“I think I’m going to head back to the dorm,” he said. “Get some sleep.”
I nodded, trying not to show my disappointment. “Okay.”
“You good?”
I swallowed, then held out my thumb with as big of a smile as I could muster. “Peachy.”
Clay frowned, like he wasn’t sure if he could believe me, and the smile was getting weaker by the minute, so I turned and grabbed my bag off the ground, slinging it over my shoulder.
I headed for the stairs, Clay on my heels, and when we made it down and out of the observatory, we paused at the fork in the sidewalk — one way leading to his dorm on campus, the other pointing toward my apartment.
“Let me walk you home.”
“No,” I insisted, shaking my head. “I’m going to get food. Maybe stop by the coffee shop to see Shawn play.”
It was a lie, a bold-faced one I tried to seal with an excited smile as if that’s all I wanted in the world — to see Shawn Stetson.
The truth was much darker, much more foreign, and much more terrifying.
I was running from a feeling demanding to be felt, a monster with gruesome teeth and sharp claws I knew would maim me if I let it catch up.
Clay didn’t let on any emotion when he asked, “He’s playing tonight?”
“Yeah. He told me when we ran into each other at the game.”
“Oh.”
I nodded, adjusting my bag on my shoulder.
“Let me know how it goes,” Clay finally said.
“I will,” I promised.
And in the most awkward goodbye ever, I offered him a peace sign before scurrying off with the memory of his tongue between my thighs etched into my brain forever.
Clay
I stayed away from Giana all week.
It was like refusing myself the pleasure of jumping into a refreshing spring on a hot summer day, like restricting myself from drinking water as I heave from dehydration — but I had to do it.
I was in too deep.
Almost a week ago now, Giana had taken me to the observatory to get my mind off my mom, even though she didn’t know the full extent of what had happened. She’d somehow known enough to not push me when I said I couldn’t talk about it, and she’d somehow cared enough to not leave me alone — even when every sign I gave off was cold.
She knew, without me having to say a word, that I needed something.
She knew what I needed.
And she let me lose myself in her.
It had haunted me all week, how it felt to come apart for her, to have her come apart for me. It was all under the guise of a lesson, but I knew if I was being honest with myself, that wasn’t what it was for me.
I wanted her.
I wanted her so badly my chest had a gaping hole in it whenever I wasn’t with her.
I wasn’t even thinking about Maliyah anymore, and maybe I hadn’t been for a while now. I couldn’t put my finger on when it changed, when my focus shifted, but I knew the shift was fundamental. I knew every time I wanted to reach for Giana now, it wasn’t because I gave a rat’s ass about someone watching us and reporting back to my ex.
It was because I wanted to touch her, to hold her, to taste her.
But that wasn’t what she wanted.
I’d starved myself of her attention all week long to remind myself, to hammer into my thick skull that she wanted another man — and I was just the foolish punk who agreed to help her get him.
No, whose idea this whole thing had been.
Frustration battled with gratitude inside my soul all week long, no matter how I tried to work through it in the weight room or on the field. I was consumed by overanalyzing each moment we’d spent together, wondering how it’d taken me so long to really see it, to really understand what I was feeling.
And I didn’t know which emotion I felt more.
I was angry with myself, with her, with Shawn and Maliyah both. I was gutted by the situation, by even the thought of Shawn touching her the way I had been.
And yet, if this was it, if this was the only way I could ever have her… I was thankful.
I’d take every stolen moment, every fake kiss, every lesson she’d let me teach her. I’d ground myself down to sand and let her leave me behind in the end if it meant I got to soak up everything that she was right now.
A fool, that’s what I was.
A fool who wouldn’t stop playing the game he knew he’d lose.
The contrast between Giana and Maliyah ran through my head like a PowerPoint presentation all week, too. I couldn’t help but compare them, where one was soft and the other a sharp razor. Maliyah got off on manipulating me, on knocking me down a peg or two, on reminding me just how lucky I was to have her, and how easily I could lose her — just like I had lost her. I used to get off on that, how confident she was, the games she loved to play. It was a thrill, a chase.