10. Miller

I wake up before him and watch him sleep for a while. The room is dimly lit, but there’s a crack of sunlight where the curtains meet. Ryan’s face is smashed into the mattress, and his pillow lies beside him with an arm thrown over it. He looks beat, poor thing. He all but ran out of here after our little collaboration, or whatever you’d call it, and he got back late. I didn’t check the time, but I’d been asleep for a while.

When he got into bed, I said, “Sleep tight,” and he said, “Piss off.”

He sounded pompous and British when he said it. It’s hard to describe the joy it brought me.

I mean, who even says that? Piss off. Who does he think he is, and how did the phrase find its way into his vocabulary in the first place? A working holiday in a pub in London when he was eighteen? A foul-mouthed English grandparent who spent summers in his home?

Nah, neither of those feels quite right.

A preoccupation with staying home and watching British sitcoms and movies, maybe?

Yeah, that feels like something he’d do.

Now, do I think it’s normal for me to take pleasure in this kind of thing? Not really, no. I think it’s the kind of thing a therapist could have a field day with, and honestly, I wouldn’t blame them. I can only imagine how they’d tuck into it—Daddy issues, Mommy issues, attachment issues, the whole nine.

The thing is, for someone like me, someone who’s been described as “perpetually bored” more than once, Ryan Haraway is better than crack. He’s completely unpredictable. A loose cannon. I don’t have a clue what he’s going to do or say next, and something tells me he isn’t completely sure either.

He starts to stir, burrowing his head farther into the mattress and letting out a muffled groan at the thought of a new day. I get up and start the coffee. He’s sitting up in bed by the time it’s ready. His hair has fallen into his face, and his T-shirt is twisted around his torso. His eyes are narrow slits and his lips are thick with sleep.

He’s a mess. A disgruntled, angry mess, and holy shit, I’d love to pin his hands on either side of his head, throw a leg over him, and grind my cock against his right now. I’d like to hold his jaw in one hand and pull his hair back off his face like it was yesterday when he got out of the shower with the other. I have no doubt whatsoever that I’d have to hold him tightly to keep him still for what I really want: a kiss. A hard, feverish kiss. The kind of kiss that involves snapping and teeth and tongues delving into each other’s mouths. The kind of kiss that would make his lips even more puffy and leave him completely breathless.

I mean, yeah, he’d be breathless with rage, but still.

I arrange my face into the most neutral, inoffensive expression I can manage and hand him his coffee in my blue dick mug.

He doesn’t react other than to give me a loud huff and a semi.

I wait until he’s drained his mug, then I top him up and get down to business. I open my wallet and peel out six fifty-dollar bills, stacking them neatly and folding them in half, securing them with one of the money clips I got as a gag gift for my eighteenth birthday. The gag being that my grandparents had used it to clip a first-class ticket to Paris. I repeat the process with five hundred-dollar bills. The clip I use this time once housed the confirmation email from the Four Seasons—an all-expenses-paid seven-day booking, including restaurants, bars, and use of the spa.

Good times.

“What are you doing?” Ryan’s eyes have gone blank like they did yesterday. I try not to smile, though I do feel a quick rush of adrenaline.

“I’ve been doing some research, and I have a proposal.” His mouth drops open ever so slightly, so I up the ante. “Admittedly, it’s an indecent proposal of questionable legality, but in my defense, what I’m offering is well above market rate.”

He glares at me through a dark forest of lashes, and I see his right forearm clench as his bicep swells.

Ngg.

Looks like I might get that slap after all.

I tap the stacks of cash firmly on the desk to neaten the edges before placing them within his reach.

“So,” I say, pointing to the money, “I’m thinking three hundred for a hand job and five hundred for head. That’s you going down on me, obviously.” I give him a saucy wink. “I’d go down on you for free. Wouldn’t charge you a dime.”

His eyes are bigger than I’ve ever seen them, lids stretched so wide there’s a clear ring of white all around his pupils. Furious swirls of yellow and green are flashing, almost pulsing with outrage.

I continue undeterred.

“Now, I did a bit of investigation about charge rates last night, though I’m not claiming it was exhaustive. I’m more than happy to take your lead on this, but I do think you’ll find my prices to be fair. In this area, the average price for full service is two hundred and fifty dollars, so really, you’re getting the deal of a lifetime here.” When he doesn’t react, I add, “In case you’re not aware, full service includes access to your mouth”—I smile and bite my bottom lip—“or throat if you do it the way I do.” He doesn’t laugh, so I laugh for both of us because, like it or not, that shit was damn funny. “And obviously, it includes anal access as well—”

“I know what full service is, you dick,” he hisses through tightly gritted teeth.

Swoon.

God. He’s so sexy.

“Excellent!” I clap my hands together. “So we’re on the same page then.”

“We’re not on the same…I’ve never…I’ve never been further from the same page in my whole fucking life.”

“Ah, well. Think it over,” I say brightly. “The offer stands.”

With that, I head to the bathroom, stopping a few feet from his bed and bending over to drop my boxer briefs and toss them in my hamper. I keep my back turned on him, but I swear I can feel him looking. A hot trickle of hatred spills down my shoulders and back, running all the way down to the crack of my ass.

I’m buzzing from head to toe. I’m really surprised by myself. I’m known to be someone with an excess of audacity, always have been, but this takes the cake even for me. My heartbeat feels thready and unsteady. More rapid than usual. I feel completely alert. Hyper-alert. Like I’ve had two pots of coffee in rapid succession. And yeah, I feel a little concerned about my health and safety, so I walk to the bathroom hurriedly, half expecting a mug to come flying through the air and connecting solidly with the back of my head.

It doesn’t.

Still, I take a nice long shower to be on the safe side.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your new favorite person is give them a little space to decompress, you know?

It’s been six days. Six fucking days. Six days of waking up and seeing the money I offered Ryan untouched on the desk. Six days of waiting and hoping. Six nights of going to sleep a few feet away from him, hearing him breathe and groan, feeling the room heat from his presence, and…nothing.

I don’t mean to sound like a dick, well, I don’t mean to sound like more of a dick, but this has never happened to me before. I made a clear play for him. I put my cards—or cash if you want to be pedantic—on the table. I was crystal clear about what I wanted…and nothing. Nada. Not one single thing other than dirty looks and furtive glances when he thinks I’m not looking.

It’s driving me crazy.

“Mills,” says Sienna, giving me a small worried smile that creases her eyes, “you’ve been quiet for days. Are you okay?”

We’re sitting in what would be the shade of an old Maidenhead tree if the leaves had fully come in. As it is, the grass is a little crunchy and sparse, the sky is blue-white and cloudy. Spring has yet to put on a proper show. A bunch of us are sprawled out on the grass, and the rest are playing the kind of game that would be of more than passing interest to golden retrievers and border collies. I’ve been here for an hour, and as yet, no one has uttered a word I haven’t heard a hundred times over.

“Um, yeah, I’m fine.” I try to keep my voice neutral, but I’m not sure if I’m convincing or not. She scoots up to sit a little closer to me, leaning her blonde head against my shoulder. “I’m okay,” I say again, “really.”

“Well, I’m here either way, you know that, don’t you?” An errant Frisbee comes flying through the air, narrowly missing her head. “For fuck’s sake, Trip! Play over there. How many times do I have to tell you?”

That’s nothing new either. I’ve seen and heard that before too. More times than I can count.

I lie back and watch the clouds sail past through a web of gnarled tree branches. It feels still. There’s hardly any air moving, but the clouds move surprisingly quickly, morphing and changing shape as they float across the expanse of pale blue. I lie there for so long that Sienna and the rest of the girls leave to go to a class. Trip and Dean sit, and it isn’t long before I have an open bag of Cheetos stuffed in my face.

“Want some?”

“No thanks.” I smile and briefly fantasize about slapping the bag out of his hands so hard that pigeons will find errant Cheetos in the grass until well after spring break.

I’m not sure I realize that what I’m doing under this tree is waiting, until the person I’m waiting for turns up. A lean figure. Dark hair and a slightly stooped posture. Shoulders slightly raised as if he’s trying to make himself seem smaller. He’s wearing his dark jeans today. The ones with a tiny hole on the left knee. It’s not an I was purposefully ripped to look cool kind of hole. It’s the kind of hole that happens when denim has been worn and washed over and over. Worn in. Worn through.

It bothers him, the hole. I can tell because I’ve seen him picking at it while he works and then suddenly stopping himself when he realizes he’s making it worse.

I get to my feet and dust the blades of dry grass off my ass. Trip and Dean make a move to join me, but I give them a firm look that says stay, so they do.

I keep my distance, but I don’t lose sight of him. He’s hard to miss. Shaggy hair, a burnt-out red sweater, and long loping strides. I follow him through the quad and past the library. For a moment, I think he means to go in, but he swings left and heads through the arch. My heart sinks.

Little shit.

He’s on his way to the Student Services building again.