Page 9 of Try Me

Nate whipped me around in his hold. It took a second for my vision to catch up to the sudden turnabout.

“Piece of shit,” I grumbled. It came out half-assed, though, because I was dizzy again.

Chet’s eyes flashed, but his mouth curled up a fraction at the corners, almost teasing, a little cruel. Fuck the way my cock stirred as he knuckled the blood on his lower lip. “That was a fuckin’ trip and a half, you goddamn nutjob.” He shook his head with a sardonic laugh.

Maybe he was right. I sure felt like a head case right then, and that might’ve stung worse than the punch. He’d know that, too.

“You need to let that go, man,” Nate was saying, sounding concerned rather than pissed that I’d gotten into a fight—okay, possiblystarteda fight—in the backyard of his new place. Not the housewarming gift he probably expected.

I struggled to drag my attention away from Chet as he spun on his heel and swaggered off, the crowd parting for him as he cut through and vanished around the side of the building.

“Markus,” Nate snapped.

“Yeah?” I focused, my brain slowly coming back online and catching up with the situation as Nate stared at me: Fight. Backyard. Cheek throbbing. Head swimming. Definitely drunk. “All right. Yeah. It’s done.” I tried to affect a casual shrug even as I snuck another look in the direction Chet had gone.

The sinking sensation in my stomach deepened as I scrambled to reel back the night’s events. Was I totally in the fucking wrong here? Had I been in the wrong for months? Been laying undeserved blame on Chet? My thoughts whirled in incoherent fragments from too many tequila shots.

I needed to go home.

“Hey, jackass!”

I swiveled just in time to catch the full brunt of the beer shower Amanda sent my way. Nate’s shirt took collateral damage, and she winged the empty plastic cup after, expertly nailing the center of my chest while some of my fraternity brothers hooted behind me. I gave them the finger as Eric grabbed Amanda by the shoulder and steered her in the same direction Chet had gone.

“Guess that one’s not gonna work out,” I told Nate wryly, trying to put on a good face as we blotted ourselves off. I’d been scoping Amanda out for a while, and it appeared I’d finally gotten her attention. Just not the way I’d wanted to.

“I’d say not, nope. Are you okay? For real?” Nate’s expression pinched with the same concern I’d detected in his voice.

My jaw throbbed when I clenched it. It’d definitely be bruised tomorrow. I could already feel my cheek swelling.

“Yeah.” I shook off his grip. “I meant it. I’m done. I’ll catch you soon.” I couldn’t help but notice the relief that crossed his face as I barked in the direction of one of our new fraternity members. “Marty, give me a lift, man.”

I’d text Nate tomorrow and apologize when I wasn’t so wrecked.

“Who was that guy anyway?” Marty asked, once we’d climbed into his SUV and I’d reassured him that I wasn’t a puke risk.

“Just a guy I used to know,” I muttered. I had no idea how to begin to describe all the things Chet Pynchon encompassed. It’d take hours. I tried to temper some of the irritation that crept into my tone because Marty was cool and was also expressly leaving the party to drive me home when he didn’t technically have to since he wasn’t a pledge anymore. “Sorry.”

Marty fiddled with the radio dial until something hard-edged and raucous blared through the speakers, the thumping bassline a perfect match to the tempo of my pulse.

I couldn’t get Chet off my mind, though. The surly pull of his mouth, the grunt as I’d nailed him in the side. The sound had been so fucking familiar. But last I’d heard it, it’d been in an entirely different context. I’d been fooling myself to think I’d forgotten it. It’d lit me up inside tonight as sure as it had back in the dark cocoon of my bedroom years before.

My stomach knotted all over again thinking about it. I regretted going to the party, and I definitely regretted messing with Chet. I was usually better about ignoring temptation.Let anger fuel you, my dad always said.Don’t let it eat you up, let it ignite you. Keep your head down, eyes on the prize.

Sorry, Dad. Total fail.

I’d managed to go most of my college career, and especially the last year and a half, post-Cam, without being within ten feet of Chet. It hadn’t been difficult. The campus was huge, and we were on different degree tracks. We’d never shared a class, never run into each other on the library steps. I hadn’t so much as glimpsed the top of his head while weaving through the lines in the cafeteria.

Which made it easy to let my anger at him slink into the back corners of my mind and bubble at a low simmer.

But proximity ratcheted it right back up to boiling point.

“Kinda weird to see Nate and Eric together. Like…that’s their place.Together,” Marty mused.

“Not if you’d been living with them for the past six months.” It was about time. I thought I’d been born with a supersized serving of testosterone, but their combined libidos put mine to shame. They weren’t even flagrant about it, considering they’d started as roommates in the house we’d shared last year with two other guys. I could tell they were trying to play it cool and that they genuinely couldn’t help the urge to fuck six ways to Sunday all the time. They were just that into each other.

Being around them had gotten increasingly difficult for a variety of reasons I had no desire to examine at the moment. Nate was my closest friend, though, and I was happy for him. Well, generally speaking—meaning when I wasn’t sloppy drunk and engaging in fistfights.

“Your jaw okay?” Marty glanced over at me and winced in sympathy as I gently prodded the tender skin.