I think, as she was leading me back to my room, I was remembering how hard I’d worked to get her to trust me. A marathon. I was remembering how persistent I’d been, always begging her for more, like a rabid dog nipping at her ankles. I was wondering if I had what it took to start back at square one, and indulging in some pretty pathetic self-pity.
But she trusted me enough to let me touch her. To let me kiss her. To let me inside of her. To say that she loved me back.
Not that I didn’t miss the shift in dynamic last night.
That was Sugar, being in control.
Taking what she wanted.
Somewhere beside me, my phone chimes with a text, and I stiffen. For a week now, Heston’s been hounding me, a constant barrage of menacing, loaded messages. That chime is something I’ve already been conditioned to dread.
But because of the girl sleeping soundly in my arms, I can’t afford to not know if he’s on the loose again. I mournfully roll away from her, hand fumbling around beside the bed until it finds the phone. Squinting at the screen hurts even more than squinting at the window had, but at least it’s not him.
It’s my dad.
“Christ,” I mutter, combing my fingers through my hair. Good little robot boys who wake up at a ‘reasonable hour’ are apparently part and parcel of being the next big shot Wilcox.
Fucking kill me now.
I rise from the bed in fits and starts, muscles screaming in protest, determined not to look back at her laying there, all soft and warm and comfortable. I know if I do, I’m just going to roll back into her. My mouth tastes like something died in it. That, plus the fact that I’m dehydrated, nicotine-deprived, and hurting in places I only ever suspected existed are the only things that drive me to get vertical. I let out an involuntary hiss when I bend to pull on a pair of boxers. I’m not even sure who’s to credit for that. The guy in the pool? Heston? Reyn, when he jabbed me with his elbow as we stood outside my house, telling me to grow a pair?
One thing’s for sure. I’m done being a punching bag for a while.
I find a pair of sweats in a heap on my floor, and then an LAX hoodie draped over the foot of my bed. Pulling that on hurts even worse than the bottoms had, and by the time my head pokes out the top, I’m already feeling a little surly about it all.
I’m halfway out the door when I hear Sugar’s voice.
“Where are you going?” She’s sitting up when I turn around, sheets gathered over her chest. Her eyes are still puffy with sleep, but there’s no mistaking the spark of dread in them.
Of course, seeing her there makes every ounce of my getting-out-of-bed resolve completely disappear. “To take a piss,” I say, wandering back to the bed, scratching my chest under the sweater. “Smoke a cigarette. Brush my teeth. Down a whole bottle of Advil.”
Her eyes are still wide, too alert for someone who just woke up. “You were leaving.”
I watch her, not understanding the way she’s gone so still. “Just to the bathroom.”
“You were leaving,” she repeats, eyes holding mine. “Again.”
I tilt my head at the way she’s looking at me, something angry in the hunch of her eyebrows. “Hey,” I say, crawling up the bed to her, settling easily into the vee of her legs. “I told you I wasn’t—I’m not going to do that again. I said I’m fighting for you, and I meant it.”
When I nose below her ear, pressing a kiss to that spot of skin where her neck meets her shoulder, some of that tension leaves. “I know that,” she says. “I just meant…”
I pull back to give her a quizzical look. “What did you mean?”
“That morning.” She looks away, cheeks blooming a soft pink. “After we… when I woke up. You were gone.”
“Oh,” I realize, sitting back on my heels to rub her sheet-covered knees. “I was just making you breakfast.”
Her eyes flash angrily when they meet mine again. “You fucked me. I woke up alone, in a strange place, not knowing what—” Her jaw tightens. “And every moment after, right up until fucking yesterday, you treated me like… like someone you were done with. Like your old, discarded lay.”
I blink back at her, mouth parted in a defense that I already know I don’t deserve to make. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Well, it felt like that,’ she bites out, and residing alongside the angry eyes and set jaw, there’s the hunched, vulnerable curve of her shoulders. There’s no mistaking the fissure of hurt in her eyes.
I scrub a hand over my face, so goddamn frustrated with myself, I don’t even care that it hurts. “Fuck, I’m an idiot.” She doesn’t push me away when I reach for her, sending us both tumbling back into the bed. She lays there against my shoulder, shoulders still tight. “I’m a dick.”
“Yep,” is her terse reply. But she throws an arm around my middle, holding me down.
For the thousandth time, I offer, “Sorry,” fingers threading in her hair. “I don’t know if it’s occurred to you yet, but I actually have no fucking idea what I’m doing. I’ve never had a girlfriend before.” I push a kiss into her hair. “You might have to tell me when I’m messing up. It might be a lot.”
Instantly, she says, “Trust me, I will.”
Well.
That’s something.
“So, no leaving the bed the morning after. Anything else I need to know?”
She sighs, the stiffness of her body leaving with her long exhale. “I don’t really like pancakes.”
I frown into her hair. “Oh.”
“French toast, sure. Waffles are fine, too. I wouldn’t say no to—” She shifts, tilting her head to look back at me, immediately wincing. “Shit, you actually really need that Advil, don’t you?”
I guess I don’t need to wonder how bad I look. “Nah,” I lie, wrapping my arms around her shoulders.
She rolls her eyes, breaking away. “I think I remember hearing something about a cigarette and a toothbrush. Let me in on the ground floor of that and we’re all good.”
That’s how we find ourselves back in my bathroom. I’m trying not to think about that mess in the main suite, or about how Sugar is looking really damn fine in one of my uniform button downs. That gets a little harder when she crowds me back against the counter, forehead creasing as her fingers run over my face.
“You’re sure nothing’s really bad here?” she asks, voice skeptical.
Now that my teeth are brushed, I’m free to answer with a kiss, arms winding around her waist. “Everything’s perfect,” I answer.
It’s only a little bullshit. There’s a lot of work to be done. Somehow, I have to convince the coach to let me back on the team. I have to start planning for school next year and getting used to my dad’s constant presence over my shoulder.
That’s confirmed when my phone rings from the other room.
Groaning, I break away, giving myself a moment to enjoy the way she’s gazing up at me, all dazed and pink-cheeked. “Hold that thought. It’s my dad.”
Of course it is. Who else would legit fucking voice-call me at seven on a Sunday morning? I flop back on my bed as he yaps in my ear about making myself ‘available’ next weekend for a dinner with some boring old venture capitalist he’s buddied up with this month. In truth, I probably got off lucky. My college applications are already in, so I don’t even have to worry about his manic attempts at making me look like an ‘attractive candidate’.