Before I could say another word, Keira ran over and hurled herself into my arms.
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me, Nate,” she said and buried her face in my neck. “I don’t know, you’ve been acting so weird lately, and distant, and then when I saw you two coming out of the rally together, I panicked for a minute.”
I had just sent myself straight to hell, but I couldn’t hurt her, not just yet.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick lately, baby. So sorry.” I wrapped my arms around her, and she felt so fucking good. After a few minutes I pulled back and looked down at her. Her eyes were damp, and the realization that she’d been silently crying just about killed me. “Shall we order that pizza, then?”
“I’m not hungry.” Keira’s look went straight through me, to my heart and my cock. “I need you, Nate. I need to be with you right now. Please.”
No way was I going to deny her what we both wanted. I took her mouth with mine and we both groaned like we’d just found water in the desert. We pulled at each other’s clothes until we were all but naked. I sent up a prayer of thanks that I still had a condom in my pocket.
Within a few minutes, I found myself on my back with Keira riding my cock. I looked up at her, and she had never been more herself, or more beautiful, as far as I was concerned. Her flannel shirt was open, revealing her bare breasts. I groaned at the realization that she hadn’t been wearing a bra and reached up to take one in each hand.
“Keira,” I said as I thumbed her nipples. “Fucking ride me, baby. Ride me hard.”
I sat up with her still impaled on my cock and took one of her hard little nipples in my mouth.
“God, Nate, yes.” She held my head to her breast and ground herself down harder on me. I took her ass in my hand to aid the effort. Our rhythm picked up. We couldn’t fuck hard enough or fast enough, as I laved first one breast then another with my mouth.
“Fuck me so good, Nate. Ahh..!”
“Goddamn, Keira! Fucking come!”
I shouted as my orgasm ripped through me, and Keira cried out as hers followed. We rocked through the aftershocks, and I fell back again. It had felt so fucking good, so right, to take her like that again. I almost believed we were back, that we had us again. I almost believed that everything was going to be okay.
But when Keira smiled down at me and said, “Well, I sure hope Tracy got you out of her system today,” I knew that nothing would ever be okay again.
Chapter 12
Keira
I’d seen Tracy Abbott around because of Vanessa, of course. Last year, she’d seemed to take Vanessa under her wing. Now she was a senior, and I never saw Vanessa around campus with Tracy anymore. Not eating at the same table in the dining hall, not at the same parties, not anything. Clearly Tracy no longer had the time to spend with Vanessa. I never expected to see her clinging to Nate like trophy she’d just won when I finally got to the pep rally. I didn’t know which emotion was stronger in that moment, how pissed I was that I’d missed the pep rally, or how suddenly panicked I was that Tracy Abbott had stolen my boyfriend from me and I didn’t even know it until just that moment.
The look on Nate’s face when he spotted me wasn’t much comfort either. I had caught him in something, I just didn’t know what yet. He made a halfhearted effort to disengage himself from her grip as they came toward me, but she wasn’t giving up so easily. I began to wonder if there was going to be a serious confrontation here.
Nate was definitely stiff when he spoke to me, but suddenly he seemed to recover himself, and managed to get the situation back on track, much to Tracy’s annoyance. I found myself walking hand in hand with Nate back to his dorm. While I wasn’t that disappointed not to be going out with Gwen and Tank, something still felt off.
I waited until we got into the Crow’s Nest and point blank asked him what was going on with Tracy. He looked me right in the eyes and straight up told me that what I’d seen was the fallout from a photo op—a publicity stunt. I searched his eyes, and couldn’t find a hint of deception, but I still didn’t feel completely sure that everything was okay.
What happened next was as much my desperation to lose myself, along with my doubt, in Nate as it might have been a mutual need for us to reconnect.
I ran to him, and literally threw myself into his arms. Ironically, it was just how I’d seen Vanessa hurl herself at him many times, but I just had to know if we could get back what we had not long ago.
We got lost in each other, that’s for sure. Couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t fuck hard enough. We’d managed to have really great sex again, so that was a relief. It still wasn’t enough for me, and when I made a comment about Tracy Abbott getting Nate out of her system at the pep rally, he never really answered me. He nodded and grabbed his phone to order our pizza. Since Tank and Gwen were out, we ate in Nate’s room and watched a couple of episodes of Fleabag on Netflix.
Then the strangest thing happened. I had planned on walking myself home and telling Nate that I didn’t need him to escort me. I guess my mistake was thinking he’d offer. Instead he claimed that the pizza wasn’t sitting right with him and asked if I minded walking home by myself. I said I didn’t of course, and now my pizza wasn’t sitting too well in my stomach either.
Just before I walked out, he cheerfully made a date to come to my room to study a couple of days later.
As I sat on my bed waiting for him to knock on my door, I thought about what he’d said only a few days ago before the pep rally, how he would never say he’d show up and then not. As if he was reading my mind from wherever he was, I suddenly got a text “gonna go it alone tonight. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” My heart was pounding. I was almost afraid I was going up walk in on Nate with another girl. I almost wish I had. When I opened the door to the Crow’s Nest, Brian Easterling sat across the table—our table—from Nate. Before Nate had even looked up at me, Brian spoke.
“Oh hey, Keira. Nate said you were extra busy this term and he wanted to give you a break, so he called me.”
The combination of panic and guilt on Nate’s face almost made me turn around and walk out right then and there.
“Shut up, Brian… Keira. I can explain—“
“Stop!” Nate stood up like he wanted to come over to me, comfort me, set me down somehow so he could talk his way out of what was happening. But there was no way I was going to let him do that. “Just stop, Nate. You don’t need to explain anything to me. You can’t explain it. I’m not fucking stupid. First Tracy, now this. Why couldn’t you just fucking break up with me? Don’t answer that. Because right now, I’m leaving. Do not follow me. Don’t try to find me later, or tomorrow, or ever. Okay? If you ever cared about me at all, just do me that one solid.”
I passed Tank on my way out. He and Gwen were just coming in from somewhere. They both opened their mouths as if to ask me what was wrong, but I nixed that idea.
“Just don’t,” I said, half sobbing, and I ran out past them.
Gwen did follow me back to the dorm and arrived just as I was throwing myself down on the bed.
“Let it out, girl,” she said as she rubbed my back and sat down on the bed beside me. “Just let it out. I’m here. We can talk when you’re ready.”