“See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow,” she repeated, watching me get back out the window with a smirk.
I didn’t look back as I headed to my car, wondering the entire time how the fuck I wanted to stay the night with her instead of going home alone.
I never knew what was wrong with me, but now it felt worse. The problem I had lived with my entire life was gone, or at least glitching, when I was with her.
I couldn’t go home and face this all now.
So, I didn’t. I went out, spending the entire night winding through curved roads and dead-end streets until I could head home with my mind having no other thought but sleep.
TWENTYDAISY
Kye grabbed another pillow, shoving it behind his head. He spread out on my bed with his shirt off, the view still a shock to me. Every muscle and tattoo felt so familiar now, but there was still some sort of distance between us I wanted gone.
I had spent the last two hours watching him carry every heavy item I owned from the house to the car, and then the car to the dorm room, and had enjoyed every single second. Even with liking every second I was spending with Kye, something about moving back to campus was getting under my skin.
It’s not that I wanted to stay with my dad. With my sister Willow moving back in with him for now, I knew I would quickly be unwelcome there, even if my dad didn’t say it outright. My sister was a lot to handle, and being at my dad’s house was hard enough without her there adding to it.
“This is really where you have to live? I always thought dorms were cool, but this is basically prison. Concrete walls, shared bathrooms, locked doors. What else is there? Curfews?”
“No curfews, but there are quiet times. Although, I think the majority of the student body ignores that. And are you insinuating that you have been in prison and can accurately make that comparison?”
He shrugged. “Jail, prison, whatever.”
“Wow. You know you make yourself sound a lot worse than you are?”
“You show the world you’re perfect. I show the world I’m dangerous. We do what we have to, to survive in the lives we were given. I’m trying to tell you the truth. It’s not my fault if I wave a red flag and you get turned on.”
“I am not turned on that you may or may not have been to jail!”
His smile grew. “Are you turned on by anything else, then? Turned on again?”
“Not currently,” I lied. “Why? Trying to exchange help with moving for sex?” I huffed, the edge to my voice more serious than I meant it. I was so out of sorts after last weekend, I didn’t know what to think. Part of me was waiting for him to suggest it, to make a new rule that we had to sleep together to continue, but so far he hadn’t said a word. And besides his light flirting, I had no indication that he wanted anything else, but here I was, ready to rip his clothes off.
Now today, he had come over to help me move my stuff in without so much as one annoyed groan. He seemed fine being here, even smiling throughout the drive and carrying my stuff in. He even kissed me when he got here. And now he was happy to lie there on my bed, shirt off, flirting, while I unpacked. I didn’t know what to do with it.
We’d fooled around. I watched him get off, gave him a blowjob that seemed to make him fall to the ground, and yet he didn’t want sex. Specifically with me, since we were fake dating and that would make it messy. My brain was screaming that it might mean he had found someone else to sleep with, and that made me more upset than I liked. I knew he said that he didn’t like to be touched, but that was far from the experience I’d been having with him.
All at once, his smile faded and eyebrows furrowed.
“No? Didn’t we already make the rule that we aren’t sleeping together? Aren’t you the one continually trying to break that rule? Glad I make one joke and suddenly, I’m the asshole.”
“Haven’t you told me more than once that you are an asshole?” I said, but the words came out with another bite that I didn’t mean.
“Wow. Well, then. I guess I’ll see you around. Call me if you want anything else since I seem to only be around for your needs. Fuck what I think or want, right? Just a burnout mechanic who couldn’t possibly be nice without getting laid,” he said, obviously mad, but he grabbed my hand, kissing it once with a bow. “I’m sure you can find some other sucker with a car that will do your bidding. Forgive me for helping you move your shit, prom queen.”
“Kye, wait. I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, running out into the hallway after him.
He threw his hand up in a wave, his shirt still tucked in his back pocket, and I hated the wave of wanting that rolled through me at the sight. “Bye, Daze.”
My new roommate walked past him, taking a few extra seconds to look him over.“Wow, who is that?”
“That’s Kye. My—” My what? Could I really call him my boyfriend when it was fake? I guessed with a school this size, though, I would need to keep up the facade, even with her.“My boyfriend.”
“Ugh, he’s hot. Like, hot, hot. Don’t really find that type on campus, do you?”
She walked past me into the room, throwing an armful of bags down.
Amber was nice. A little more…dark than I was, but after getting to know Kye and the crew, I realized that made me instantly like her more. So far, I had been right not to judge her because she was nice, honest, and blunt enough to be exactly who I wanted to share a room with.
“No. No, you don’t,” I finally replied.
I went back in, unpacking a few more things as I scolded myself. Kye had been nothing but nice and sweet and there for me. Every time I reached out to him, he responded, but somehow I was still treating him like he was less than.
It wasn’t on purpose, but even with everything he confessed to me, it was hard to believe. He was so good at kissing me, touching me, and even giving me orgasms, that it felt stupid of me to believe he was as inexperienced as he said.
But it wasn’t like he had ever done anything to make me think he was lying. And even besides playing fake boyfriend, he had come to get me after the boat incident, took me out with his friends, and now helped me move. None of that was in our agreement.
I really was the asshole.
Daisy
I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean it like that.
I waited two hours, clicking my phone on but seeing no new notifications. It was the first time that he hadn’t responded to me, and each minute that passed was more upsetting.
“Trouble in bad boy paradise?” Amber asked.
