14. Ryan

I’m at my desk, and even though Miller is on his side of the room, it feels like he’s in my space. “Don’t you ever study?” I ask without turning around.

“Not really, no.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Um, ‘cause MacAvoys get degrees from Ivy League schools.” He uses a deep, snooty voice that I assume is meant to sound like his father.

I have two more chapters of psychology to read by tomorrow, but I can’t concentrate for shit because I can feel him watching me. His eyes bore into the back of my head, frying my brain.

“What?” I demand, spinning my chair around to face him.

He’s on the sofa with his iPad in his hands. He puts it down next to him and parts his legs, showing me the swollen bulge in his pants. He flicks his head toward the money on his desk and says, “Take it.”

It’s only been three days since the last time I took it. There’s no way I can take it again. If it wasn’t for the money in my bank account, I’d have lost count of how many times I’ve blown him by now. It’s not good. Anyone could tell you that. I can’t let this shit become more of a habit than it already is.

I smile lightly and say, “Nah.”

One corner of his lips hitches up, digging a gentle laugh line into perfect skin. “Please.”

He sounds like I feel. Naked. Paired back, like someone has peeled a layer of skin off me.

I shake my head because I can’t trust my voice. He gets to his feet and closes the space between us. I stand up so I can move away if he gets too close, but I’m not quick enough. He’s already too close. His chest is inches away from mine, not touching but burning through my clothes all the same.

“Just give me something. It doesn’t have to be head. You can use your hand. Please.”

His face is close enough that when he speaks, I feel a soft puff of air on my cheek. I look into his eyes, watching him closely.

“No.” I smile when I see a flinch followed by a subtle burst of heat in response to the word.

He raises his arms like he did the first time he propositioned me, hands up at the side of his head, palms facing me. It’s meant to set me at ease. It doesn’t.

“Okay, no blowjob. No hand job. Fine.” His eyes flick down to my mouth and back up again. “How much for a kiss?”

A kiss? No fucking way.

I’m sure as hell not kissing Miller, so I say the most ridiculous number I can think of. “Same price. Five hundred dollars.”

“Five hundred dollars for a kiss?” His eyes narrow, but instead of outrage, I see something that looks confusingly like fondness. “Jesus, Ryan. That’s extortion…but fine. Done.”

What? Is he insane?

“Five hundred dollars for one minute,” I clarify.

There. That’ll stop him.

He doesn’t blink. “Five minutes.”

“Two,” I hear myself say, though I’m very sincerely shocked by the sound of my voice, never mind my words.

“Deal.”

Wait. What now?

What just happened?

He moves closer, and I take a couple of unsteady steps back until I feel the coolness of the wall against my back. He takes his wallet out of his pocket, opens it, and starts peeling off notes, counting softly under his breath. He tosses the wallet onto my desk and folds the money in half, hooking a finger into my front jeans pocket. He drags my hips toward him and then pushes the money into my pocket, pressing it in a lot deeper than he needs to.

I try to step back again, but I’m met by the solid wall behind me. He places both hands on the side of my head, trapping me. Containing me. My heart skips a beat and then beats five or six times in rapid succession to catch up, leaving my breath shaky and uneven. He presses his body against mine, chests, hips, and dicks grinding against each other. His lips part and his jaw drops. I feel his breath again, but this time, I feel it on my lips.

“H-hey, Siri, set a timer for two minutes,” I stammer.

He gives me a cocky display of teeth, and his eyes don’t leave mine for several long seconds. When they do, they burn a trail down my face, over my cheeks, my lips, my chin. He leans in, and my head connects with the wall again, a subtle reminder that I’m going nowhere.

He traces the line of my jaw with his nose and then snaps gently at it with his teeth. I wince even though I was expecting the contact. It makes him smile. Pillowy lips curve. Soft pink. Soft lips. This close, they almost look sweet. He grazes my chin again, the other side this time. My head lolls to the side, inadvertently giving him more real estate to work with.

His hands fall to my hips, fingers winding through belt loops, pulling me tightly against him. He’s hard. So hard his dick rubs against mine, digging into me, knocking a little sound out of me that I hope he mistakes for an indignant grunt rather than the weak groan it was. He rests his forehead against mine as he moves his hips slowly, chaffing, grinding, almost hurting, but not quite.

Good, I think. If he keeps this up, he’ll run the timer down without ever getting his tongue in my mouth. Perfect. Just what I want.

It’s almost as though he can hear my thoughts because as I think it, he runs his nose gently down mine and sighs softly.

Fuck, he’s close. He’s so goddamn close. His mouth is less than an inch from mine. He’s so close he looks blurry. Blond, gray, pink, and white swirl together, making me dizzy. He leans in a little more. So close I can feel the heat of his lips on my mine. It’s like a furnace. So hot that I push myself up onto my toes and squirm against the wall for respite.

“Just kiss me, you dick,” a strained voice that sounds a lot like mine whines.

He smiles like he did last time. Big and beautiful. White teeth gleaming, eyes dancing for a second, and then sliding shut.

I don’t close my eyes. I keep them open, watching as he blurs more and brushes his lips against mine. Softly. Softly again, and then a little bit harder…but still soft. Still too goddamn soft. I squirm for real now, palms flat against the wall, fingers clawing it.

One of his hands curls around my lower back and the other travels up my chest and around my neck. That one, the one on my neck, pulls me forward. I let it.

Something bad has happened to my brain. It’s turned to mush. I’m gooey inside. I don’t have an ounce of resistance in my body and there doesn’t seem to be a thing I can do about it.

He moans as he takes my mouth.

At least, I hope to God it was him and not me.

His tongue slips between my lips, parting them gently, tasting, withdrawing. Tasting again. Deeper and harder. He pulls away slightly and murmurs something worryingly like “Mine” into my mouth. Then he covers my lips with his, and his tongue searches for mine. My tongue rises to meet his without any conscious intention from me. Stroking. Caressing. Kissing back. Making out. Making me burn harder and hotter than ever before. His breathing is ragged. So is mine.

My eyes are closed now, my mouth open, my lips bruising. And holy shit, it feels good.

I physically jump when I hear the timer. My shoulders and spine clench so hard that my feet leave the earth. It’s a jarring, loud sound, a blade to the brain. It feels otherworldly and odd like it’s here courtesy of a time-traveling machine. Alien and uninvited.

Miller steps back, beaming like the happiest man in the world, running a thumb across his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyes hooded and creased as he openly stares at my mouth.

“Damn, boy,” he drawls, stepping away from me, leaving a cold gust in the space he creates between us. “Five hundred dollars for two minutes of your time?” His laugh sounds less like a laugh and more like he’s saying, hmph. “You keep this up, and you might find yourself the highest-paid rent boy in history.”

With that, he drops the invisible strings he’s been using to play me, leaving me to slump onto my desk in a heap as he heads for the bathroom. He leaves the door wide open, standing in front of the toilet, unbuckling, and pushing his jeans and boxers down enough that I can see the clear line where two perfect muscular mounds of muscle meet.

I’m not looking.

I’m not, okay? It’s just that he’s right there, and the door’s wide fucking open.

“What are you doing?” I ask dumbly.

“Jerking off. Wanna watch?”

Fuck yes.

“Hell no!”

He chuckles softly. “Look away then.”

I mean to. Swear to God, I mean to, but I can’t seem to make it happen. He has his back toward me, legs open shoulder-width apart, right arm moving up and down in front of him. My own hand clamps onto the base of my dick, squeezing hard. Squeezing hard enough to squeeze some much-needed sense into me.

Sense doesn’t take hold.

Miller’s head tilts back, flaxen hair catching the light, and he lets out a small, helpless sound.

I know that sound. It’s the sound he makes when he’s close.

Lats and delts clench, digging deep ravines into his back. I still can’t look away.

The next sound is lower. Lower and louder. Longer. I know that sound too.

Usually, when I hear it, I start swallowing.

I stand and watch, several feet away, nowhere near close enough to touch him, and swallow reflexively. Hungrily. Greedily. Thirsty and uncomfortable at the thought of his seed being laid to waste.

My phone pings, sobering me and reminding me that I want no part of this. I look at the screen. It’s Emily, checking to see if I’m still on for a drink at The Pardon.

“Who’s that?” asks Miller, craning his head toward me as he washes his hands.

Ordinarily, I try not to give him much information about my whereabouts, just because with him, you never know what’ll be done with that information. I try to think of something bogus to tell him but hear myself say, “It’s Em.”

His eyes flash. “Oh, so it’s Em now, is it?”

I sigh loudly. “Em is a common diminutive for the name Emily, Miller. It’s quite well documented.” When he doesn’t respond, I say, “Fine, it’s Emily,” drawing the word out and pronouncing it unnecessarily clearly.

“What did she want?”

“She wants to know what time I’ll be at The Pardon tonight.”

“Hmph.” His eyes are weird for a second, then he corrects, and they’re a picture of pleasant precision again. “Well, that actually works out pretty well. Trip and Dean wanted to hang out. I’ll tell them I’ll meet them there. What time did you say?”

“Eight.”

Well, color me confused.

I started this ridiculous conversation, not intending to tell him anything about my plans, and just look at me now.

He sends a few messages when he gets out of the bathroom and his phone immediately starts blowing up.

“Sienna’s coming too,” he says. “And she’s bringing your friend, Lori.”

“Cool,” I say, though I have no memory of having met her before and the fist is unhappy that a quiet night with one person I’m starting to think I can trust has turned into a circus. It clenches to make its feelings about the matter known. My chest and skin feel tight. I rub my palms on my legs, scraping them on the seams of my jeans, but it doesn’t help.

By the time we’ve both showered, I’m seriously questioning my life choices. At least ten more of Miller’s friends are coming. And that was at last count. I’m losing track of the messages he keeps reading out, so there are probably a lot more.

“I think maybe I’m gonna—”

“Don’t even think about it. You’re coming. Everyone’s waiting.”

He takes a dusty-blue beanie out of one of his drawers and pulls it on. It’s one of those beanies only a very specific type of person can pull off. You know the kind of thing I mean. All slouchy and devil may care. Sex on a stick instead of Ooh, look, my mom dressed me for a snow day.

“Shall we swing by Emily’s room on the way out?” Miller asks.

“No, she said she’d meet me there.”

Night has taken hold. It’s warmer than it has been, but it’s still crisp and eerily dark. The moon is an opalescent sliver partially hidden by clouds and several streetlamps are out. A black cloak has been draped over campus. A cloak that quietens some things and heightens others. The sounds of cars and people seem muted and far away. The sound of Miller’s shoes on the sidewalk and the soft sigh of air entering and leaving his lungs is unnaturally loud.

The fist has had it up to here with my plans for tonight, and it’s making its objection plainly known. My heart is clamping painfully with every beat, and it’s taking everything I have to keep breathing.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I snap. He stops moving and looks at me. His eyes look different. They’re reflecting the color of his beanie. They’re blue-gray now. Dusty, but clear. So clear they seem to reach inside me and rattle something loose. “I-I just don’t like big crowds, that’s all. I’m not all that great in big groups of people.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. You’re not all that great one-on-one either.” I fight a highly uncharacteristic urge to laugh at something he’s said. It’s surprisingly difficult to keep the sound in. He moves closer to me, butting his shoulder against mine and keeping it there for a few paces. “Anxious, huh?” He says it softly. Like balm. Like he understands. I don’t answer, but I also don’t move away. “I get it, Ry. But don’t worry.” He leans in a little closer. “Nothing bad’s going to happen tonight.”

His voice is soothing and calm, totally sure. It disarms me. I speak without thinking, without wanting to. In fact, I speak despite the fact I actively don’t want to hear myself sound this pathetic.

“How do you know?”

He stops walking, turning me to face him with a gentle hand on my left shoulder. He holds me like that, half frozen for a second or more. Then he cocks his head and breaks into a smile so perfect and pristine, I swear to God, I hear angels cry.

“‘Cause you’ll be with me.”

Sounds of hilarity and alcohol abuse spill onto the street as he opens the door to The Pardon. I stiffen and try to backpedal. He slings an arm over my shoulder and nudges me in.

The Pardon is dimly lit, with most of the light coming from backlights illuminating the drinks behind the bar. Multicolored bottles glow like stained glass in a cathedral. Lighting up and refracting, giving the place a strange, almost religious ambiance. A pious undertone that’s in sharp juxtaposition with the fact there’s a girl on her back, draped over a table, as a guy does a shot out of her navel.

“Mac. A. Voy. Mac. A. Voy,” chant Trip, Dean, and a bunch of others I know by face but not by name when they see Miller.

Much fist-bumping, high-fiving, and slinging the word yo around ensues. Miller does a lap of the room, introducing me to people and handing me the drink someone gives him. He keeps the arm he has around my neck so firmly in place it starts to feel more like a chokehold than a casual embrace. I squirm out of it when we sit down, moving as far away from him as the limited space in the booth allows.

“Ryan,” says Sienna, sidling up to my side of the booth and giving me a knowing look. “This is my friend, Lori.”

“Oh my God,” says Lori, patting her bangs down and tugging at the bobbed hair at her neck. “I can’t believe it. It really is you.”

Lori seems mightily surprised that service staff venture out to bars, and frankly, she looks a little nervous about it. To set her at ease, I curl my middle, ring, and pinkie fingers back to my palms and give her my best gun-hand impression. “Long Island Iced Tea, huh?”

Oh Jesus.

It’s things like this that remind me why I like the library so much. I’m so much better when talking to people is frowned upon.

“Oh. My. God,” screeches Lori. “You remembered. No way.”

I only remember because Long Island Iced Teas were one of my least favorite drinks to mix. Eight ingredients, not including the ice? Not my idea of a good time. And seriously, who thought mixing lemon juice, coke, and five spirits would be a good idea? Ew.

Still, it works. She smiles and laughs loudly, reassured that although a staff member is on the loose and appears to have infiltrated their group, I don’t pose an immediate threat. Sienna pulls up a couple of chairs for them and is forced to ask a barrage of questions to keep the conversation going.

I drift in and out of their conversation and the one Miller has struck up with Dean and Trip. Neither is riveting and though the fist has quietened, it’s still making its presence known.

When I was younger, I had a thing about walking on cracks in the pavement. I hated it. I avoided it wherever I could as I had a bad feeling that if I stepped on a crack wrong, the earth would open up and swallow me whole. I haven’t thought about it for years, but as I sit there, straddling two conversations that make me uncomfortable, I feel like I used to about walking on cracks when I was a kid. Except now, I’ve done it. I stepped on the crack, and while it hasn’t swallowed me whole, it has opened a big fault in the earth, forcing me to sit here trying to act like a normal person while every instinct in my body is yelling at me to run for safety.

At last, the door opens and Emily blows in. That’s what she does. She doesn’t arrive like regular people. She blows in, windswept, hair in her face and tugging at a top that’s inevitably falling off one of her shoulders, no matter the weather outside.

Her face lights up when she sees me. The fist releases. I get to my feet and weave my way toward her. It’s not till I set her down on her feet from a big, relieved hug that I realize Miller is at my side.

“Hey, Em.” He smiles, leaning in and kissing her cheek. “Why don’t you grab a seat? We’re all sitting over there. Ryan and I’ll get you a drink. What are you having?”

I follow him to the bar, feeling more than a little annoyed. The plan was for me to meet up with Emily and for him to meet up with his dickish friends. I’d never have come out if I’d known I’d be spending the whole night hanging out with these people.

“You’re buying,” he says with one of those smiles that creases his cheeks but doesn’t come close to affecting his eyes. If anything, it makes them look harder.

He watches lazily as I take the money he gave me out of my front pocket. I can tell he wants me to feel something—shame, humiliation, gratitude—I’m not entirely sure what. I don’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, but I definitely feel something. I feel his eyes on my hands. The money he gave me, and the fact that we both know what it bought, burns my skin as I hand it to the bartender once I’ve ordered our drinks.

I leave a big but not obnoxious tip.

He smiles and nods as if he’s privy to a joke I know nothing about, raising a shoulder at Emily and his friends. “You have girls dripping off you like sweat, you know that?”

God, he’s exhausting.

“What? You jealous?”

“Yes, I’m jealous.” He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Of course I’m jealous. I told you. You’re mine.”

I’m not even going to touch that. I honestly don’t know where to start. I take a long sip of my beer, and Miller does the same. “I don’t have girls dripping off me like sweat. Wish I did, but I don’t.”

“Are you seriously telling me you can’t feel the way they’re looking at you?”

I dip my head, horrified that he’s noticed, “I know, but, but that’s not why they do it.”

“Oh no? Why’re they looking then? Because Lori and Emily and half the fucking women here are looking at you like you’re meat, and more than a few men too, in case you haven’t noticed that either.”

I drop my face into the palm of my hand, resting my elbow on the bar, and sigh deeply. There’s something really, really wrong with Miller MacAvoy, and he’s being way worse than usual tonight. Still, I don’t want him making a scene, so I explain, “They’re not looking like that, you dick. They’re looking because they’re laughing.”

“Laughing? What the hell are they laughing at?”

“I don’t know. Me, I guess. Guess they’re laughing about how wound up I am, or how big my nose is, or something like that.”

I’m not all that happy I’ve said it, but I’m starting to realize that Miller has a dangerous way of making me say things whether I want to or not. There doesn’t seem to be a thing I can do about it.

He tilts his chin up and looks at me down his nose. “Let me guess. You were a weedy little kid, and you didn’t get contacts till junior or senior year in high school.”

It was senior year, but I don’t think he needs to know that. “What’s your point?”

“My point, Ryan, is that you’re such a dumbass you missed your own glow-up.”

“Are you trying to tell me I don’t have a big nose?”

“No, I’m saying you have a huge fucking nose, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. It makes you look vulnerable and wild, and it does something to your face that makes it so every time I see you, you look a little different from how you looked the last time I saw you.” He leans closer and speaks softer. “It makes you so hot I honestly can’t decide if I want to tear off your pants and blow you or if I want to bend you over that barstool and fuck you right here and now.”

My dick lurches in my pants, pulsing and straining the second it hears his words, even though the rest of me can’t stand being made fun of. I grab the neck of his T-shirt roughly and make a fist, bunching the fabric in my hand and shoving him away from me. “You’re full of shit, Miller.”

“Jesus!” His palms are open at his sides. “Who hurt you?”

That trips something in me up. It rips something I’ve spent years covering up, something I’ve hidden and buried and bandaged up. “People like them,” I sneer, pointing to the booth we’ve been sitting in. My face is inches from his, and it almost looks like he’s thinking about kissing me again. For a really weird moment, I lose focus, but I quickly recover. “People like you.”

He takes a step back, clearing the air and giving me a second to breathe.

“What did they do?” His tone is light and supremely nonconfrontational. It addles my brain and lulls me into a false sense of safety. I take two more sips of beer, and those lull me too.

“What do you think they did? What would you have done if you’d known me in high school? Hm? They targeted me, and when they got bored of that, they isolated me. They spoke shit about me, and they laughed at me. I spent the whole of high school with no idea where I was supposed to sit or stand or what I was supposed to say that wouldn’t make things worse.”

Okay. Fine.

You’ve said it. No major harm done. Just stop talking now.

“I thought it was getting better.” This time, I can’t even blame Miller. I’m volunteering this information freely. I think there might be some sick part of me that actually wants to hear myself say it. Maybe I want him to know. Maybe I’m hoping it will repel him, wake him up, get him to snap out of this crazy fixation he has on me.

“In senior year, this popular guy started being kind of nice to me, waving me over in the cafeteria, asking to copy off my homework. Not just taking it, actually asking. He started messaging me, and we started playing video games online together over the weekends. I was so happy. I was so fucking relieved. I let myself believe it was over.”

I take another sip of my beer. “After a while, he told me this girl named Camilla liked me. I didn’t believe it, but after he said it, she did start being friendly to me, hanging out at my locker, waiting for me after school, that kind of thing. She was one of the prettiest girls in school, and I’d low-key had a crush on her since I was a freshman, so I was in heaven.

“He told me she was waiting for me to ask her to prom. He said it over and over. I was terrified to ask her, but he convinced me she’d say yes, so I did it. I had these visions of prom being amazing and undoing all the shit I’d been through. You know, a way of re-writing history and making it different. A do-over or something.”

I drain the rest of my beer in three gulps and put the bottle on the bar. “Obviously, the whole thing was a joke. Obviously, the entire school was in on it. Watching, waiting. Laughing their asses off when I asked her, and she said no. You know the drill.”

Miller waves the bartender over and orders two more beers and two tequila shots. Before I have time to wonder how he knows I like tequila, he licks his hand where his thumb and forefinger meet and sprinkles salt on it, waiting until I do the same to raise his glass to me and say, “I love tequila. Smelled it on your breath the first time you blew me. Now I think of you when I smell it.” He raises his glass to his nose and inhales, then looks at me. “Turns me on.”

The shot goes down badly. I cough, eyes watering as I bite into the slice of lime.

“I should probably take Emily her drin—”

He cuts me off with his eyes. “You know,” he says almost dreamily, “if you tell me his name, I’ll find him. I’ll hire someone if I need to, but I’ll find him.”

“Who?” I ask, and when the answer occurs to me, I add, “Why would you do that?”

“To get something on him. Something shameful and bad. You know, something I can use to ruin his whole life.”

I smile despite myself. It’s so ludicrous that I can’t help it.

His eyes go vacant, and he tilts his head to my ear. “Fuuuck. You’re so pretty when you smile.”

“Oh Jesus,” I mutter, dropping my head in both hands.

He turns around, leaning his back against the bar and motioning to the booth we just came from with his beer. “Wanna see something cool?” I really don’t, but Emily has ensconced herself with his friends, and I’m not in a big hurry to get back there. “Watch what happens to Dean when Sienna talks to him.”

I watch for a while. A couple of minutes pass before anything happens. People are talking animatedly, louder and more exuberantly than during the day. Sienna catches Dean’s eye and smiles. He sits straighter immediately, lower back stiffening, and a wide-eyed look of terror and joy flickers across his face. His jaw works a couple of times before he replies.

“Geez, poor guy.”

“Wait,” Miller whispers. “Keep watching. This is new.” Sienna laughs at whatever he says, resting a hand on his arm and throwing her head back until her blonde hair cascades down her back. “He’s been like this since he met her, but it’s new for her. It wasn’t there before. I only noticed it a few weeks ago.”

His lips are touching, resting against each other, but they’re quirked to one side. His eyes are soft, almost translucent in this light. He talks me through the rest of the group in the same way, pointing out tiny mannerisms, little peccadillos he observes and collects for his own entertainment. I have to admit, his observations are interesting, and while I wouldn’t class them as flat-out impressive, they are impressive-adjacent.

“You’re good at reading people,” I say, stomach churning at the thought of what he sees when he reads me.

“Have to be. You get real good at reading the room when you grow up in a warzone.”

He raises his beer to me and smiles amiably. He holds eye contact for a long time. Way longer than I’m comfortable with, but I find myself unable to look away. Dusty gray-blue has clouded over. Instead of flashes of silver, there’s pain. He doesn’t flinch or look away. He doesn’t even blink. He lets me see.

“What about Trip?” I ask, eager to lighten the mood. “Any bruising insights as to how the Cheeto fetish evolved.”

He laughs and then quiets. “I don’t think Trip has a very easy time feeling good about himself. He tries to hide it, but he’s shy. I think he likes having something to offer, to hold between him and other people. Almost like a shield. A cheesy orange shield.”

“Hmm,” I say, trying not to react at how insightful that is. “Pity it had to be Cheetos. Ke—”

“Yeah,” Miller finishes for me. “Kettle fried would have been so much better. Sour cream or plain salted?”

“Plain salted for sure.”

We make our way back to our table, and thankfully, I manage to get a seat next to Emily.

“So,” I say, once I’ve handed her drink to her, “did you see her today?”

Despite the fact I haven’t known her for long, Emily and I have struck up a friendship. She felt so awful about getting the single room, leaving me stuck with Miller, that she offered to let me hang in her room whenever I need to get away from him. Things have been so dire that I’ve taken her up on her offer quite often. She’s surprisingly easy to talk to, and she’s not at all the person I imagined her to be when I met her. She and I are pretty much neck-and-neck when it comes to not knowing how to handle ourselves around other people.

“Yeah.” She nods, but her eyes stretch worryingly wide.

She recently told me about a girl in her history class who makes her feel odd. Apparently, the girl has short, spiky dark hair and birds and flowers tattooed down both arms. Apparently, when Emily is around her, she feels like she might be having a sugar crash for no discernible reason. She’s started taking protein bars with her to history class, but so far, they haven’t been helping. She’s thinking of going to the doctor to get checked out.

“Did you talk to her?”

Her mouth turns upside down, and her eyes stay the same. “Yeah.”

“What did you say?”

“Um, I think my exact words were, ‘Er, hey, hi, um, hello.’”

My shoulders shake from laughter. “It’s not that bad, Em. It could have been way worse.”

“It was way worse. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I added a bunch of oohs and aaahs and finished off with a couple of these weird guttural sounds.” She mimics a strange choking sound. “It was bad, believe me. It was as bad as it gets.”

We chat about other things for a while, and when my drink gets two-thirds of the way down, Miller hands me another silently. When he’s out of earshot, Emily puts a hand over her mouth and whispers, “How’re things with Miller fucking MacAvoy?”

“Ugh, the same. Maybe worse.”

“Still making you coffee in bed and sending your laundry out for you, huh? What an asshole.”

I know she’s being sarcastic, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve tried and tried to explain why I can’t stand him, but without getting into the whole he offers me money for sex and I take it thing, it’s really, really hard to explain.

After a few hours, Em and I are tired, so we decide to head home. We’re less than a minute down the road when Miller comes bounding over. He inserts himself between Emily and me and slings an arm over both our shoulders. He dominates the conversation the whole way back, hardly letting Emily get a word in edgewise.

When we get to our building, he makes a point of depositing her on her floor and all but manhandling me along with him as he takes the next flight of stairs to our floor.

“See you tomorrow,” she calls after me, sounding more than a little bewildered.

Good.

At least now, she might start to believe me when I tell her Miller’s the worst.

Instead of stopping at our floor, Miller drags me up another flight of stairs to the top floor. It’s quiet. It’s late, the hallway floor looks shiny and wide, and there isn’t a breath of air moving. It’s well after midnight, and the entire floor is completely deserted.

“This way,” he says, forcing the window at the end of the hallway open.

“W-we can’t go out there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Um, the sign that says Strictly No Exit.” He laughs softly and bundles me out of the window onto the roof without giving me time to make more strenuous objections known. “Oh fuck,” I groan when I see how high up we are.

“Sit and don’t look down.”

I do as he says because I’m not sure what else to do. We lean back against the dormer window, his legs splayed out in front of him, my feet scrabbling for purchase. The roof tile is bumpy and rough under my ass, which brings me some comfort—I don’t think it would be all that easy to roll off it and fall to my inevitable death.

The campus looks different from this vantage point. There seem to be more trees from up here. Frozen in the moonlight. I can see the library. Just the outline of it, washed with warm white lights that I’ve never noticed at ground height. I can see the quad and the arch too, but my bench is hidden from view.

“Did you have a good time tonight?” Miller asks.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Told you.”

“Told me what?”

“Nothing bad will happen to you when you’re with me.”

I’m suddenly overcome with exhaustion. Inexplicably, bone-crushingly tired. I must be because the urge to lean my head against Miller’s shoulder is almost overwhelming. My head feels heavy and my neck aches for respite.

“So you and Emily, huh? You like a thing, or what?”

Jesus.

I’ve had just about as much of Miller as I can possibly handle in one day. “I told you. We’re just friends.”

“Hmph.”

The way he says it, or laughs it, or whatever you’d call it, infuriates me. I’m shutting this shit down. “She has a crush on someone else, you dork, and even if she didn’t, I’m not interested in her like that.”

As I say it, it occurs to me that it’s true. It’s a shock. Emily is very, very pretty. Beautiful, in fact. And she’s a lovely person. Kind and weird, a bit of a mess, and funny to boot. She’s exactly my type.

Why the hell am I not into her?

I gulp down rivers of horror, looking straight ahead, unseeing but feeling. Feeling many things, but most of all, feeling the heat of Miller’s body despite the fact we’re not touching at all.

I jump up and wrestle the window open, stepping in with a high, awkward step that almost sees me stuck precariously in a position that would be less than favorable to my balls. Miller takes my arm, trying to help, but I slap him away.

“Freaking out again, huh?” he asks as we walk to our room.

“No,” I say a little too loudly. “I’m fine.”

I use the bathroom first and switch off the lights in our room to try to limit the amount of naked Miller I’m subjected to.

I’m spinning out. There’s no getting around it. I’ve been hard off and on all night. I feel hot and my skin feels too tight. There’s a deep pressure everywhere. Not just in me. All around me. I need to come so much I’m starting to get a headache.

My dick is determined to make my life hell. It’s been making a complete ass of itself since the day I moved in with Miller.

I swear to God, it’s like I’m permanently chained to an idiot.

It’s one of those nights where there are constant knocks at our door. Miller gets up a couple of times, and every time, it’s the same. Quiet whispered words outside, and then he comes back to bed on his own. It makes my blood boil.

“Can’t you put up a sign or something? I’m a really light sleeper,” I complain.

“I know. That’s why I don’t invite anyone back here.” That makes my blood boil even more. “Unless…” I hear him smiling. “…you like sharing?”

I can’t tell if I’m annoyed or aroused. My dick is rapidly stiffening, but my mood is plummeting.

It’s not like I think I’m bad in bed. I’m not. I have moves, believe me. I have some moves anyway. Fine, I have one move, maybe two. It’s just that there may be women out there who’d describe my sexual performance as tries super-duper hard but is ultimately underwhelming. I hope not, but there might be. That’s all I’m saying. I know myself and my capabilities, and there’s no way on Earth I’d like to go up against Miller fucking MacAvoy. That’s all I’m saying.

God knows I can’t handle that level of dent to my ego. I’m barely limping along as I am.

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”

“Okay.” There’s that loud fucking smile again. “Night then.”

“Night.”

I wake to a blissfully quiet room. The curtains are drawn. There’s no hint of gurgling from the coffee maker or any sign of Miller watching me sleep. It’s heaven.

Actually, the sound of the coffee maker might not go completely amiss right now. I have a bit of a headache, and I could use a shot of caffeine. I get up and walk over to the machine. It’s empty and the pot is cool.

He hasn’t made any coffee.

It’s not that I’m complaining. I can make my own coffee. It’s just that this hasn’t happened since I moved in. I don’t mind. It’s no problem. And I’m not mad that he’s not here. It’s lovely to wake up alone. Wish I could do it every day.

So yeah, definitely not mad and not at all bothered about where he might be.

Don’t care.

Could not give a shit.

He’s my roommate, whom I don’t like, and he’s an, erm, client. He can do what he wants. He doesn’t owe me anything.

With all that in mind, it’s not immediately clear why I’m stalking to the door and yanking it open. I peer down the hall and feel an unreadable mix of emotions when I see Miller three or four doors down talking to Abby Wentworth. She’s fully dressed, and he’s in a pair of sleeping shorts I’ve never seen him sleep in and a white tank that fits snugly around the broadest part of his chest. He has a stack of class notes pinned under his arm, and Abby has her hand on the hem of his top and is tugging at it gently.

“Are you sure you have to go?” She smiles mischievously and bites her bottom lip.

“Yeah, I have to,” he says. “Have to go and make Ryan his coffee. He’s grouchy as hell in the mornings. But thanks for the notes. I appreciate it.”

“Isn’t he grouchy as hell all the time? Don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.”

He looks over her shoulder and catches my eye, smiling broadly when he sees me watching him. His eyes dance, and he raises a languid hand and runs it through his hair. Ash-blond and silky. It stays exactly where he puts it.

Goddammit. Seriously? Even first thing in the morning, without any product in it?

“Yeah, he is. He’s grouchy as fuck.” He shoots me a killer smile. “But he’s worse in the mornings.”

With that, I head back into our room and get into bed, waiting in what I hope is a dignified manner for my hot beverage.

He serves it to me in the blue mug. Cornflower blue. Vines and old roses and straining hard boners. I take it from him, ignoring the way he makes sure his fingers brush against mine, blowing the steam away before taking my first tentative sip.

It occurs to me later that I no longer know which mug I consider a victory.

Pink or blue.

Dicks or boobs.

Who the fuck knows?