” Diana shoves her phone back into her bag.
“Doing this only makes them look like they’re not discriminating because they gave me a chance to appeal their decision.
But if I can’t prove myself to them, the ones who never supported me from the start can still keep me out. Just like they’ve always wanted.”
My grip hardens on the coins in my pocket, as the Howler board of directors mentally join the lineup of people I want to throw into the Vancouver Harbor.
“I…I didn’t think the newsroom would be like this for you,” I stammer. “I mean, you’re a Huang. One of the heiresses to the HMG. That’s gotta have some weight, right?”
Diana laughs. “They don’t see that, Kai.
You know it better than anyone. They see the names they can’t pronounce, the shape of our eyes, the accent in our words.
The Huang name doesn’t change the fact that journalism began with white men dominating the field.
It wasn’t made to include people who look like me.
That’s why the HMG exists and why my father wants one of us to take it over. ”
For a split second, I start to understand Edward Huang a little better. It makes sense how he became as demanding as he is because he’s dedicated his entire livelihood to proving people wrong. It still doesn’t excuse how absolutely fucked up his ambitions have made him.
Before I can say anything more, Diana shakes her head. “I don’t want to keep talking about this. It’s giving me a headache.”
Heavy exhaustion kills her last spark of power, pushing every part of me to drop everything to make her feel better.
As a friend.
“Alright.” I nod and whip out my hands. “What do you need?”
Surprise flickers across her face. I cock my head, silently urging her on. Diana drops her head and crosses her arms. She shifts unsurely on her feet, her face tensed in thought.
Then, Diana stares up at me.
“I don’t want to go to class right now. I want to get railed.”
It doesn’t matter what lighting she’s sitting under. Diana will always look like a goddamn goddess when she comes all over me.
“I love it when you pound my brains out,” she gasps.
Shadows and light cut back and forth across her, as I fuck Diana through her orgasm in the driver’s seat.
I grip her hips, her chiffon skirt crumpling in my hands.
Under the watery yellow light of the parkade, her face crinkles in agony, yet her black waves cling to those red lips that drop loose with desire.
My mind goes blank, numb to everything except her.
She’s so beautiful. I can’t believe I get to have her like this.
“Keep going,” I groan into her ear, “be a good whore and come all over me.”
Her legs tremble, her grip on me tightens.
Diana’s tits bouncing behind her shirt have me grunting in frustration.
Diana jerks against me, before her orgasm unravels through her body and empties her mind.
I come so hard, white flashes across my eyes.
The last bit of pleasure peters out between us.
My thrusts slow down, Diana’s hips grind to a stop.
She slumps into me. I hug her tight, nestling my lips against her ear.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, “you’re okay, you’re good.”
My fingers thread through her hair, gently holding her face still as she catches her breath.
“You alright?”
“Mhm…” She sighs. “Thank you for this.”
“Hey, it’s what we agreed on, right?”
“Right.”
Still, a shadow of worry crosses her face no matter how relaxed her body feels against mine.
“What’s wrong?” I coax. “You can tell me.”
“N-Nothing.” Diana avoids my gaze and fiddles with my hoodie strings instead. “I’m just hungry.”
I’m about to call her out until I notice the time on my phone. It’s actually almost lunch.
“We can grab food somewhere else if you don’t want to be on campus?” I suggest. “I’m free all day until seven when I have to give my presentation at the Pacific Observer.”
I’m lying. I have an econ midterm to study for, but I can’t focus on that until I’ve made sure Diana is okay.
That’s what friends do, right?
“Okay.” Diana smiles a little. “I’d like that.”
“Alright.” My nose brushes against hers, making her giggle. “Getting railed and then getting food. The Mason-Maiau stress relief service is up and running. What else can I get for you?”
Diana ponders for a while before she decides. “I want to go shopping, too.”
“Sure, yeah. Let’s do it.”
“For books,” she clarifies. “The pile under my bed is running low.”
Pile under her bed? I shake my head. It’s probably a girl thing. Like using that metal torture device to curl their eyelashes.
“We can go to Indigo,” I suggest. “They have a café there, so we can grab some food and then go book shopping.”
For the first time, Diana’s smile is genuinely relaxed. “Your stress relief service deserves five stars.”
She’s so close that my eyes drop to her lips. One more move, and I’ll lose myself in her all over again.
A car alarm suddenly goes off, springing us apart.
Diana clears her throat and tucks her hair behind her ear. “So, I should…um—”
“Oh, right, yeah. Delivery service. I gotta…” I smile, gesturing uselessly at the air.
Diana’s eyes dart left and right before they cast down at me. “Kai?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re still inside of me.”
My eyes widen. “Jesus, that’s right. Sorry.”
I lift her off me. We clean each other up before I drive us out of the parkade.
Autumn leaves drop and scatter across the hood of the car. Gray skies flash over us, bright and startling against the darkness we’ve been fucking around in.
Diana’s touch still lingers on me; it’s imprinted all over my skin now. It marks my bones, and shapes my thoughts until I swear I’m entirely consumed by her.
My hands grip the steering wheel tight.
The rules are meant to keep us safe from our own impulses.
But all I want to do is break them.