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“What are you going to do?” she asks.

I look away from her for a moment, thinking about Ethan’s posy pink face, his lithe hands, his lips…

“Make him mine.”

Ethan is one of the most dedicated students I’ve ever seen. He gets up at the crack of dawn, and if he doesn’t have a class that morning, he’s in the library or at the coffee shop studying. He helps teachers after class with cataloguing and grading. He’s in the science lab doing projects that aren’t due for weeks.

Every single person he interacts with gets the same soft smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He avoids meeting their gaze half the time, and doesn’t stay for long.

Except when he’s with Nathan.

He hangs out with Nathan Grenander more than Lena.

I’m sitting in my car outside the coffee shop, watching them through a window. They’ve been sitting at a small table with their laptops and notebooks spread out for three hours now.

I’m desperate to know what they’re talking about.

How long have they been friends? Why does Ethan look more comfortable with Nathan than his own girlfriend? I can guess the answer to that question, but I don’t like it. Jealousy flares even hotter in my chest.

I’m stalking Ethan. At this point I’m well aware of that, but I don’t give a fuck.

I’ve done far worse.

As I watch them smiling at each other and talking—probably about their homework and other nerdy shit—I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to walk in and pull Ethan to the side, to take him into the single bathroom in the coffee shop and push him face-first against the door.

God, what I wouldn’t give to yank his jeans down and reveal his ass, to see how perfect and tight it is, to fuck him raw until he’s screaming and panting, unable to breathe, unable to think. I’d yank his head back by his hair, bite his ear, his neck, claiming him with my teeth until I taste his blood.

Saliva pools in my mouth as my cock hardens.

Maybe I’d make Nathan watch. I could clear the whole café out and tie the fucker to a chair with his own clothing, then make him watch me ream his best friend’s ass over one of the tables…

Better than the other thing I want to do—feel the life flood out of him under my hands while I tell him that Ethan ismine.

Stop looking at him like that.

The honking of a car in the parking lot abruptly brings me back to reality. I shift in my seat and look in my rearview mirror. They aren’t honking at me, so I turn my attention back to the front window.

I’m tempted to go inside when my phone buzzes on the passenger seat, and like most days, family duties call me away.

5

ETHAN

“Iknow, Mom, I promise you’ll see me in December. I just can’t promise it will be on Christmas,” I say as I hold my phone to my ear with one hand and tap a pencil on my desk with the other.

My mother sighs on the other end. I can picture her disappointment without even seeing her face. “I don’t understand why, Ethan,” she insists. “Your father and I already agreed we’ll pay for your plane tickets and you can stay in the guest room.”

I switch the phone to my left ear because the right is getting sore.

“The cost isn’t the issue, I swear. I looked up all possible flights, and the only way I won’t have a seven-hour layover is if I leave two days after winter break starts and stay there the entire time,” I remind her. I’ve already told her thistwice. I’m not sure if she genuinely doesn’t remember or if she doesn’t want to.

“Why is that a problem? I know you don’t want to spend every waking moment with us, but you could visit some old friends, too,” she tells me.

I sigh now. “I want to spend some time with Lena before I come back home,” I tell her. “Lena doesn’t have a good relationship with her family, so she’s staying on campus for the first week of break and then spending Christmas with her best friend.”

“Poor thing. I’ve wanted to meet that girl for months. Why don’t you bring her with you?” she asks me. “It would be the first time you’ve brought home a girl since high school. I know you’re focused on your studies, but I was starting to get worried for a few years.”

I pause, pencil in my fingers, my body suddenly tense.