Page 6 of Daddy’s Muse (Bloody Desires #12)

Colby

Hours earlier, I’d made the mistake of accepting a bag of potato chips from Bryan. In hindsight, I should’ve known he’d only offer me something with the expectation of getting something from me in return.

I was already in a hurry to make it to my tutoring session, and I was hungry, and he’d offered the chips so nonchalantly that I didn’t hesitate to accept them.

I berated myself in my head as I trudged across campus to the library.

Bryan wanted me to write an essay for one of his courses. He wanted me to help him cheat knowingly. Something like that could result in my expulsion from school or, at the very least, the cancellation of my scholarship, which would then make it impossible for me to continue my studies.

He said it was the least I could do to repay him.

I’d told him no, and hoping to avoid a fight, ran out of our room with the excuse that I had to be on time for tutoring.

Instead of staying in our room like I’d assumed he would do, he followed me down five flights of stairs and out of the dorm building.

He’d said some mean stuff that I was trying not to think about. I was already dreading going back to our room.

My chest felt too tight underneath my skin. My throat burned from holding back my emotions.

I thought that going to college would be the start of my fun adult life. I thought that I could be out and proud and maybe even make other friends in the community.

I thought it’d be different this time around.

Why couldn’t it be different?

The high school in my grandparents’ small town had just over a hundred students. Many of those students never made it to graduation. There were only twenty-one of us in our graduating class.

I actually had a few friends throughout middle school, but that all changed when I was apparently a little too obvious about my crush on the boy next door. The foothills and hollers of rural West Virginia weren’t the most accepting places.

I was fifteen when the first rumor started.

It didn’t even take twenty-four hours for the entire school to know. I remember walking into second period and every single head turning toward me like I’d grown horns. Some of them snickered. Others just stared like I’d come in dragging something diseased behind me.

I think I could’ve handled it better if they were only laughing at me for being gay.

But it wasn’t just that. My crush had told people that I had tried to suck his dick.

I will never forget the look on his face when I tried to ask him to tell the truth, to tell everyone that I never tried anything, that I didn’t even say that I liked him.

He looked at me like I was disgusting. He refused to speak to me.

The boy who’d been so nice to me when I had first moved into my grandparents’ house, the boy who’d brought me into his friend group since I was new and didn’t have anyone to hang out with, he was gone.

And in his place was this teenager who saw me as no better than trash.

After that, everything shifted. My friends stopped sitting with me at lunch. I started getting shoved into lockers when no teachers were around. Once, someone scrawled a slur on the bathroom mirror in soap, and I stood there staring at it, dripping wet from gym class, knowing they meant me.

But I still thought college would be different.

It was supposed to be my reset. A fresh start.

New city, new faces, new chances. I chose the state university because it was just far enough from home to feel like an escape, but still close enough that if my grandparents needed me, I could be there within a few hours.

And I’d been so hopeful— stupidly hopeful—that a bigger place would mean more room to breathe. More chances.

I still remember how excited I was when I moved in. Holding onto hopes that my roommate could be my best friend, my study buddy, someone I could bond with.

But then I walked in and met Bryan.

He was nice-ish at first. Loud, sure, and kind of gross, but I thought maybe that was just normal college guy behavior.

He had friends who came by a lot, too. Equally loud, messy guys who reeked of weed and beer and always made themselves comfortable in what was supposed to be my place to relax, my safe space.

They laughed when I played indie music or brought back a novel from the library.

They made jokes I couldn’t repeat, and I learned early just to keep my head down and not react.

Then came the slurs. The “fag” slipped under their breath when I folded my laundry too neatly.

The mock limp wrist. The way they looked at me when I came back wearing my pride pin that I’d finally gotten the courage to buy.

Like I was something they’d stepped in. Needless to say, I didn’t wear my pin again.

Bryan always brushed it off, as if he and his friends were just joking around with me. He would always tell me I was too sensitive and needed to loosen up.

Then there was that incident back in December…

I think he knew he’d gone too far that time, and he started acting better, as if he was scared I’d report him and his friend for what they’d done, but that only lasted around a week. Then it was back to making fun of every move I made.

I knew better than to take anything from him.

I knew better. But today I was hungry and tired and already on edge from the paranoia I’d been having lately about being followed, so I took the damn chips.

And now he wanted me to commit academic fraud, as if it were a fair trade, like my integrity meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

I kept my head down as I walked faster, hugging my chest like it might keep my ribs from cracking.

I had so badly wanted this place to feel like home. I’d wanted to find my people, maybe even a boyfriend…

But here I was again, walking to the library with my heart in my throat, wondering if I’d made a mistake coming here.

At least in high school, I had my grandparents to keep me company.

If my grandma sensed I was upset, she’d immediately start mixing up some cookie dough.

My grandfather would ask me to watch a movie with him, and every time he chuckled under his breath at something funny on the screen, it’d calm me down.

Here, I had no one.

I forced a steady breath as I pushed the library door open, the familiar scent of old books and floor polish settling over me like a blanket.

It didn’t fix anything, but it helped. Just enough.

The fluorescent lights weren’t kind, and the hum of the ceiling vents reminded me how alone I really was—but this was still one of the few places I felt safe.

I spotted Elijah almost immediately. He was sitting at our usual table near the far window, his long legs stretched out under the desk, a pen tucked behind his ear, and a notebook already open in front of him.

He looked up when he saw me, and his face broke into a wide, boyish grin that made something tight in my chest unclench.

“Hey, Colby,” he said, his voice warm and smooth. “Wasn’t sure if you were gonna make it. Thought maybe I’d finally scared you off.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it—quiet, small, but real. I slid into the chair across from him and pulled out my own notebook. “Nah. You’re not that scary.”

“Good. ‘Cause Coach already thinks I’m failing stats on purpose. If I bomb this next quiz, he’s gonna make me run suicides until I throw up.”

I offered a half-smile, not quite sure what suicides were in sports terms, but understanding that they had to be some kind of intense punishment workout. “Then I guess we’d better make sure you pass.”

Elijah was a varsity basketball player—super tall, popular, always surrounded by friends—but he never made me feel like I was less.

He asked genuine questions, admitted when he was confused, and even laughed at my stupid jokes.

He didn’t even act weird about me being gay.

If anything, he seemed oblivious to it in the most refreshing way.

I guess it was possible he just didn’t know about it, but it seemed like it was glaringly apparent to others.

I wasn’t too sure why that was. I was small, sure, but I knew tons of short guys who were straight.

As we delved into z-scores and standard deviations, I allowed myself to settle into the rhythm of teaching. My voice steadied. My hands stopped shaking. Elijah nodded along, scribbling notes with that determined scowl he always got when something finally started making sense.

“Okay,” I said after walking him through a practice problem, “now you try.”

He took the pen from behind his ear and leaned forward, muttering numbers under his breath, thick brow furrowed in concentration. After a moment, he looked up. “Is it… 1.96?”

My grin widened. “Yes! Exactly.”

Elijah let out a low whistle and leaned back in his chair like he’d just been told he won the lottery. “Man, I don’t know how you make this stuff click, but I swear you’re a genius.”

I felt my face warm. I looked down quickly, trying not to smile too much. “I’m really not.”

“Whatever you say,” he replied, nudging my notebook with his pen. “But if I get a C on this quiz, I’m telling everyone I owe it to my stats wizard.”

I rolled my eyes, but it felt good. Easy.

For a little while, I wasn’t just the quiet kid from a nowhere town with too much trauma stuffed in his backpack.

I was someone who could help. Someone who was good at something.

Elijah might never really know me, may never count as a friend, but for an hour each week, he looked at me like I mattered.

And right now, that was enough.

“Let’s aim higher than a C, deal?”

“I dunno, man. Do I get a prize if I get a better grade?”

“A prize? I mean, if it would help… sure. I could buy you a snack?”

Elijah chuckled and shook his head in amusement. “I was thinking more along the lines of getting to hang out with you outside of the library.”

I froze, a little bewildered.

Did he mean that?