14. Emmett

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

emmett

He got me started.

“Wait, you and Ben used to switch places on purpose to confuse West?”

“Not specifically to confuse West, but he’s the one it worked on most. It was as if Asher could smell the difference between us.” I lift my hand to show him the scar I got when I was younger. “Now all West has to do is ask to see our hands.”

“How did that happen?”

“Hunger Games, sibling edition.”

Jonah laughs. “No, really.”

“Nine-year-old me had an accident with a sharp knife at Christmas dinner. Benny tried to replicate it once but couldn’t cut deep enough.”

“You were that desperate to keep confusing him?”

“It’s …” I’m walking into dangerous territory here, and I’m not even sure I can explain it well enough for him to understand, but defending my relationship with Benny is something I’ve had to do my whole life. “It wasn’t so much that. It’s …” How do I tell him my brother means everything to me. He’s my comfort zone.

Jonah leans forward and runs one fingertip down my arm to the inside of my elbow where my intertwined tattoo is. “Does Ben have this too?”

“On his other arm. We got them last semester after …” Fuck.

“After what?”

After we decided to stop cheating with school. Yeah, I can’t say that.

“We wanted to see how long it would take his frat brothers to notice. Spoiler alert: they haven’t yet. One time during a party, Big Wally got so drunk he stumbled into Ben’s and my room, saw both of us, and said, ‘I’m so drunk I’m seeing double’ and then he ran to the bathroom to puke and never mentioned it again.”

“What would you have done if they did figure it out though? Like you said, you couldn’t tell me because I’d have to tell the school, but⁠—”

“Eh, after months of pretending to be Ben, I needed something that was mine. Even if it meant I’d have to face my big brothers back home. It’s a contradiction, I know.”

“Yet, Ben got the same tattoo.”

This is something that not a lot of people understand. “You know how there are those twins you see articles about where they know when their twin is upset or hurt or they can basically read each other’s minds? Ben and I have that. He’s my other half. In the future, our partners, whoever we end up with, are going to have to accept that we’re a package deal. I don’t want to be apart from him ever. So even though his tattoo is the same, having it on a different arm is enough for me to remove myself from him. It’s the same but different. Like us. It makes no sense, I know, but it doesn’t need to because it makes sense to me.”

“I’m not going to pretend I understand what it’s like to be a twin or how your matching tattoos are different if they’re not, but like you said, I don’t need to understand.”

Even though we’ve said this can’t go past tonight and I try to ignore the pang of disappointment in my gut, the wish for him to want to understand is there.

I knew from the beginning that Professor Brooks wasn’t the guy for me, that it would be impossible to have anything real with him, but this only cements it.

My person would understand the way Harrison understands Benny and me.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asks.

“No. You said the truth.” Yet, I can’t stop the bitterness from seeping into my tone, and that’s annoying because my emotions aren’t his issue.

“Then why are you suddenly checked out?”

I force a smile. “I’m realizing that I’m screwed.”

“How so? And please take note that I took you seriously and didn’t make a joke about not being screwed yet. I still have plans for that later.”

This time, my smile is genuine. “Why don’t we get to that now?”

“Not until you tell me.”

“Why do you want to know so much about me if this can’t go past tonight?”

“Well, I’m wondering why it can’t? I didn’t pick up on it in my horny haze before, but you said you’re not staying at the DIK house anymore, right? You’re going to be moving off campus. I’m no longer your brother’s professor, there’s no conflict of interest. There’s⁠—”

I hate that I get excited. “I can’t. I just … can’t.”

“What’s holding you back, Emmett? You can be who you want with me. You can be yourself.”

That’s the thing. For the first semester of this year, I wasn’t myself around him. I was Ben.

I can’t start something on a lie. I couldn’t continue to lie. And there’s no way I could watch what I said every minute of the day. I’d totally slip up, I know it.

“You said you’d never understand me, so I think one night should be all I selfishly take.”

He frowns. “Is that what I said? Or did I say that I don’t need to understand because it makes sense to you, and that’s what’s most important? Because if I told you how to think, wouldn’t that be someone else telling you who you should be? You’re you for a reason, and I respect that reason.”

Fuck a duck.

I’m so screwed.

“I think I just fell for you a little bit,” I blurt.

“Good. Then, my plan is working. How about that shower now?”

There’s no need to say yes. Not when I’m on my feet and running for the bathroom as fast as I can.

I could really get used to Jonah’s dick being inside me. With my chest pressed against the shower wall, my ass sticking out, my hair drenched and hanging over my face so I can’t see, it’s easy to let go.

I wasn’t lying when I said I might have fallen for him a little, and how messed up is that? Why? Why would my body, my head, my heart choose someone so unobtainable?

I can’t go home to Benny tomorrow and be all, “I’ve decided to risk your everything for a guy,” and I can’t tell Jonah the real reason I can’t be with him.

This whole situation is a mess, and I hate it.

But I also love how much Jonah’s turning me out.

“Fuck, Emmett, you feel so good.”

The way he says my name, the way he respects me and my way of being me … I almost ask him to stop so I can go home and cry myself to sleep. Because I want more than this with him.

I want tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Anything after that.

I want a chance.

I wish we could hold out and do this all night, but that’s not possible when he’s making me come unglued.

Nothing else exists other than his cock, my ass, and the poor decisions that got me here.

“I need you to come.” He grunts. “Really, really soon. Or now. Yup. Right fucking now.”

I’m so close, but as Jonah stills and comes inside me, I know I’m not close enough.

I reach for my cock and jerk off as fast as I can get there.

Jonah keeps fucking me through his orgasm, and as his thrusts get slower, the deeper he goes. His cock passes my prostate. Once, twice. My hand moves more frantically.

And when he stills inside me and leans in to kiss the back of my neck, I unleash. Something about the hard sex reduced to a tender moment makes me let go.

But with the end, the reality of tomorrow moves closer.

Ben’s gonna be pissed when I tell him where I’ve been, but just because I spent another night with Jonah, that doesn’t mean he’s going to find out what we did.

He can never find out.

And he can never fall for me because I couldn’t stand to hurt him if he ever did figure out I was the one who used to sit in his classroom.

I remain where I am, resting against the tiles, while Jonah slowly washes me down. I’m so boneless I let him clean all of me and focus on catching my breath.

When he’s done, he leans in close. “Let me take you to bed.”

Bed sounds perfect. Sleeping in a bed instead of on a mattress on the floor is even more enticing. I haven’t moved completely out of the DIK house yet, but even when I do, my mattress situation won’t change. I don’t have the money for furniture as well as rent, and there’s no way I’m going to call home and ask for some cash. Not because West or Asher won’t give it to me, but they will want to know why I’d need so much when all of my tuition and meals are paid for on campus.

I might be ready for things to change, for me to do me, but I think until I have a proper plan or an idea of what I want to do with my life, what West doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

We dry off in a sated haze and don’t bother putting clothes back on before crawling between Jonah’s sheets.

We naturally curl into one another, my head landing on Jonah’s shoulder, and I fall asleep to Jonah running his fingers through my wet hair while ignoring the sense of pending guilt.