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"Did you like that?" Tate asks him before he pinches me harder. I cry out again, and this time, my eyes water. "Look up at him," Tate instructs.

I do as he asks, looking up at Silas while tears leak from my eyes, sucking and licking while I slide my lips up and down his thick length.

"Fuck…" Silas groans. Then he grabs the back of my head, forcing himself into the back of my throat, and comes. I swallow around him, but there's so much of it—and so much of him—I feel it dripping from the corner of my mouth.

When he pulls out, I wipe it away with my thumb, and then Tate takes my hand and sucks it into his mouth. "You know therules," he says. "Don't waste it. And now, you have to give me a kiss."

I shake my head. Kissing Tate…it's one of my favorite things in the world.

And that's why I don't want to do it.

"You look like I just asked you to cut your dad's hand off," Tate says. "It's not a big deal."

Then he pulls me into him, his lips finding mine before his tongue slips past them, licking me, tasting me…tasting Silas on me.

And I let myself give in to it. I let my eyes close and kiss him back.

It's the way he kisses me that always makes me think he actually cares about me. It's his lips and his fingers in my hair, it's his thumb against that spot behind my ear.

I can't fall for it.

"Shit," Silas says, his breath still coming short. "You both look so fucking sexy at my feet like that. You better stop before I get hard again."

I break away and pull myself to my feet. "That's hot, too," Silas says. "Anyone who looks at your knees is going to know exactly what you were doing in here."

I look down at my red knees with the floor's square tile pattern embedded in my skin.Fuck.

"Come on," he says, throwing his arm around me. "It's okay."

Silas unlocks the door, and we walk out of the bathroom together with Tate behind us. I wrap my own arm around his waist and burrow into his side, keeping my eyes on the floor.

I'm overcome with relief when I step back out into the cold October night air, but when I turn in the direction of my apartment, Silas lets me go.

"See you tomorrow, baby," he says, kissing me on the mouth before heading in the opposite direction. "Get some sleep, okay?"

I don't know why I assumed we'd all leave together—or why I'd even want us to, but—

"Well…wait," I say. "What's tomorrow?"

"You'll see," Tate says. "You won't like it as much as you liked this, unfortunately. Good night."

I watch them turn the corner to the parking lot before I walk home alone in the dark. I wonder what the point of all this was until I open my text messages.

MASON You make me fucking sick.

Another knife to the chest.

That was it. That was the point.

fifteen

Guns n' Proses

Noah

Ididn't take any pills last night; I didn't come home and drink, and, for once, I slept without having nightmares.

Now, I wake up feeling better than I've felt in a while. You'd think with everything that happened yesterday—with the café closed and nowhere to go, with Tate's promise that they'd see me tomorrow and that I wouldn't like it—I wouldn't feel like this.