Page 38 of Want Me
“I’m not a coke addict, you dick. I’ll pay the bill. It’s fine.” I dragged my hands down my cheeks and chuckled, a little hysterical. It definitely wasn’t funny, but fuck, there was an absurdist catch-22 factor involved. I’d just been standing there about to out myself. Completely unready to do so since I had no idea what was going on between me and Eric and I still wasn’t entirely sure where I stood on the whole issue of my sexuality. Mostly I felt like I was sliding around on some slippery surface I’d spent years convinced was solid ground. But maybe it was time to have that conversation with Eric. And sooner rather than later.
Mark glared at me. “Yeah? I’m glad you find this funny. The guy who called? He was talking about pressing charges.”
“Stop.” Eric’s voice was quiet but firm. “Nate…” I didn’t miss the warning tone in the way he said my name, but he trailed off and leveled his gaze back on Mark. “I already told you it was my idea. I’m the one who went up there first. It was my coke. I’ll pay for the damage, like I already said, and if they want to charge anyone, they’ll charge me. Can we call this fucking done, now? I’ve got a paper due tomorrow.”
Mark looked between us, his brows tightly knit and a scowl on his face as he wet his lower lip. His gaze lingered on me the longest, and I felt it like a punch in the gut. Guilt sprang up in me at the faint note of sadness I thought I detected behind the anger in his eyes. Had we really grown apart that fast?
“Yeah,” he said finally. “It’s done. Just make sure you get your fucking story straight in case you need it, because both of you are fucking standing in front of me lying, and I don’t know what you’re hiding, but Nate, if it’s…” He clenched his fists and shook his head. “Just figure your shit out. And I swear to God if you’re becoming a Cam, I’ll kick your ass.”
Cam had been in our pledge class, and he and Mark had been really tight. But not tight enough that he’d known about the drug habit Cam had formed. None of us had. He’d kept it completely under wraps until Mark was the one to discover him OD’d in his room at the frat house. It’d fucked with all of us, but Mark most of all. Cam’s parents had come and whisked him away like he’d never been there at all. No one had heard from him since. Not even Mark, I didn’t think.
Mark stormed back inside, letting the door slam behind him. Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned and brushed past me on the way to the door before I caught him by the arm and yanked him back. “What the fuck was that?”
“Me saving your ass? Or did that not come through clearly?”
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t ever fucking speak for me again. You want to order me around while we’re messing around, fine, but don’t mistake that for permission to act on my behalf. I don’t need a savior.”
“Yeah? Were you getting ready to tell him how far I had my dick up your ass an hour ago?”
“I was…” I faltered. “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe?” The uncertainty bled out in my tone. Because I wasn’t fucking ready. I wasn’t ready to say shit to anyone, and I liked what Eric and I had going on just the way it was.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” An arctic chill fell over his features, and he rocked a step back, looking up at the sky and drawing a breath that he let out slowly. “And you think the school will want to keep paying your scholarship if you get charged with something, huh?”
I felt the air sail from my chest all at once. My scholarship should have been the first thing I thought of. Instead it’d been Eric.
“That’s what I thought,” he said softly, taking my hesitation as an answer.
I leaned back against the side of the house, a million thoughts reeling through my head. “This is…this is…” I wasn’t sure how to fill in the gap. Something was fucking wrong with me. I was being cavalier, skipping out on duties to my fraternity, putting my scholarship in jeopardy. For what? But as I lifted my gaze to meet Eric’s, I knew.
I knew.
And I needed to tell him. Even if he didn’t want to hear it.
But his next words caught me in my side like a thousand fishhooks and dragged across my chest.
“This is sideways, that’s what. And it stops now,” he said evenly.
I straightened abruptly from my lean. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly what you think it does.”
“You’re just going to make that decision for us?”
“There is nous. There’s never been anus.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” There might not have been an “us” in technical terms, but the way we’d been last night and today, that we’d planned on hanging out again tonight…that was more than fucking nothing.
Eric gave a sharp shake of his head. “There’s you and there’s me, and as it turns out, maybe I’m not as comfortable putting you at risk as I thought I was.”
“So that’s it, then, easy as that? You’re not comfortable ‘putting me at risk’? What a load of horseshit, dude.” I had to laugh at his audacity, but it was a laugh that came out serrated with my bitterness at how he could turn on a dime.
I felt my molars grinding with the intensity of my stare. Eric didn’t say anything, just maintained that impassive fucking fortress of an expression, but I didn’t buy it, and instead found the whole situation maddening beyond belief. Every muscle in my body felt taut, coiled for release, begging for it. And this time not for what Eric could give me. I’d gotten in a few scuffles before. Mostly on the field in football or drunk at bars, but never in my life had I wanted to hit someone as badly as I did at that moment. And for as shitty as I felt about that, I think mostly I was driven by the desire to force a break in that walled-off gaze he’d aimed at me.
“Do it if it’ll make you feel better.” There was nothing in his tone that was cajoling or challenging. It wasn’t a taunt, just plain-spoken acceptance. The words held the same passivity written over his face.
I let out a sound of exasperation and gave up. “Fuck you, Eric, you obstinate dick.”
He turned away to walk back inside the house, leaving me out on the porch.