“Oh, right. Crazy-tight car. How did you get your dad to let you drive it?”
Teddy grinned and slid his sunglasses back onto his nose. He settled into his seat and pressed the button that started the car with a low purr. “Told him I’d tell Mom he’s cheating on her. Half of Vert Island knows he’s fucking Terrance Mizettie’s mom, in fact, I think he’s probably my half-brother, you think we look alike?” He glanced at me, but I only shrugged because I had no idea who these people were. “None of the bitches at the yacht club has told my mom yet. Dad wants to keep it that way.”
“Real nice.”
“I know, right? I’m thinking of pushing for my own space station next. Just me and some cute Russian boys in Zero-G.” He laughed, and my stomach flipped and went unsteady. My nausea could be from running so much, or from the way his heavy cologne hung in the car—far too much fake fragrance. Gritting my teeth, I put down my window a crack as he backed out of the parking spot without using the mirrors.
“I need to shower and then we can… whatever.”
Teddy hummed in appreciation. He didn’t mention his boyfriend, and I didn’t either.
Sunlight reflected from his dark glasses to sting my eyes when he turned his head my direction. “I’m down, dude. I thought you forgot about me or something.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Gotcha. I’ve been busy too.” His tone turned sour, and my stomach twisted. I shouldn’t have called him, but I was stuck now. He drove too fast across the lot to the main road, and then I was committed for the half-hour drive to my house. I hadn’t thought this through, any of it, from getting out of bed to now, and when we finally pulled into the driveway, my thighs were so sore they burned. I moaned as I climbed out of the car and went to rest my hands on the roof to steady myself.
“Don’t you fuckin’ dare touch it!” Teddy was around the car and in my face shoving at me, not hard, to get me away from the car, but my thighs were on fire. I stumbled and hissed, hobbling toward the house.
“Stiffened up. Shouldn’t have sat.”
“Not many other options to ride home,” Teddy said unhelpfully. “Hmm we’re not gonna be able to do too much with that fantastic ass of yours with you walking that way. You’ve got a great mouth, though. You’re still down, right?”
Damn it. I stopped on the front porch steps with one hand on the railing and sighed. I hadn’t ever fully remembered what I’d done with Teddy the night I was stupid drunk, but it added up that maybe we’d fucked. I wasn’t surprised, or upset, to have him suggest we’d gone that far, but it didn’t make me feel great about myself to not remember, either. I kept walking, and he came up behind me. The front door was locked, and I didn’t have my key. West’s car was still here, thankfully, so I knocked.
“What are you doing?” Teddy asked. “Don’t you live here?”
I ignored him. Why break a theme?
West answered the door, and his eyebrows flew up to see the person behind me. I breathed through walking into the living room and almost died. My legs flat out hurt. My back hurt. Even my jaw hurt. I must have been clenching it while I ran. Teddy gave West a little salute as he looked up from his phone, which he’d been tapping on. Probably lying to his boyfriend about where he would be all day.
“Hey, bud, how’s it—”
West slammed the door in Teddy’s face.
There was a yell from the outside and a knock, but West simply locked the door. He turned to me with the most dangerous glint in his eyes I think I’d ever seen. “We talked about him.”
“Yeah, we did, months ago. That might be the last fucking thing you actually said to me that wasn’t a blowoff,” I grumbled, but my heart wasn’t in it. I couldn’t fight right now. I squeezed my eyes shut. Bed. I’ll go back to bed.
“What’s wrong?”
He was talking about… more than what was happening this second, and I knew it, but there was no way to answer him without having a full-on meltdown. “I’ve been running.”
“Before or after you stopped off for a quickie?”
“One, if I did fuck Teddy, you told me to get on with life.” I snapped my eyes open, and his face was flushed when I stared up into it. His jaw ticked.
“I told you to stay away from him.”
“Fine, what-the-fuck-ever, you did, but I didn’t have a ‘quickie’ with him. I was running.”
He stepped closer to me, and I felt small and lost and fucking out-of-my-mind furious at him. I hugged myself tight.
“You’ve been gone for hours.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t smart.”
His mouth fell open a little and he stared at me. “You’ve really been out running all that time?”
“Yep.”
He inched closer and I could smell his cologne, subtle and masculine. Unlike Teddy’s, I liked the way his scent seemed to wrap around me. There was a knock on the front door we both ignored. I couldn’t have looked away from his intense violet eyes if I wanted to. “Are you conditioned for that?”
I moved and winced. “Going to have to go with no.”
He stared at me and his eyebrows did this dance like he was having a conversation in his head. I wished he’d have it out loud with me instead, but no go. He turned on his heel and rushed toward the bathroom. Water began to thunder into the tub, and when he came back into the living room, he strayed across it into the kitchen. About a minute later he was in front of me again with a glass of water. He held it out for me, and I took it happily, my thirst roaring to life at the sight even though I hadn’t thought about it at all before I saw the water. I gulped the ice-cold liquid and then nearly spit it back out again.
“What the hell?” I eyed the glass that tasted like sweet dish soap.
“Himalayan pink salt and some honey, you dumbass. Drink it. That’s basically what’s in Gatorade and all that crap, and all we had in the house. What were you trying to prove? Are you going to join the track team? Does your college even have one?”
The onslaught of words after so much silence from him was too much. I chugged the glass of horribleness and handed it back to him without saying anything. I felt like I’d earned my bed and began to shuffle that direction. My phone rang in my pocket, but I didn’t bother. I wasn’t going to blow Teddy for one ride, just like I didn’t want to for a couple of drinks. I veered toward my bedroom door on my way down the hall, and West grabbed my elbow.
“Oh no. You’re soaking. Then you’re stretching. Then you may be icing as well, depending on what your knees do.”
“I’m not old.”
“Don’t listen to me and see what happens,” he growled. “I keep in shape too.”
It was so tempting to tell him to go fuck himself. I’d asked him to come with me, which was as good as I could do to beg him to spend some time with me without making anything weirder than it already was. Why couldn’t he have just done that?
Now I wanted the oblivion of my bed again. Maybe I could do this all summer and get a job. Work and run. Then when school came, I could do that and run. I could live my whole life that way and people would probably even say I was productive. Industrious. A good member of society.