Contents

Title

Copyright

About This Book

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Thanks for Reading

Also by Misha Horne

About the Author

THE BRAT & THE BEAST DUET BOOK ONE

HURT ME, DADDY

MISHA HORNE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the

author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 Misha Horne

www.mishahorne.com

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Join the Misha Horne mailing list

ABOUT HURT ME, DADDY

Does the baddest boy in school need a tutor… or a Daddy?

I’ve spent my whole life needing absolutely nothing and getting exactly that. Love? No. Security? Yeah, right. Parental supervision? As if. I take care of myself. After graduation, my football scholarship and I are out of here and we’re never looking back.

Unless I screw it up.

Trying to study when I’m cold and hungry, that I’m used to. But throw in my mom’s sketchy new boyfriend and his shady side hustle, and my home life’s suddenly way more than just unbearable. Studying’s barely on my radar and I’m in danger of losing my future before it starts.

My one shot at turning things around is The Beast.

Caleb Heath is the smartest guy in school. And the biggest. A giant, quiet bookworm with no friends, and okay, maybe that’s partly my fault, but whatever. I hate him and he hates me, so why would he even offer to be my tutor?

Turns out there’s a reason. He doesn’t just want to save my grades. He doesn’t just want to save my season. He wants to save me.

Wants to wrap me up in his giant arms and rescue me. He wants to spoil me. Punish me. Take care of me. He wants me to call him Daddy.

Sure it’s hot. Sure it’s tempting to think anyone could ever really want me. But I’m way too old to believe in fairy tales.

Aren’t I?

Hurt Me, Daddy is book one in The Brat & The Beast duet, an angsty, kinky, grumpy epic MM romance about an angry, stubborn, bratty jock who won’t give an inch and a slightly stalky gentle giant with infinite patience. Get ready for steamy study sessions, unexpected attraction, hurt/comfort, daddy kink, spanking, fun sized candy bars, ugly gray sweaters, and all the feels.

This book ends on a satisfying but exciting cliffhanger. The second and final installment, Comfort Me, Daddy, contains a happily ever after for Logan and Caleb. It is available for preorder now.

Content Warnings for toxic/abusive/neglectful home life, drug and alcohol abuse/addiction (parental), additional mentions of both in the past, frank portrayal of poverty, and food insecurity.

For Jack.

I hope this hero is tall enough for you.

<3

CHAPTER ONE

“Get your feet off the table, asshole.”

I looked up from my unreadable chemistry notes and stared bleary-eyed at my mom’s new boyfriend. Mike was standing in the living room in his boxers, lighting up a cigarette at four in the morning, and there was literally no part of that I liked.

He was a nasty looking dude— greasy ponytail, fussy goatee, spray tan ex-con with homemade tattoos, acting like he was old money. Wiry and mean with crazy eyes to match his crazy ass bullshit. All around her type.

The table he was so worried about was older than I was, twenty years of cigarette ash and coke lines ground into the top. Splintered and warped and dirty and most of all none of his fucking business if I wanted to put my feet on it.

“Piss off,” I muttered, looking back at my notes like somehow I was going to suddenly understand them. I was too tired to comprehend shit, and chemistry had stopped being comprehendible a couple weeks back, so really all I was doing was staring at paper.

I was fucking drowning in numbers and letters and shit I’d put off learning since freshman year, thinking I’d get to it eventually, and now eventually was here and I was pretty seriously fucked.

But when wasn’t I.

Mike tossed his lighter down on the top of the bookshelf that had never had any books in it and stalked over in front of me, all quiet bad vibes. I was twice his size, but he was a whole different level of crazy. When he crowded you and put hands on you, it wasn’t to blow off steam, it was to make you scared, make you think he was going to kill you.

When I didn’t look up, he lifted his leg and kicked my feet off the table. Hard. My notes went flying and I reached down to pick them up, reminding myself I was over eighteen and wasn’t allowed to beat the crap out of people anymore or I’d go to jail. It was basically my mantra these days. Okay, for the last year at least. There were a lot of people I wanted to beat the crap out of, and that meant a lot of reminding. But this guy, damn. So tempting.

“I said feet off the table, you piece of shit. I know your mom taught you manners.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. The list of shit my mom taught me started and ended with You’re on your own, kid and anyone who’d been around me for five seconds knew that. Not that he’d been around me much longer than that before deciding he was man of the house after shacking up here for the last few weeks.

“What the fuck’s your problem, man?” I muttered, keeping my voice low because waking my mom up sure as shit wasn’t going to help anything.

My ankle fucking hurt now. He’d nailed the one that was always kind of sore from a cheap hit freshman year, and his bony ass feet were hard. But if I let on, he’d double down and stomp it again. I was stuck in that middle space like always, trying not to act too weak or too strong because they both caused trouble. Walking the tightrope, surviving until he disappeared like all the rest.

“Not me that’s got a problem.” He took a long ass drag off his cigarette and ashed on the carpet. “The fuck you doing out here in the middle of the night with all the lights on? Some of us work for a living, we’re trying to fucking sleep.”

My mom’s boyfriends were all the same, and not one of them was gonna give a shit that there was barely enough light in my room to read and the heat had stopped venting in there five years ago and if I didn’t get a handle on school like tonight, I was gonna be fucking suffering long term.

I wanted to start some shit, I really did, tell him to get the fuck out and leave me alone. If I’d had the energy, I might have gone stupid. But I didn’t. Not at all. I yawned instead.

Assholes fucking hate when you yawn in their face, so of course he fucking hated that.

He gave the end of the table another kick, punting it across the carpet and then staring at me, expecting me to be in awe or shaking or whatever. That part of me had burnt out about seventeen boyfriends ago though, he was way late.

“Nice manners,” I told him.

He took another step until he was crowding me back on the sofa. I knew power moves— he wanted me to have to look up at him and feel small. Not happening. I just stared at his bird knees, thought about how easily I could take him down, snap his bones, and tried to steady my breath without breathing in his nasty cologne.

I fucking hated this guy. I fucking hated everything.

“You better watch yourself, you spoiled little prick,” he told me in that satiny cold voice all club guys had, thinking they were in the fucking mob just because they raided their own till and kept a gun in their car. “I know where you sleep. For now. Now go to bed before I put you to bed for good. And be quiet about it.”

He flicked the rest of the cigarette at me and laughed when it grazed my arm and I scrambled to find where it bounced so it didn’t light the whole goddamn sofa on fire.

“Jesus Christ. Psycho.” I found it in the cushions and smashed it out against the back of my notebook, leaving an ugly black circle I got to stare at every day now. Sweet.

He just laughed again and headed back to bed, yanking the lamp cord out of the wall on his way, leaving me sitting there with just the streetlight outside to light up the papers in my lap, all queasy with chills and rage.

Another day in paradise and all that shit. Fuck.

Some days it was like, why even do six weeks of double sessions if you weren’t gonna use your fall biceps to beat down people who deserved it? Okay, most days.

Keeping myself in check was about the only thing I did right, and it did not come easy. Especially around guys like that. Or teachers telling me I wasn’t applying myself when I was risking my life in the middle of the night just to try. Or kids at school who’d been making your mom, your house, your ratty ass shoes jokes since day one. There were a lot of fucking people who made me feel out of control. A lot of fucking people who deserved a beat down.

I hadn’t always had this much self-preservation. Who the fuck knew how I kept a lid on things these days. Being dead inside helped, I guess. So did having graduation within spitting distance.

Hopefully.

I tried to shuffle my chem notes back in order, but at this point just figuring out which end was up was barely something I could do in the daylight. In the dark it was fucking impossible.

Yeah, so this was not the senior year I’d been banking on.

I’d expected to have the house to myself for drinking and smoking and fucking and general last call anarchy while my mom worked nights and spent the days passed out with her blackout curtains stapled shut and we both counted down the minutes until I left.

What I sure as fuck didn’t expect was for some three-piece hustler to scrape her up off the stage one night and move in.

I’d seen this game before, too many times to count. She’d get so fucked up she couldn’t work, and some middle class bankroll wanting to see what playing hero to a party girl could get him would prop her back up, pump her full of cigarettes and caffeine and AA chips, like a week of that would turn her life around, and she’d get all starry eyed and think they were god until things fell apart.

But she hadn’t brought anyone back here in a long time, definitely not for longer than a night, and the last thing I fucking needed right now was the added drama of some low level loser harassing me and acting like he was in charge in my fucking house. Like I owed him for pouring coffee down her throat until she stopped slurring.

I didn’t know which was worse, her sober or her strung out. They were both prone to crying jags and the old Am I a bad mother? game that there was only one right answer to. They were both just as likely to randomly find god and tell me I was going to hell. They both lost their shit for no reason, screaming bloody murder while their mascara ran down their face, clawing me with fake fingernails or throwing dishes at me because I did something or didn’t do something I never could have predicted would piss them off. There wasn’t much difference really, except sober usually came with a guy and some strings attached.

This time it was Mike Whatever-Didn’t-Matter. I never bothered learning their last names, and they rarely even knew my first. I hadn’t known what the fuck he was doing moving into our shithole house with his rolling rack of suits he never took out of the zip up bags when he clearly had a nicer place somewhere else. And then I realized that was the point. We weren’t prime location for much, but you couldn’t swing a junkie without hitting another junkie. And Mike was clearly all about the side hustle.

Try telling my mom that though, and you’d end up with a gash on your forehead that probably needed stitches you weren’t getting, so thank god dudes dig scars. Once she picked a side, she was ride-or-die like nobody ever did her wrong. She just never picked me.

I reached up under my hair and tapped at the scab the way I kept doing every time I thought about it. I kept forgetting to grab band-aids from the locker room first aid. Not that I probably would have worn one. I needed to get something to rub on it, though, it still felt fucking raw. Add that to the long list of shit I’d forget about tomorrow.

Normally, I’d have just rolled with everything. No, it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. And I sure as hell didn’t like being ordered around in my own damn house by some guy I’d never had a conversation with just looking to flex his dick. But it was always easier and safer to keep my fucking head down and wait it out.

Except now I was failing Chemistry. Well, not technically, not yet, but I was on the bubble, and I needed to get my grade up pronto before the scholarship I’d gotten all by my damn self, playing a thousand football games she never came to even once, went south.

Donovan wasn’t exactly the college to end all colleges. Odds of me leaping from there to the NFL were exactly zero, but I didn’t care about that. It was my ticket out of here, my one and only nonrefundable, and I couldn’t fucking miss it.

All this bullshit— getting hounded at home more than normal just for living here, waking up in the middle of the night to guys banging on the door looking for Mike when I was the only one home, getting knocked around for not thinking the scumbag was a saint— it was fucking with my concentration big time and my grades showed it. Especially Chem. It was hard to stuff shit in your head and keep it there when your brain was constantly shaking and spinning like a shitty carnival ride.

The longer this creepshow went on, the worse it was going to be when it all came crashing down, and I was the one who was going to get fucked worse than anyone, stuck here picking up pieces I didn’t want to be picking up for the rest of my life.

Nah. This dude needed to fucking go.

CHAPTER TWO

Coach T was not fucking pleased when he found out my grades were slipping. Came up to me before practice on Tuesday and gave me the screaming, temple-throbbing, pacing-back-and-forth speech about letting the team down and fucking up my future, right there on the field in front of everyone, so pissed off he spit everywhere when he yelled.

I was as immune to yelling as everyone else on the team, so I just took it, trying not to roll my eyes when he told me I needed to stop partying and acting girl-crazy and buckle down. Poor guy didn’t have a clue how many guys on his team had sucked me off in his locker room after hours. Good thing he was more observant on the field, or no scouts ever would have shown up to check us out in the first place.

Once he was done tearing me a new one, he popped a blood pressure pill and took a deep breath. “You gotta get those grades up, Prescott. No fucking around. The line’s got a big ass hole in it if you don’t play. I can’t have that, and neither can you. Donovan’ll yank that free ride right back, you fuck this up.”

“Yeah, I know.” I toweled the sweat off my face, but it just kept coming. It was already cold at night and cold in the morning, but goddamn if four pm wasn’t still a heatwave every single day. “I got it covered. I’ll figure it out.”

He shook his head, holding out his hand to stop me when I tried to take off for drills. “Figure it out time was a couple weeks ago. It’s fix it time now. Who do you have for Chem? Mendleton? I’ll talk to him. Get you a tutor.”

“No way.” I might have been in danger of fucking up everything, but that didn’t mean I needed some smarmy honor roll asshole treating me like an idiot, repeating the shit I already didn’t understand, wasting my time and busting my pride while they were at it. That wasn’t gonna help the situation. I just needed my house back. “I don’t need a tutor.”

He didn’t so much agree.

“Yeah, kid, you do. You don’t raise those grades up quick we’re both fucked. Get used to the idea.”

* * *

Practice was good for working out my rage, it always helped when they let the JV lightweights run in for some plays and I could slam a few baby bodies into the ground, but my head wasn’t so in it.

Usually by the time Coach T was popping vessels about grades, a guy was already destined for the bench. I didn’t know how the fuck I was gonna study harder or smarter, tutor or not. Normally I was damn good at ignoring reality, but this was a big one.

“Yo. Logan. Moron.” Ellis sharked up behind me on the way to the locker room and punched me hard in the kidneys.

I grunted and folded over a second, my legs shakier than I thought after two hours in pads and sun. “The fuck,” I muttered, swinging my helmet at him, bashing him in the shoulder. There were a lot of people I didn’t like dealing with when I was tired, and Ellis was high on the list. Dude was a sucker punch in a body— all he did was talk shit and try to take your legs out, then act like he was just kidding. He was too annoying to even fight, so most days I tried to steer clear, but he was one of those guys who got more obnoxious when you ignored him, so you just had to figure out the balance. “Whattayou want, Ellis?”

“You flunking Chem? You’re in big fucking trouble, man.” He punched me in the arm, and I glared at him and he glowered back. He had blue shadows under his eyes so dark even eye black couldn’t hide them, like he stayed up all night just thinking of new ways to bug people.

“I’m fine. I’ll do some extra credit or something. Don’t worry about it.”

“How you gonna do extra credit if you can’t even get the regular credit right? You better be getting a tutor real quick. Learn or cheat or something. I get my legs crushed by some Ollie because you’re not there to do your job, I’m gonna take that real personal.”

“Right.” I rubbed my hand over my face, squinting at the sun going down over the athletic building. Oliver Prep had a line of eight foot square ringers that took a toll on everybody. Not saying I was crown jewel, but if I was on the bench in two weeks, we were gonna lose that game hard. And that was pretty much the least of my problems. No pressure.

* * *

“Prescott! Office! Now!”

I was barely toweling my hair off from the shower when Coach barked at me from the doorway of his office. I sighed and jammed myself back into my clothes, not bothering to tie my shoes or buckle my belt because god knows the guy had no patience.

I was expecting another lecture about keeping my head on straight, maybe the obligatory Everything okay at home? everybody liked to ask to cover their ass, but that no one actually wanted me to answer any more than I planned to. I sure didn’t expect a fucking Chem tutor blind date to be going down, but apparently Coach moved lightning quick when he thought his season might be on the line.

Should have been grateful, I guess, that I didn’t have to scrounge up some nerd and beg, but that wasn’t what I was feeling when I saw who he had sitting in his office. Didn’t matter that he had his back to me, there was only one guy in school who was that tall sitting down. The Beast.

Of course it had to be Caleb Goddamn Heath.

Caleb and I had been kind of enemies since we both got held back in fifth grade. I never did figure out why a guy that smart got held back, but then I missed a lot of school that year, so maybe he hadn’t grown into his brain yet back then. When we’d both showed up on day one of grade five, take two— a class full of seriously fourth-grade-looking motherfuckers we didn’t know and us— school suddenly turned into this weird competition where we tried to outdo each other and prove we weren’t the biggest loser, I guess.

I was smart enough, just not in front of people. Problem that kind of never went away. I stumbled over words when I had to read out loud, I forgot how to count when we did math on the board, and give me something to dissect, I was making finger puppets, not diagrams. In class, he stomped me with a smile on his face.

But in gym, fucking forget it. I made that boy my bitch. Fouled him during basketball, tripped him during laps, pegged him so hard and so much with dodgeballs I must have bruised every inch of his body. Broke so many pairs of his glasses he finally got contacts.

And then the summer before freshman year, the asshole grew a fucking foot. Took his puberty lump sum and came back taller than the teachers, scared the shit out of everybody. Ellis started calling him The Beast, and it stuck and didn’t budge.

Dude should have stuffed everything from a volleyball to a shuttlecock down my throat, gotten his revenge a hundred different ways in the years it took me to mostly catch up to him size-wise. But he never did, never talked, never did anything but skulk around with his nose in a book. Just kept his eyes on me from his massive perch, made me constantly feel like the other shoe was about to drop… which I guess was pretty good revenge in itself, whether he meant it that way or not.

We didn’t cross paths so much these days. Advanced classes were on the third floor and I rarely made it past the second, coasting on the easiest classes I could to make time for football and make sure my grades were good enough, pushing back all the requires until this year, cramming in Chem and Spanish and Econ just before graduation when most people got them out of the way early. Which probably was a fucking mistake, because being the struggling senior in a class full of freshmen extra sucked, and I really didn’t want to struggle in front of this guy.

Didn’t look like I had much choice.

“Logan, Caleb,” Coach said, pointing us out like there was anybody else in the room. “You know each other, right?”

“Not really,” I said at the same time Caleb nodded and turned around in the chair to give me a little half wave.

“Hey.”

“Caleb here’s volunteered his time to catch you up on all this chemistry stuff,” Coach told me, selling it like the dude was some kind of hero instead of probably just looking for last minute college cred ass kissing. Or just a good time serving up some cold pressed roasting over how dumb I was. Who knew what The Beast was into.

“Great,” I muttered, buckling up my belt, feeling weirdly naked in front of Caleb in a way I didn’t in front of guys on the team. He was all fucking… civilian in a sweater and shit, and him anywhere near the locker room was like one of those what-doesn’t-belong-in-this-picture games. Dude stuck out. Hard.

He should have been a jock, what with the size— and I swear to god he was maybe still growing because he made the chair he was sitting in look like a joke— but I don’t think he even took gym class anymore. Probably my fault, that one.

“Hey. Don’t be a dick,” Coach told me, his voice getting down-at-halftime sharp. “This guy’s willing to help you and you need all the help you can get. Do not, I repeat, do not fuck this up. Got it?”

I nodded before the poor guy had an aneurysm or something, sucking up my pride, reminding myself the only thing that mattered was staying on the team and getting the fuck out of here. “Got it.”

He turned to Caleb. “He’s all yours.”

“Wait, like… right now?” I asked him. I glanced back out the door toward freedom and not being tutored by The Beast.

“You got somewhere to be? If you do, cancel it. Mendleton says you’re one step back from academic probation,” Coach told me, and seriously, when did he even have time to find that out. “So yeah. Right the fuck now. You figure out what you need to do to get those grades back up and you do it, pronto. Whatever it takes. Whatever he tells you,” he said, pointing at Caleb. “Now get started. Learn some shit.”

He was gone before I could even think up any kind of argument, off yelling at Walker about sloppy QB drills, and there I was in the office with the last person I felt like spending after school time with. Or any time. I just stood there by the door like an idiot and eyed him warily from across the room.

Caleb spun his chair all the way around, so he was staring right at me. He wasn’t even wearing jeans. He was wearing… pants or whatever. He looked like he was dressed for church or some shit, all gray and wrinkle-free and serious.

I don’t know why that bothered me so much. It just seemed like he was always fucking showing off. Boss clothes, boss shoes, boss grades. And now popping up out of nowhere for no good reason, volunteering to help me like I was some fucking charity case, like he needed to remind me one more time he was the smart one. For posterity. Yeah. This was gonna go well. This was gonna be goddamn spectacular.

“I don’t bite,” he finally said.

His voice was weird deep, the way really tall guys sounded sometimes, and it seemed to vibrate the room like a little earthquake. His stupid face didn’t really match his voice, all blond side-part preppy bullshit, but it definitely matched his stupid jokes. It was such a lame thing to say I kind of felt sorry for him for half a second.

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

He snorted through half a smirk, and reached down and pulled a notebook out of his backpack. “Okay, so chemistry. What’s the problem?” he asked me, sitting there with a pen like he was about to be my shrink or something.

The hair on the back of my neck went up like he was insulting me, and I had a really harsh urge to throw something at him. Hard. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? I’m about to fail Chem. Coach thinks I need a tutor. Poof, here you are.” I frowned harder as I got suspicious. “How’d that happen anyway? You volunteered? Really?”

He shrugged. “Saw you getting screamed at, offered to help.”

For some bizarre reason, I felt my face getting hot. I didn’t give a fuck when Coach yelled at me, even in front of the team, even when he was so loud the cheerleaders on the other side of the fence could hear it. But The Beast hearing it, I guess I didn’t like.

We’d stopped competing a long time ago, but maybe not. It bugged me, him thinking I was a loser at smarts and sports.

“So, what, you’re just like really into school spirit and shit? Pitch in, support the team? Go Sharks?”

“Sure. Something like that.” His mouth kept moving in the direction of a smile and then back, like maybe he was trying not to laugh at me.

“You ever even been to a football game?” Seemed fucking doubtful.

“What’s that have to do with chemistry?”

That was a great question, and I didn’t know the answer. Just my default to want to interrogate anybody who claimed they wanted to help me, I guess.

“Just asking.”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Yeah. Sure. I’ve seen some games.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. During football season? Why?”

“So you don’t care about football, you don’t care about me, what are you getting out of this?”

His eyes narrowed a little bit, and his half smile went away. “Apparently a lot of fucking attitude. How about you don’t try to guess what I care about. A lot of people care about you passing chemistry. You wanna learn or you wanna let them all down?”

I blinked and my brain took a full step back. Maybe I was numb to Coach T telling me off, but this guy? This fucking stranger who didn’t know shit about me or about letting people down? Yeah, that hit hard when I wasn’t expecting it.

“Fuck you.”

“Look, you want me to sugarcoat it and suck you off, tell you this is no big deal? That’s not gonna help you. We’re like six weeks into the year. It’s not gonna get easier. You gotta catch up now or not at all. I can help you. If you want. But not if you’re gonna waste our time looking for reasons not to let me.”

I heard what he was saying, but I heard the first sentence a lot louder than the rest.

“Did you just say suck me off?” For half a second I was thinking about getting deepthroated by The Beast, wondering how tall he’d be on his knees. No lie, it was a pretty good half a second, little surprise party in my brain.

“So, attention span’s part of the problem?” he asked, interrupting my imagination and flipping his notebook open. Making a joke I thought, but I wasn’t sure. “What are you having trouble with? Specifically.”

“Chem.Is.Try,” I sounded out slowly.

He sighed and leaned back, making the chair groan under his shifting weight. “Logan.” He said my name fucking weird as hell, with extra tongue, like he was licking it. “Try not being a smart ass for one minute. When did things start to get difficult?”

“When Mendleton said Welcome to Chemistry.”

“Great. You’re cute, you’ve got jokes. But you’d have been failing two weeks ago if it was bad from day one,” he pointed out. “So just get serious and think about it. Where’d you lose your grip?”

I chewed on my lip, not sure why I was listening to him, but thinking back to the beginning of the year. It wasn’t too bad at first when it was just reading— learning what chemistry meant and about famous chemists and all that. It wasn’t always easy to follow, but I could make myself understand words with a storyline if I tried hard enough. At least enough to mostly not get lost.

I could learn vocab, especially if there was multiple choice. And when we were talking about different kinds of energy and how dynamite worked, I honestly thought I might ace the fucking class because that shit was interesting.

Mendleton kept talking about second semester labs and I liked labs. I liked mixing shit and feeling like a scientist, and the anticipation of hoping I wasn’t going to blow something up but also kind of hoping I would. I could follow directions if I had the time to read it slow. But nothing was slow anymore. And second semester seemed pretty unattainable right now.

It was the memorizing that killed me. The periodic table was not the alphabet, it wasn’t label the states on the map, it wasn’t even Spanish— which I wasn’t acing, but at least made sense to me, had pieces I could take apart and put back together when I got in over my head. Chemistry was just randomness I was supposed to recognize on cue though, and I didn’t.

Nobody else seemed to have a problem with it. They were already miles ahead of me, solving problems I couldn’t even read. Mendleton talked way too fast and my notes full of question marks were proof I was just spinning trying to figure out what the hell he was saying anymore. I shook my head.

“My brain fucked off early,” I admitted. “I was was doing okay, but then he covered up the poster with all the symbols on it and I just… that was it. I can’t memorize all that stuff, just… on a blank page. So I can’t… do anything else. Nothing makes sense anymore.”

“You get hit in the head a lot?”

I squinted at him a long minute, but I had absolutely no idea if he was being a dick or not. “If that’s a joke it’s not funny,” I finally said.

“It’s not a joke. I know it’s not funny. I’m asking.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, and I thought maybe his eyes got wide for a second. I wondered if he was still scared of me. Didn’t feel like it, but I wasn’t sure what it did feel like. Didn’t feel much like tutoring.

“No. I get hit in the head a normal amount. My memory’s just shit.”

“No it’s not,” he argued, like he knew anything about me.

“Dude. Just fucking tutor me, stop with the personality quiz, I don’t have time for this.”

“You remember a million plays for football, right? So your memory can’t be shit. How do you do that?”

I frowned. “I just… do. That’s not memory. It’s like reading. I don’t have to memorize it, I just look at it and… know it.”

“So, instinct.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Okay. I can teach you instinct.”

“How about you teach me fucking chemistry, bro.”

He pointed at the whiteboard Coach had rolled out into the middle of the office. “Draw me a play. Anything.”

I looked at the board and then back at him. “Why?”

“So I can see how your brain works.”

I wasn’t so sure I wanted The Beast to see how my brain worked. He seemed to be a little too deep in there already with his probing questions and sideways answers. But just saying out loud how fucked I was in Mendleton’s class was scaring some of the fight out of me. If he really thought he could keep me from failing by going all mental on me, I didn’t have much to lose.

I finally came away from the door and crossed over to the board, picking up one of the markers. I uncapped it and stood there a minute like an idiot, my brain blank like I’d never drawn up a play in my life. I could feel him watching me and it made me prickly all over, agitated and itchy like fucking psychological poison ivy.

“Anything is fine,” he told me quietly. “Take your time.”

Finally, I started drawing up a Z5, double and triple counting the line like I didn’t know how many guards there were, hesitating so long over my arrows that I left shaky black smudges all over the board. It wasn’t like he was even gonna know what I was drawing. But doing it on command, I felt like I didn’t know either.

“There,” I said, backing up and turning around. “Good?”

At some point while I was drawing, he’d stood up, and there he was leaning against the edge of the desk like a teacher, way closer and way taller than I expected. He wasn’t even standing up straight and he had inches on me. Like… several.

I had a weird thought that maybe he was trying to game me, make sure I knew he wasn’t afraid of my biceps anymore, but that was probably in my head. Either way, his size wasn’t lost on me. It was a little irritating, actually, not sure why.

He stared past me at the board, tilting his head a little and squinting, a good impression of me in Chem, probably. “So how do you understand what that means?”

“I don’t know. I just do.”

“No, I mean like literally how do you understand it? What does it mean? I don’t have any idea what any of that is.”

I looked back at the board, feeling smart and also somehow guilty about knowing something he didn’t. I couldn’t even remember not knowing this stuff, definitely had no clue how I’d learned it.

I gestured, unhelpfully probably, at the whole picture. “It’s the line. It’s like you’re looking down on the field. The circles are players. Center’s in the center, then guards, so on. That’s Walker,” I said, pointing at the QB. “And the arrows are just the direction everybody’s going to go.” I smudged out one that was pointing in the wrong direction and fixed it. “It’s just a picture. It’s easy. It’s not like chemistry.”

“It’s easy for you because you know what all that means. To me, it’s just a bunch of circles. It still just looks like a bunch of circles. And I feel like you explained it to me like I was five.”

I sighed, frustrated, and tossed the marker back down in the tray. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I’m not a good teacher.”

“No, I’m saying you are a good teacher. I think most people would have understood you. I don’t. Because I don’t know the language at all. But if I did, I could at least follow along somewhat even if I didn’t understand everything.” He pushed himself up straighter, still not standing, but gaining a couple more inches. “Look, I’m not gonna bullshit you. Unless you actually want to know chemistry for some reason, if you’re going into a science field, which I’m guessing you’re not, this class is mostly a waste of your time. It’s stupid that it’s required. But it can teach you good study habits. You just need to learn the language. We’ll start there.”

I shrugged. “Okay.” It was kind of oddly comforting to hear him tell me this class was bullshit when obviously it wasn’t a problem for him. “How?”

“Do you have anything with plays already written down you can show me?”

It was a little painful how clueless he actually seemed to be about football. I glanced back behind him at the top of Coach’s nasty desk. “You mean like a playbook?”

“Yeah. You have one of those around here?”

“Um. Yeah. But…”

“What?”

“We’re not supposed to show them to anyone.”

He laughed out loud. “You think I’m a spy or something? I’m gonna go running off to Trinity and tell them about your circle squiggle plays?”

“Well, just don’t tell anyone I showed you,” I told him, reaching past a bunch of power bar wrappers and empty coffee cups to grab the binder off the desk, handing it over. “Here.”

He flipped it open and sat there a minute looking through it. It was hard— well, no, it was impossible— not to notice how fucking enormous his hands were as I watched him turning the pages.

He’d have made a good receiver probably if he had any speed, but the height/weight distribution was… a lot. Bet he’d topple like a fucking stack of cans. A good low tackle and he’d knock himself unconscious with his own height, probably. Big hands were good for other things though, not that he probably knew how to do any of those either.

Finally he held one of the pages up to me, holding his hand over the bottom corner where the name of the play was. “What’s this one?”

“Hammerhead,” I told him, barely looking.

He peeled his hand back to check, but I knew I was right. He flipped ahead a few pages and showed me another one.

“Lazy Hook.”

He nodded and tried again.

“Bad Brad.”

He snorted. “Why’s it called that?”

I leaned against the corner of the desk, watching him stare at the diagram, tracing the lines and circles with his thick fingers. “This guy Brad Sullivan from a couple years ago used to run it. Big beefy receiver, but zippo fast. Like Ellis. Ellis runs it now, he’s always pissed we won’t change the name. But he’s not as good.”

He snorted. “Ellis is an asshole.” He snapped the binder shut and I was kinda bummed, seeing as how I was actually getting some questions right for a change. He turned and put the playbook down on the desk, then turned back, staring at me so hard and so suddenly I felt trapped and naked and some other things I couldn’t name right then. “Look. Clearly, you can memorize shit. You recognized those plays in half a second.”

“Because I’ve run them a million times.”

“Still takes a working memory. You’re smart enough to do this. I can help you.”

He finally stood all the way up, just for a second, just long enough to startle my stomach, and then he bent down and grabbed his notebook off the chair, shoving it back in his backpack. I wondered if he’d actually written anything down. I hadn’t even noticed.

“Okay, how?”

“Tomorrow,” he said, not answering the question. “We both have fifth period study hall. Meet me in the library.”

He didn’t wait for me to answer, he just walked out.

CHAPTER THREE

Sometimes, if I timed it right after practice, I could throw my regular clothes in with the towels while I worked out in the weight room and nobody was the wiser. Today wasn’t one of those days. The dryers were already running when I went back to the laundry room to check, and Walker was back there too, standing at the tables with a giant pile of laundry.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, surprised anybody was still here.

“Folding five million towels. Apparently my hand-eye coordination is shit.” He dropped the towel in his hand and rolled his wrists. “Cure for that’s carpal tunnel, I guess.”

I snorted and picked the towel up, folding it into thirds on the table. I actually liked folding laundry and doing boring repetitive shit I didn’t have to think much about. Destined for carpal tunnel, probably.

Wasn’t like I was gonna stand there and say Coach was right, especially when Walker’s wrists worked plenty well enough off the field as far as I could tell. But he wasn’t exactly lighting things up like last season, which made my job a lot harder.

“Coach has a lot of helpful opinions these days,” I muttered instead, quiet in case he was still hanging around somewhere nearby.

“Did I see The Beast coming out of his office?” Walker asked me. “Tell me he’s not recruiting him.”

“Yeah. To be my tutor.”

He picked up another towel, just twisting it back and forth in his hands, not folding it. “Rumors are true then?”

“What rumors?”

“You’re flunking out of Chem?”

I scowled. Great. The whole world knew I was an idiot, then. “How is that a rumor? It’s not even interesting.”

Walker shrugged. “A rumor doesn’t have to be interesting, it just has to be unsubstantiated.”

“I’m not flunking out. I have a C. Minus.”

“That’s pretty much the same, dude. One false move…” He cut across his throat with his finger.

“Yeah, thanks.” I shook my head and grabbed another towel. “Coach is pretty fucking mad.”

“Oh, we all saw. He’s not the only one.”

I looked up, more surprised than annoyed when he wasn’t backing me the way I did him. “What, you? What are you pissed about?”

“Dude, you are the line. No one else can be in six places at once and scare the shit out of everybody. Do not be sitting out. It’s senior year, I wanna flex.”

“All you do is flex.”

“I’m gonna look like a jackass if we don’t make the playoffs. It’s gonna ruin my whole year. And we’re not getting there without you.”

“You think I wanna be in this situation?” I snapped. “I’ve got more riding than just swinging my dick around when I walk down the hall. Playoffs aren’t even on my radar, I’m thinking about my fucking scholarship. And now I’ve gotta spend all my free time with the fucking sweater monster.”

He laughed. “The what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” I wasn’t even sure why I kept thinking about The Beast and his stupid gray sweater or why it pissed me off more every time I thought about it. “He dresses like a fucking teacher, you know?”

“Okay, yeah, that’s your biggest problem. Why didn’t you just—”

“Take Chem freshman year? I fucking know, okay? Doesn’t matter now.”

“I was going to say why didn’t you ask me for help.”

“Oh, yeah, alright.” I rolled my eyes.

“I’m serious.”

“You know chemistry?” I asked him, skeptical.

He raised an eyebrow up. “I know it when I feel it.”

I threw a towel across the table at him. “Give me a break.”

“Look, it’s quiet back here, why don’t you let me take your mind off things.” He ran his eyes up and down me like maybe I didn’t speak blowjob.

“It’s not quiet, those dryers are like standing next to fucking railroad tracks,” I told him, nodding at the industrials pounding behind him. Sure they were great for bending guys over, but not when they were running.

“So we’ll go somewhere else,” he offered. “Somewhere quiet. My place.”

I shook my head. “Another time,” I told him, but I could feel myself not meaning it. Walker was fine. Clingy, but some guys were like that, I didn’t mind it so much. Not great at giving head, but the guy was trying to learn stealth and I couldn’t fault him for being inexperienced. Besides, even not great head wasn’t bad head.

This was a legit case of it’s-not-you-it’s-me. I liked his puffy lips around my cock, sure. I liked holding onto the back of his fuzzy scalp while I fucked his face. QB on his knees begging the way he did was every guy’s dream, right? I just had too much shit in my head.

I felt like my brain was actually bleeding, and someone fucking around between my legs was just going to irritate me. Or worse, get me all emotional or some shit. It had happened before.

Level nine stress I could roll with— on the verge of a heart attack, that was my sweet spot. But when it bumped up to level ten and it was pretty clear I’d let shit go too far, I started breaking down— and facing my current reality had me on the doorstep of #10 Fuck Up Street.

I was big scared. Except I was so bad at being scared all I felt was numb and nauseous. Why did I always wait until the last minute to fix stuff I knew was broken? I knew why, though. Because when there was never actually any way to fix shit, waiting until the last minute meant at least you got to live in the meantime.

And now I was supposed to count on The Beast to smarten me up enough to keep my life from burning down? The guy who owed me less and had more reason to hate me than anyone else in school and we were just gonna… gloss over that? Something about this was feeling real not right. But it wasn’t like I had any choice.

I stacked another towel on the top of the tower I’d built without even realizing it. I could always get a housekeeping job I guess, if college didn’t pan out. But you probably needed a college degree for that, what the hell did I know. Or maybe I’d get Walker’s rich ass to be my sugar daddy. God knows I had to have those skills in my DNA.

“Logan, I—“

“Hey, look at the little French maids.” Ellis strolled in from the showers, whipping his head back and forth like a dog, flinging water everywhere and interrupting what might have gotten awkward. He took one look at the neat stacks and anyone who knew him could have seen it coming when he launched himself with a running start into the middle of the laundry table, knocking towels everywhere.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Walker snapped, shoving him hard but not budging his heavy ass, bending down to pick towels up off the floor.

Ellis tucked his hands behind his head, stretching out in the pile of laundry like the smug fucking dick he was, not caring at all about all the shit he’d knocked over. “Nothing’s wrong with me. You can’t throw. And you can’t read,” he said, calling us each out with a jerk of his chin. “But me, I’m doing just fine.”

“My arm’s not the problem,” Walker told him. “You’re not running the routes clean.”

Ellis laughed. “Bullshit. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Your head’s up your ass. You losers better get it together. I can’t carry this team all year.”

“Yeah, where you going next year with all those skills?” I asked him, which no, wasn’t nice, but neither was fucking Ellis. There was no good reason for him not to be going to Donovan, or maybe somewhere better, other than his deeply shitty personality and his arrest record, and that was a hell of a statement from this fucking sport.

“Can’t abandon your mom,” he told me, proving the point, not even giving a fuck about getting insulted, probably just waiting for it so he could toss one back. “Someone has to make sure she’s not lonely.”

“Fuck yourself,” I muttered, picking a towel up off the floor and throwing it at him. Jesus, suddenly I was so goddamn tired.

“Now, why would I do that when—“

“Jesus, shut up,” Walker cut him off. “And get off the fucking table. I have to fold these.”

“Alright, alright, I was just messing around.” He sat up, knocking over a whole second heap of towels, and Walker groaned. “Come on, hurry up. Let’s go to your place.”

Walker eyed him suspiciously, flinging towels into his lap. “Why?”

“So I can see your mom.”

“Yeah, that shit just keeps getting funnier.”

“It’s fucking hot and you have a pool, asshole. And a bar.” Ellis grabbed one of the towels and started trying to fold it into what looked like a paper airplane.

“It’s not that hot.”

Ellis made a disgusted sound. “Some of us actually worked up a sweat on the field today.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want your sweat in my pool.”

“I just showered, dickhead. Logan, you’ll come, right?”

They both looked at me, and I realized I was half asleep on my feet but supposed to still be in the conversation. Did I want to go to Walker’s and kill a few thousand brain cells while I sat on the edge of his pool? Eh. More than I wanted to go home and try to decipher my chem notes and all my other homework, but also no. They were both too much goddamn drama, especially together. Plus I might end up needing those brain cells.

“I gotta go,” I said shaking my head. “I need to study.”

Like somehow I was going to brute force myself to understand everything overnight, so I didn’t need a tutor in the morning, but yeah, that’s about what I was thinking. The only thing worse than being stupid was being stupid and needing help from someone you didn’t want helping you. Someone with dumb ideas and a dumber sweater.

“Thought The Beast was gonna do your homework now,” Ellis complained, giving up on folding his towel.

I wasn’t even sure how he knew that. For someone who couldn’t pay attention for shit, he was awfully fucking nosy.

“That’s not what tutoring is.”

“Is if you do it right. I’ll hook you up with my girl Shelly Bradly, she’ll do your homework and bake you cookies. Plus she can do the splits. Bet The Beast isn’t gonna make you any cookies. No way he can do the splits.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I don’t really think that’s gonna help.”

“Helped me. Especially when we studied naked. But I guess that’s…” He paused, thinking. “She’s got a brother. Want me to see if he’s smart and into dick?”

“He’s already got The Beast for that,” Walker said, grabbing a towel from Ellis, getting into a predictable as fuck tug of war as soon as Ellis knew he wanted it.

“Wait, Beast?” Ellis said, yanking hard and then letting go and laughing when Walker stumbled back a step. “Into dick? Nah, really?”

Walker shrugged, looking up at me like I was an authority. Normally I was. On this, I was not. “Pretty sure,” he said.

“Probably shouldn’t just go around saying things you’re pretty sure about,” I told him. “Not everybody might be cool with that.”

He blinked and licked his lips, looking all embarrassed. “Yeah. My bad. Probably not.”

“Great, so problem solved,” Ellis said, hopping up off the table, back to being oblivious. “Get The Beast naked, have him bake you cookies, easy A.”

“Literally do you know what studying is?” Walker asked him, rolling his eyes.

“Literally do you know what a Z5 is? Because you threw like ten yards behind me,” Ellis mocked him, shoving him in the shoulder.

I ducked out before I got dragged into another of their bullshit repetitive arguments and went to grab my shit from my locker. Did The Beast and his stupid sweater suddenly seem a little more interesting? Maybe. But this still fucking sucked.

CHAPTER FOUR

I usually slept through fifth hour study hall. Not on purpose, but it was right before lunch, which wasn’t my most awake time of day. I didn’t have a ton of quiet, hour-long stretches in my life and homework just got real fuzzy when I tried to stare at it in the library. My eyes closed on their own at least a few times a week.

When I got there on Tuesday, I went to sling my backpack on my usual table in the dark spot behind the old reference books when I saw Caleb out of the corner of my eye. When he was standing up, he was hard to miss.

He was at a table across the room spreading something out over the top of it, and when he noticed me notice him, he jerked his chin and called me over. I sighed and turned back around, heading over to his table instead of the one I liked.

No lie, I’d been kind of curious how this would go. All night when I kept trying and failing to force chemistry down my throat, I kept hearing him ask if I wanted to let people down, and getting pissed off about it all over again. And then I kept thinking about how he’d said You’re smart enough to do this, and getting even more pissed off, since clearly I wasn’t or I wouldn’t be wasting my time with a fucking tutor now would I.

He was wearing another sweater, gray but a different gray than yesterday, and I wasn’t even sure how I knew that because how could you possibly tell grays apart, but you could. I fucking hated sweaters, hated cozy people with their stupid fireplaces and hardback books. His family probably had a cabin. He looked like a cabin person.

When I got to his table, I stared at what looked like a thousand different colored index cards lined up in rows, taking up the whole big tabletop.

“What is this, arts and crafts?” I asked him, dropping down into one of the chairs, rolling my eyes when half a dozen people shushed me. Libraries just didn’t agree with my indoor voice no matter how hard I tried. And usually I forgot to try.

“You ever play that match game?” he asked me, fidgeting the edges of the cards like he got paid by how straight the lines were. His indoor voice was a lot quieter than mine, but still rumbly and deep like he was part volcano. “You know, where you match the pictures of cats and cherries and stuff?”

“Yeah, sure. When I was like five.” I’d actually never played that game. I’d watched other kids play it during indoor recess, and happy families play it on commercials, but my house wasn’t a board game house. You could do the same thing with a deck of cards though, and it was a good one to play alone, so I’d worn out the deck from Lollawood, playing so often I memorized the creases on the edges of the cards, and it stopped being fun.

“Well, pretend you’re five,” he told me. “I’m about to kick your ass at Chemistry Match.”

“Right, you wish,” I said, hitching my chair up to the table, automatically ready to stomp him before I even knew what this was supposed to be. “Wait, so, how is this teaching me chemistry?”

“Okay, so every card has an element name and its symbol on it. Two cards for each. Right now, all you have to do is match them up. But you’re gonna see them over and over again, and your brain is gonna start making that recognition leap.”

I shook my head slowly. “Matching cards is not gonna be on the next test.”

“Trust me. This is going to help.”

“Then what? Hide and seek?”

“You know, you could just not be a dick,” he said, sitting down across from me.

“Could I though?”

He spread his hands over the table like a game show host. “Go ahead. You first.”

I contemplated the table and the nine zillion cards, basically saying goodbye to my college education before it started. No chance were a bunch of pink and blue and yellow note cards going to save my ass. But I was still competitive enough to want to beat him at this stupid game, so I randomly flipped two side-by-side cards over. Au gold and Au gold.

“Ha!” I laughed out loud, getting shushed again and snatching the cards off the table.

Caleb frowned. “How did you do that?”

“Happens when you don’t shuffle well enough.”

He sighed, sending one of the cards skittering away under his breath and lining it back up. “The point isn’t to hack the game. It’s to use your memory.”

I shrugged. “So shuffle better next time. Anyway, I already know that one. It’s practically the easiest.”

“Fine. Go again. Don’t cheat this time.”

“That wasn’t cheating. I don’t cheat.” Just to be an ass, I reached all the way to the far right corner to flip one over— phosphorus— and then all the way to the far left corner to flip another— helium. No match. “That better?”

He twisted his lips together, annoyed. Opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then closed it and shook his head, flipping my cards back over and then turning over two from the middle. Nada.

My early match was a fluke, and there were so many fucking cards we were flipping them over for ages before I even saw one I recognized. I paired up helium and then got lucky again with radium when he flipped the second one over but couldn’t remember where the first one was.

“You’re not letting me win, are you?” I asked him suspiciously.

He glanced up from the cards and looked a little offended, I thought. “First of all, no, why would I do that. Second of all, you’re not winning. You have three pairs, we barely started.”

“You have no pairs and your memory sucks. I don’t know how you passed Chemistry.”

“I studied. A lot. That’s basically it. I don’t do much else.”

“Why don’t you play sports?” I asked him, flipping over two duds. “You’re really tall.”

“Am I? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Hilarious.”

He shrugged, missing another easy one, swearing under his breath when I scooped up both sodiums. “I don’t like team sports,” he told me. “Or teams. Or sports. Or people. Or…interacting.”

“Wow. You’re a hell of a good time, aren’t you?”

“Guess it depends on what you think a good time is.”

I’d literally never had a good time in my life, but I wasn’t gonna go around saying that, was I? “So, what, you just sit around and study all night long?”

“Pretty much.”

“What do you do for fun?”

“Oh, you know.” His long fingers hovered over the cards, sweeping back and forth while he picked one out. “Make flashcards. Tutor jocks,” he muttered, his face lighting up when he finally snagged a match, flipping over both bromines with attitude. “Ha!”

I snorted when the same three people shushed him. “You need to get out more.”

“Not really a getting out kinda guy.”

“What kind—“ Our almost too easy conversation got interrupted when Ellis came up behind me, kicking my chair so hard I almost tipped over and had to stomp my foot on the floor to steady myself.

“What’s this shit? Origami?” he asked, walking to the end of the table and looking down, curious.

The shushing came from half the library that time, and the librarian glared at us. Ellis had no inside voice at all.

“Yeah. It’s origami,” I told him, rolling my eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Come on, I wanna play. What are you doing? Three Card Monte or something?”

“How dumb are you?”

“Not dumb enough to need a tutor,” he told me, reaching for one of the cards.

I smacked his hand away, surprising myself more than him, going all rabid dog on him like he was trying to steal my dinner.

“Damn, alright. Didn’t realize I was interrupting.”

“We’re studying,” Caleb told him, giving him an icy look. “Do you need something?”

Ellis pulled back, looking him over. “Didn’t think you talked, Beast.”

Caleb was so extraordinarily quiet when he stared at him that my heart started beating faster. Or maybe slower. Things just seemed to get a little wobbly around the edges like I was lightheaded. I wondered if Ellis was queasy. I was queasy.

“I just don’t talk to you,” Caleb finally said, and my mouth twitched a little like I wanted to smile.

Ellis grunted and turned back to me. “Hey, so listen, I was thinking about Homecoming. You going?”

“What? I don’t know. No. Why?”

“Well, I was gonna ask you…” He pointed at me with both fingers, rocking an ugly smile. “Do you think your mom is busy that night? And follow up, how much would she charge?”

“Jesus, fuck off, Ellis.”

“Nah, I’m serious. Limo, corsage, hotel room, whole deal. There’s like a friends and family plan, right? Or a senior discount? I am a senior.”

“You’re hilarious, man.”

He flattened his palms down on the table, mixing a bunch of cards around as he leaned over towards me. “Yo, I’m just kidding, don’t be so sensitive. For real, she do graduation parties though? Cause that would be sweet.”

“Yeah, I’ll give her your number,” I muttered, shaking my head.

“Don’t worry, she’s got it.” He laughed and came around behind me, slapped me hard in the side of the head and walked away as I stared down at the stack of flashcards in my hands, feeling Caleb stare at me as my face heated up.

I was so fucking used to this shit it wasn’t even funny, heard so many of those dumb jokes they didn’t even hit anymore, just funneled straight into my brain trash.

Yeah, she was a stripper when she wasn’t waiting tables. So what. Yeah, she’d slept with half the town including teachers and three different married dads that I knew of. Oh well. Yeah she was all about getting bombed and the one time she’d taken me to Parents Night in first grade, she’d been so ripped she hit another car in the parking lot and then moved to a different spot and told me not to tell or she’d go to jail and I’d end up in a foster home where they locked me in a closet and starved me. And then we went inside and looked at a picture I drew of a dinosaur like we were a normal family. What were you gonna do.

I knew the fucking facts better than anyone, thanks, no one was owning me by reminding me of my goddamned lived experience that was no secret anyway. There was no tired joke or dumb insult that could come anywhere close to the kind of pain reality threw at me, and I’d stopped caring so long ago. So there was no reason it should be bugging me now. But Caleb was just staring so hard, like burning a laser through my skull, and it was fucking me up somehow.

“What?” I snapped, looking up, and yeah, he was staring. Not just at me, but into me, like dark, intense shit. Everything about him was just a little too… much. Like he was in my fucking face without even getting near my face.

“Ellis is an asshole. You know that.” I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be pity or a lecture or what.

“Yeah. Obviously.”

“Ignore him,” he told me. “Do your work.”

Slowly, carefully, without looking away from him, I pinched my fingers in the center of my stack of flashcards and tore them down the middle, tossing the pieces on the table.

He almost kind of smiled. Then he snorted and shook his head. “You really are a brat,” he told me quietly, like he’d been debating that in his head and just made the decision.

My stomach flipped around funny, and I glanced up at the clock to see how long until lunch. Still half an hour. Fuck. I was so over this. “Yeah, whatever.”

“You know I worked all night on these.”

“I know they’re fucking index cards. Tape is a thing. Get over it.”

“Jesus.” He stood up, looking eighty feet tall when he unfolded himself, so tall everyone caught his shadow stretching across the library and looked over when he moved. He walked over to the help desk, actually grabbing the tape dispenser, and bringing it back over to the table. He stopped, still standing, and stared at me, giving me another strange, intense look.

“What?” I snapped, ignoring all the swivel heads that were just so goddamn interested in everything going on at our table.

“You’re bleeding,” he told me, lowering his voice.

I didn't realize until he said that that I was messing with my forehead, and there was blood— kind of a lot of it— on my fingers when I pulled my hand back. I was bad about picking at things without realizing. Scabs, lips, fingernails, and that was just the outside stuff.

“Fuck,” I muttered, swiping at it, making my fingers redder. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not—“

I stood up and kicked my chair back, heading for the door before it got worse. It wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t need to sit and bleed all over the table while he watched, now did I?

I jetted for the bathroom down the hall, empty between classes, a fucking break for once, and ran the faucet, wetting one of the rock hard paper towels under the cold water until it was a sloppy, rough blob, and then wiping off my forehead and pressing it against the part of the gash I’d picked off. My fingernails were all crusty with blood and I tried to wash underneath them one-handed while I stopped the bleeding with the other. Fucking idiot.

After a minute I pulled the paper towel away. Red. Gross. But not soaked through. I tossed it in the trash and got another one. Dabbing at it a little at a time, trying to remember first aid and just coming up with random impulses that might or might not have been helpful. I figured if I had to I could just stick a square of toilet paper to it like a shaving cut and hide it under my hair. NBD.

“What is that? What’s wrong with you?”

I jumped when Caleb suddenly popped up in the mirror behind me, walking into the bathroom without me even hearing the door open. The guy was a fucking vampire or something. A nosy vampire in a stupid sweater who could not leave me alone.

“Nothing. It’s a pimple. What’s wrong with you?” I turned the water off, trying to mentally force myself to stop bleeding. “You’re my tutor, not my truant officer. I’m coming back, Jesus, just give me a minute.”

His reflection frowned at me in the mirror, and then stalked the few steps up behind me so fast I spun around like he was gonna knock me unconscious or something. Instead, he grabbed my chin in one hand and tilted it up, brushing my hair back off my forehead with the other.

My face went numb, and then my whole body, as I just kind of stood there in shock. He made me feel all kinds of soft and weak and small, manhandling me, looking me over that way, and I was at a big time loss over how to react.

Shoving him off was the obvious move, pulling away, telling him not to touch me, but my body just wouldn’t do it. Didn’t want to. I kept standing there like an idiot, letting him hold my face in his giant hands and squint at me like a bug through a microscope.

“That’s not a pimple. What is it? What happened?”

Finally, my body started working again and I took two big steps back until I banged into the sink, dizzy like he’d shoved me. “It’s nothing,” I said again. “Play a sport. You’ll learn what an injury is.”

“You got that playing football?”

“Jesus, dude, it’s a scratch. Don’t worry about it.” I gripped the edge of the sink behind me, ready for him to come at me again. Not sure what I’d do if he did, but ready. He kept the distance though, not coming any closer, but not leaving. Not leaving it alone either.

“It’s a head wound. You need stitches. You shouldn’t be playing football with that kind of injury.”

“Wow. You really have never played anything harder than science, have you? It’s a little blood. Relax. Just give me a minute.”

“You should go to the nurse.”

I laughed. “For what? The nurse won’t even give you aspirin.”

He stared at me a minute, so hard I felt like I was shrinking and he was getting taller. “Alright, come on,” he told me, reaching out and putting a hand on my shoulder, just long enough to turn and point me toward the door. He moved me so fucking easily that I had to be letting him, even though I wasn’t aware of it.

I shook his hand off. “Come on where? I’m not going to the nurse.”

He didn’t answer, just headed out and left, and I guess expected me to follow. Which I shouldn’t have done. But I did. I walked out into the empty hall and followed after him until he pulled up in front of his locker and cracked it open.

It was clean like he had a fucking maid stopping by— all his books stacked and centered, a freaking pencil cup stuck to the side filled with pens, a little plastic box holding a phone charger and what I was pretty sure were fun-size candy bars. I hadn’t seen anyone make such a meal out of their locker since junior high, all those girls playing interior design, hanging sparkly chandeliers and mirrors with fuzzy frames and tacking up their crush pics with glittery magnets. But of course Mr. Gray Sweater was all valeted out.

He reached inside and from somewhere he pulled a tiny travel tube of aspirin and a bottle of water. He handed me the water and shook out two pills, holding out his palm to me. I glanced at his locker again and then back at the pills.

“You have a permit for all this stuff?”

“Just take them, smart ass.”

“You realize Tylenol doesn’t heal scratches.”

“Stop calling it a scratch,” he told me, annoyed. He grabbed the water back from me, twisted off the cap, and shoved it back in my hand. Grabbed my other wrist and flipped it around, dropping the two pills into my palm. Just grabbing, grabbing, grabbing, and I was so unprepared I kept letting him. “Take those. At least maybe you won’t get a fucking infection.”

“You do know it’s illegal to have drugs at school,” I told him, but I popped the pills and swallowed them down because Christ was he giving me a headache. “Happy?”

“Rarely,” he muttered, and yeah, I could see that. He put the pills back in his locker. “If they want to suspend me for Tylenol, they can go ahead and try. Here,” he said, handing me a little silver wrapped candy bar like it was Halloween and I was at his door. “You shouldn’t take pills on an empty stomach.”

“Really? Drugs and candy? You’re just throwing up all the stranger danger vibes.”

He rolled his eyes, smirking. “Yeah. I’m all kinds of red flags.” He slammed his locker shut and peeled open a candy bar of his own, leaning back against the wall, closing his eyes and chewing slowly, like someone who really liked sweets.

I stared at him, watched his chest rise and fall like a tidal wave as he breathed deep and sighed out while he was chewing. If this was his sugar face, his milked dry face had to be over the fucking top. That wasn’t really a thought I meant to have, but he kept leading me down that fucking road being so… big and weird and… handsy.

I turned the other direction, opening the candy and staring down the hall, expecting security or somebody to show up and ask why we weren’t in class. But it was quiet still and I nibbled the edge of the chocolate, scraping off the outside shell and poking my tongue at the nougat, trying not to make a bliss face of my own.

I joked, but I probably would get in a van with a stranger if they offered me candy. Wasn’t something on my menu very often, and I ate it that way, weird enough so people stared when I tried to savor it, and I popped the whole thing in my mouth, chewing fast to keep myself from doing that this time.

When I turned back his way, he was still leaning against the wall, watching me.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For what?”

“Go back to the library before someone comes looking for us.”

My chest deflated a little, like part of me was thinking we were gonna keep skulking around the halls eating candy and… I don’t even know what I thought. I’d just forgotten about study hall and a lot of things for two minutes and it was sort of nice to just focus on The Beast and his big handsy weirdness.

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”

* * *

Back in the library, the table was cleared, all the cards piled in a stack with the ripped up ones on top.

“What happened to the game?” I asked him, surprised by how disappointed I was as I sat down. “I was winning.”

“You forfeited. You lost.”

“Bullshit.”

“Next time don’t tear the pieces up. We’ll play again tomorrow. But you can write lines for the rest of the time today.”

“I can… do what?” In my head, write lines meant something way different than what he had to mean.

“You have a notebook?”

I hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Well, take it out. You’re gonna do this for every element. Start at the top of the page and write O2 equals oxygen all the way down to the bottom. Then H2O equals water on the next page. And so on and so on. Until you do them all.”

“By hand? Are you crazy?”

“You’ll learn,” he told me, which sounded weirdly like a threat. “Get started. You have a few minutes left. Make them count. O2 equals oxygen.” He tapped the table in front of me. “Go on.”

I just sat there a minute, not at all impressed by the turn this tutoring was taking, which felt a lot more like… babysitting. I could do this shit by my fucking self. I didn’t exactly need him around to tell me to write lines and to play kid’s games with.

I glared at him, but he wasn’t even looking at me, he was focused on the note cards I’d ripped in half, pushing them back together and pressing a strip of tape down the center like he was doing surgery. Like it wouldn’t be a million times easier to just throw them away and write some new cards. Some genius he was.

Finally, I pulled out my notebook, leafing through until I found an empty page in the back, and started writing, so annoyed I almost pressed my pen all the way through the paper on the first line. It was boring. It was repetitive. It was pointless. And by halfway down the page I was almost in a trance, my hand writing mostly without my brain. When the bell rang, I jolted so hard I wasn’t even sure where I was for a second, and I scratched a big black line across the page of my notebook.

I blinked myself back into my body and lifted my head up to see Caleb staring at me from across the table.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Good job.” He stretched his fifty-yard arm across the table and tapped at my notebook. “Keep going. I want to see twenty pages of this tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” I muttered.

“Hey. Are you serious about passing or not? Because I could be doing my own homework in study hall if that’s what you want.”

A weird tingle swirled around in my stomach, and I had an almost uncontrollable urge to toss his note cards all over like confetti. Before I could make good on it, I grabbed my backpack and flipped my notebook shut, shoving it inside. “Twenty pages. Got it. See you tomorrow.”

I didn’t have a ton of paper left, and notebooks weren’t free, so his whole do twenty more pages bullshit wasn’t gonna fly. But I could do some of it. If I felt like it.

CHAPTER FIVE

Didn’t rain so hard practice was canceled very often— usually storms just meant a lot of slip-sliding in mud and coaches yelling shit about how we were so unprepared for real world conditions like they even had any memory of what playing was like. But just the thirty-second dash from the main building over to the locker rooms was enough to soak your clothes straight through and see the field was a fucking swamp. Add some lightning to that and it was hell no conditions.

I tried not to think about how well my room would be holding up to this without me there to slip a bucket under the leaks and make sure the ceiling didn’t cave in. It would be really great if it could just stop raining until June, so I had one less thing to worry about.

Coach T put Riggs in charge of sorting out weight room squads and then pulled me aside.

“Want you to go home,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“What? Why?”

“I want you in the books. You don’t need an hour doing reps right now. You’re Team Brain, not Team Brawn.”

“But—“

“Get the fuck out of here, I’m serious. I’m telling you your priorities and it’s not the fucking weight room today.”

Guess I must have looked as gut-punched as I felt because he softened up a little and put a hand on my shoulder. “For fuck’s sake, don’t turn it into a thing. I’m not cutting you. I’m doing you a favor. This is a bullshit, half ass indoor workout we’re throwing together because technically we can’t have you out there if there’s lightning. You know it, I know it, and we also both know all you’re gonna do is stand around snapping towels and waiting forty minutes for your turn on the leg press. I’d rather you were learning some fucking science. You’re excused. Go home.”

Not gonna lie, I hated that idea. A lot. He might not think I needed to spend the next two hours towel snapping and making my quads hum, but I wasn’t so great on days with no practice to wear me out. When I went home too tired to care about shit, life was easier.

Also, there was the going home part. First of all, that wasn’t happening. Not when the house wasn’t empty yet and not with it raining hard enough to drown me on the walk home. So back to the library, I guess, to sit and suck up the heat until they locked up, and act like I was going to learn some science by writing a bunch of lines. Fucking waste of time bullshit.

* * *

There was such a weird vibe in the building after school was emptied out, like somehow you saw more of it. Random brick walls and chair rails and tile patterns seemed to pop out all AU, making me wonder if I ever actually saw anything when I walked down the halls. Probably not. It also just turned that whole I shouldn’t be here feeling I always had running in the background up to about eleven thousand.

Really, I shouldn’t have. After school was for clubs and societies and meetings I’d never be a part of, people who wanted to do more learning in their free time. I didn’t just not fit into those spaces, I wasn’t welcome.

I got judged for using the library after hours and that was a fact. Like no one could believe I was just there for the books or computers, I had to be working some shady angle. But I guess we were all gonna have to deal with it since I was staying until the rain let up or they kicked me out.

It was less crowded after school than when they jammed people in there for study hall, but more active— people online for more than trying to hack their way out of the system and onto porn sites, people walking the shelves for… I didn’t even know what. Pleasure reading?

Seeing as how the featured releases shelf was mostly books published before I was even born, I had a hard time seeing how useful this place actually was as a reference center when the internet was right fucking there. But at least it was warm and quiet, even if I got one of those Oh great, you looks when I walked in.

Most of the tables out front were claimed with jackets and backpacks, prime seating because of the outlets. No laptop, no problem, so I just ducked back through to my favorite table— and found it occupied.

By Caleb Fucking Heath.

The Beast was just sitting there in his stupid sweater with his mile-long legs kicked up onto the chair next to him, reading a book. Definitely a brought-from-home book. I might not read much, but I could tell old shit from new, and you could just sense it was current from the cover aesthetic, all soft colors and cartoon people with no faces. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t even like books that much, but I wanted it. I had such a strong craving in my stomach for brand new things, no matter what they were really, and I stood there and wondered how much money he dropped in bookstores.

I just creeped on him from the end of the aisle for longer than was normal because I guess my brain liked it. It wasn’t slamming bodies to the ground or helmet-to-helmet aches, but watching someone be still and quiet flipped the same kind of decompression switch, even if it wasn’t as good. Don’t know why, couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was the aesthetic.

While I watched, he ran his hand back through his hair, making it burst out in all directions, all messy and shit, and I blinked when my dick got a little hard. Jesus, was The Beast kind of… hot? Then he brushed it all back into place like the fashion police were on his tail, and no, definitely not, my mistake.

I took a step back and that’s when he looked up, seemed genuinely surprised like he’d been so sucked into the book he really hadn’t noticed someone standing there. Then there was a new, second-tier surprise, I thought, when he saw it was me.

“Hey.” He dropped his book down into his lap and swung his giant legs down off the chair and onto the ground. There was a big stomping sound, and I waited for someone to shush him, but I guess we were too far away.

I realized it was my turn to say something, that he probably thought there was a reason I’d come up on him, and I dead ass thought about turning around and walking away because I just couldn’t think of any words.

He glanced at his wrist and then back at me. “Shouldn’t you be at practice?”

It was my turn to be surprised. “Stalker much?”

“Why, because I know football practice is after school? You need help with something?”

Such a weird fucking question. He meant chemistry, I guess, except I wasn’t so sure he did. It had an open ended feel and the way he leaned forward with a hand braced against the table made me feel like he was ready to take some non-homework action if I said so.

What would it feel like to have The Beast in your corner, with his giant shadow that shut everyone up— even Ellis— because no one actually knew what those big ass hands were capable of? I guess maybe I was finding out.

“This is my table,” I told him.

His mouth twisted into a slow little smirk. “I don’t think so. I’m here at least a few days a week. I don’t see you.”

“When I come here, this is my table.”

He shrugged, looking around at the other chairs. “Well, three more seats. Go ahead.”

I didn’t want to, but I wanted to just wander around the library with people staring at me like I was a fucking shoplifter even less, so I sat down, tossing my bag on the floor. And now I extra didn’t want to pull my shitty, burned up notebook out and start writing lines while he watched.

“You’re all wet.”

“Yeah. It’s called rain.” I glanced up and he was staring a little, and I wondered if somehow I was bleeding again, but I didn’t feel anything and he didn’t say anything, so I guessed not. “Can’t practice on the field if there’s lightning,” I explained, rolling my eyes. “Coach kicked me out of alternate, told me to go learn science.”

“Oh.” He paused. “What’s alternate?”

“Just like… alternate practice. Indoor stuff. Film. Weight room reps. It’s a shit show.”

“Oh,” he said again, and I wondered if he even understood any of that. Not that it mattered.

“What are you doing?”

He looked down at the book in his lap but didn’t raise it up again. “Reading.”

“For class?”

“No, for… fun,” he finished, sounding unsure of the answer like the word wasn’t comfortable in his mouth.

“So this is what you do for fun. Stay after school and read by yourself.”

“Reading’s kind of a solo activity.”

“I can think of better solo activities.”

He snorted and reached down to pick up his bag. “Well. Do you want to learn some science?”

“Not really.”

He dropped his stack of index cards on the table. It was wrapped with not one but two rubber bands, criss-crossing in the middle, which seemed excessive. Somehow I’d sort of forgotten about tearing his cards up earlier, walking out with a shitty attitude about everything, but as soon as I saw the taped up cards on the top I remembered and felt kind of gross about it. Not bad enough to apologize because what would be the point, but bad enough to give in and let him help me study, I guess. What a fucking prize I was, right.

I reached out for the cards the same time he did and for a second his entire hand covered mine and holy shit it wasn’t even right how big and warm those mitts were. It covered my full ass, grown adult hand completely, and for some reason that startled me hard, made me angry or something close to it, made me think about the handsy way he’d touched my face earlier, and I jerked my hand away like a complete psychopath.

He didn’t seem to notice though, just unwrapped the rubber bands slowly and carefully, sliding them around his wrist for safekeeping, and started shuffling the cards.

“You’re doing that backwards,” I told him, watching his weird ass praying mantis looking shuffling, waiting for one of his wrists to pop socket.

He looked down at his hands. “Am I?” He tapped the cards back into a pile and slid them across the table at me. “Here. Be my guest.”

I picked up the stack and did a quick high speed riffle and then a bridge and ended with a waterfall, just to be a prick. Not as easy with his deck of a zillion half index cards as it was with a real deck, but you got the idea. I thought he’d be rolling his eyes at me when I looked up, but they were blown out impressed instead and I felt like an idiot for showing off. I didn’t typically do that kind of shit for a laugh, and I couldn’t say why I had.

“Where’d you learn that?”

“Grew up around a lot of card sharks,” I muttered, feeling weird now, wishing I hadn’t done that and starting to line the cards out over the table.

“That’s cool.”

“Not really.”

That one summer my mom had worked at the casino was still kind of a mystery. I’d been too young to understand much, but she’d had a lot of new friends from Lollawood who wore different sparkly clothes than her regular friends, and they brought me a lot of cool trinkets like dice and cards and drink stirrers when they came over, always told me how smart I was when I picked up their shuffling tricks.

I’d liked them a lot better than the people she usually had over back then— they were loud in a fun way and didn’t drink as much and didn’t pass out on our couch for days at a time. But then she got fired and I’m pretty sure most of them got arrested for what I can only assume was some card counting scheme, but who the hell knew what she’d been mixed up in back then. Yeah, really wished I hadn’t started thinking about that, my brain was getting all tense again.

“Can you do card tricks?” Caleb asked me, reaching across the table to straighten the line of cards, adjusting the spacing, making everything perfectly aligned.

“I’m not a fucking magician,” I snapped, and I glanced up startled when he laughed out loud, a sound like an avalanche. “What?”

“Nothing. Sorry. You’re just so fucking grumpy. It’s kind of funny.”

“Sure. Hilarious.” Something about the way he wasn’t exactly laughing at me, at least not any way I was used to, was pushing something out of my mouth that felt like a smile, and I squashed it with my teeth. I cut the cards in half and passed him some. “Tell me again how this is supposed to teach me science?”

“Right now science is secondary. So’s learning for that matter. What you have to do immediately is memorize stuff so it becomes second nature. At least for the next six months or whatever.”

“That’s kinda cheating, don’t you think?”

“No. Why? You’re being forced to learn something you have no interest in so you can do the thing you want. You’re allowed to do it whatever way gets you there. You need some hacks and shortcuts so you can catch up, so what. Whether you understand it or not, if you can lock in the right answers we can buy you time. We fill in the gaps when you’re not on the edge of failing. I got your syllabus from Mendleton so I can plan ahead. Pass that test next Friday you’ll be in good shape. We’ll figure it out.”

I laid the cards out slowly as I took in what he was saying. Learn without learning. Seemed fake, but okay. Also…

“Wait, how long are you assuming I’m going to need a tutor?”

He shrugged. “Till the end of semester. Maybe the end of the year. I don’t know.”

“I’m not hanging out with you until the end of the year.”

“Up to you, I guess. But if you need help, I can help you.”

Just like that. Like things were that fucking simple. “If you don’t have better shit to do, I feel sorry for you.”

I could feel him staring at me from across the table— glaring, probably, but what the fuck did I care. Like I was so stupid he just assumed I’d need a tutor the rest of my life.

Might be nice if I could get someone who’d just tutor me in goddamn life skills and how not to destroy myself, but I was fairly sure if there were tutors like that only people who didn’t need them could afford them. Like therapy and health care. And college, which was why I needed to stop being all up in my ragey feelings and focus on graduating instead of on being an asshole.

“I get antsy when there’s no practice,” I told him, and that was as close as I was getting to an apology.

He leaned back in his chair, but his arms were so long he could keep spreading cards out on the table. “Why?”

“I like to… smash people. You know. On and off the field. I don’t get it, I get all bottled up.”

“You could go to a gym.”

I snorted. “Okay, I’ll run right out and get a gym membership.”

“There’s a gym in my building.”

“Good for you.”

“Well, what about… you know. Off the field smashing.”

He sounded so awkward saying it I looked up and then couldn’t resist trying to make things more awkward.

“You offering?”

Awkward turned to intense and he stared at me so hard I kind of regretted it. Guy had an advanced degree in staring, no lie. Then he smirked. “If I were offering, you’d know.”

I didn’t really think he was coming onto me, but he wasn’t not coming onto me. It wasn’t the kind of joke I expected him to make, and it flustered me for a second, made my throat feel all hot.

“You got a girlfriend, Beast? Or a boyfriend? Or any friends?”

He held his smirk in place, but his eyes got less friendly, more… something else. “Told you. I don’t like people.”

“Yeah. You said.” I could get less friendly too. “So why you helping me?”

He sighed, and it was weird. Not like he thought I was being annoying, which I was, but like he was sad. “I don’t like people. But I like helping.”

“Plenty of people you could help. Plenty of people flunking Chem probably. Flunking all kinds of things. People who never knocked your head off,” I added, just biting the bullet, like either of us forgot.

“You’d be surprised,” was all he said.

I guess I expected him to be the talking type, like if I brought up that I was a dick to him back in the day he’d have something to say about it. Kinda bugged me that he didn’t. Kinda bugged me that I never knew what to expect from him and all he kept doing was helping me. Nobody liked helping that much.

“How do I know you’re not teaching me a bunch of bullshit so I flunk out?”

“Why would I do that exactly?”

“Revenge.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Guess you’ll just have to trust me. Or, you know, read your chemistry book. Everything I’m teaching you is in there too. Just not as attainable to your brain as the way I teach it.”

That was a real cocky prick kind of thing to say, but it was more him bragging about how smart he was than pointing out how dumb I was, and it was kind of funny. Didn’t mean I had to trust him, though.

“So you’re just a good guy, huh? No-life-having motherfucker, just doing what you do.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the gist of it,” he agreed.

I waited for something else, but that was it. Trapped in the quiet library with him when my body was used to it being sweaty-and-worn-out o’clock, I was really starting to get restless. Starting to feel like I was Ellis, needing to poke at somebody, something, anything, just for a reaction, just to get something going.

“You’re probably too tall to date anyone anyway,” I told him, but when he looked up at me, weirdly amused in a sort of exasperated way, I suddenly didn’t want to say anything anymore.

“Why. What does that mean.”

I swallowed slowly and shrugged. “You know. Too tall to… bend over things.”

He rubbed a long finger across his bottom lip and looked me over in a way that made me think he was using his imagination on me, and I felt myself getting hot in the strangest places. My thighs. My back. My hands. “What things would those be?”

“You know. Tables and shit.” I looked down at the table we were sitting at, tried to picture him slammed over it with his face on the wood and couldn’t. “Desks. Dryers.”

His mouth twitched as I offered up a basic ass list of places to fuck around school. “I’m the perfect size for what I like,” he told me. “Don’t worry about me.”

Damn, that was a real left field response, and I wanted to know what the fuck it meant. I wasn’t about to ask him, but why’d he have to say it that way, making me wonder? Making me picture all kinds of shit.

I slapped the last of my cards down on the table while he kept laying his out at a leisurely pace I was pretty sure just to fuck with me.

“You’re not even going to finish putting all those down before they kick us out,” I muttered.

He made a little noise in his throat that was probably a laugh. “So grumpy,” he said, almost under his breath, all ghostly with hypnotizing vibes or something. Or maybe I was just tired. “What do you do when there’s no football?”

“What do you mean?”

“To keep yourself in check. Without beating people up at practice.”

“You realize football isn’t the same as beating people up.”

“Yeah. I realize.” He was clearly making a point just with the tone of his voice, and maybe I still felt a little guilty.

“I, you know, manage,” I told him.

That was a lie and worse, it sounded like a lie. I definitely did not manage. I hung around the library, I got in the weight room when I could, I hung out with Ellis too much and wrestled around and did dumb shit just to pump up my adrenaline. I went running during that tiny sliver of morning when no one was awake— not jogging, but sprinting the sidewalks until I felt like I was going to die. I took shitty jobs hauling trash and shoveling driveways to wear myself out so I didn’t explode places where I couldn’t. I fucked and I waited for the calendar to move and for practice to start again. None of it helped all that much, but add it all together and it was something.

“Hmm,” was all he said, which was really fucking irritating, and finally finished spreading out his cards.

* * *

When the ten minute warning lights blinked on and off at four-thirty I was sure it had to be a mistake. The table still wasn’t clear and although I was definitely winning, I hadn’t won. Like some weird game of chicken, neither of us had touched the cards with the tape down the center, even though they were the easiest to match.

Caleb looked up like he was startled too. “Damn, I thought we had more time. I was going to… Do you have your phone with you?”

“Where else would it be?”

“I was gonna show you a study app you could use at home.“

“Okay, what’s it called?” I pulled out my shitty phone, hoping whatever it was wouldn’t take up too much space. I’d already deleted everything I could.

“Periodical Pirates.”

My finger hesitated over the screen. “It’s called what?”

“It’s a game. With pirates. And chemistry. It’s fun.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen your definition of fun.”

“Well, if yours is playing football and you wanna keep playing, you need to come at this from every angle. If you want to learn to be good at… You know what, I’m not even gonna try to make a football analogy, but I’m sure there are lots of different ways to get better at it. Right?”

I shrugged, kind of wishing he’d made a football analogy so I could laugh at him. “Sure, yeah.”

“Same here. You like games. So when we can’t study together you can play this. Don’t cheat, though.”

“Stop acting like I cheat. I don’t cheat.” I typed Periodic Pirates into the app search. “This?” I asked him, turning the phone around and showing him the logo of a monkey in a pirate hat.

“Yeah, that’s the one. See? Five stars.”

“Like that means anything.”

“Would you just fucking try it? And stop complaining about literally everything I do to help you?”

“Not likely. I didn’t ask you to help me.”

“I’m very aware. But here I am doing it anyway.”

“You prefer a medal or a plaque? Or maybe one of those stars on the sidewalk. A street named after you? Beast Boulevard?”

“Slightly less attitude would be great.”

He didn’t really seem all that bothered though, which bugged me somehow. He held out his hand and I stared at it, not sure what he expected me to do. Finally, I just handed my phone over.

He smiled a little and put it down on the table. “Cards,” he said, curling his fingers.

“But we’re not done.”

“We still have to leave.”

I looked at the couple dozen cards still left on the table, wondering if it was even possible to finish this game. “Fine, but you’re the one shutting it down. So you forfeit. I win.” I slapped my thick stack into his hand. Hard to remember the last time I wanted to keep being at school versus just not go home.

He gathered all the cards up in a stack and tapped them on the table one side at a time, smoothing out the edges with his thumbs. “Okay, fine. That makes us even, then.”

He pulled the rubber bands off his wrist, wrapping them around the stack and then making sure the cross in the center was even. No chance this guy did not have the most organized sock drawer in town.

When he was satisfied, he held them up. “Wanna take these home?”

“Why?”

“So you can play by yourself.”

“I can think—“

“Of better things to play by yourself, I know. You jerk off a lot, hysterical. You wanna jerk off in a dorm room one day? Start filling your free time with chem instead of coming all over your hands.”

My mouth opened and for a second I couldn’t say anything. “Jesus Christ,” I finally blurted out.

“What? Was that not what you were about to say?”

“I wasn’t gonna be graphic about it.” My voice cracked in the middle of the word graphic, and he smirked.

“Sorry, I forgot you jocks are real pearl-clutchers. Try not to faint.”

“I’ll try.” I stared at the cards he was still holding out to me, feeling a little nauseous. I didn’t like bringing important things back to the house. Library books, trophies, pictures from art class. Their life expectancy got shorter as soon as they came through my front door. Like mine, probably. “Keep them. How much fucking homework do you expect me to do.”

“As much as you need to,” he told me, dropping the cards into his bag. “Don’t forget to write your lines. And check out the pirate game. You’ll like it.”

Like he had any idea what I liked.

I grunted what could have been a yes and gathered myself up, dragging like I didn’t want to leave, which I guess I didn’t. It was cold and wet outside and warm and dry in here, and playing by myself was great and all but fuck it was embarrassing how much a little old school one-on-one game playing bullshit chilled me out, even if it wasn’t playing catch after practice.

“You want a ride home?” Caleb asked me, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and I blinked out of my… whatever.

Did I want a ride home? Fuck yeah, I did. An absurd amount, actually. But I didn’t want I-buy-brand-new-books Caleb Heath coming home to my neighborhood and judging me any more than he already did. About the only guy who’d ever been to my house beside random fucks was Ellis and only because I knew where he lived and it wasn’t much of a step up. The Beast and his stupid cozy sweaters could stay on his side of town, wherever that was.

“Nah. I got friends for that,” I told him, which was a shitty thing to say and only a little bit true, but I didn’t need him asking again. Next time I might accidentally say yes.

He just laughed instead of getting his feelings hurt, and it shivered all the way down my spine like I was already caught in the rain.

CHAPTER SIX

I’d killed some time at the gas station trying to wait out the weather, browsing beers and flipping through dumbass magazines until the guy at the counter yelled at me to buy something or get the fuck out. Then I dragged my feet grabbing Spaghettios and peanut butter crackers, packing my bag up slow and finally forcing myself out into the rain that hadn’t let up much to walk home.

By the time I hit my street, I full-on looked like I’d crawled out of a dunk tank. I was dripping from everywhere— down my back, into my shorts, my jeans were glued to my fucking body. I’d given up trying to use my backpack as a shield and just sprinted and let the rain hit me, filling my eyes and my nose so it was hard to see and hard to breathe, and Jesus, I was fucking cold. I’d walked home in worse, in rain and snow and hail like a goddamn mail carrier, but my shoes were shot and I wasn’t dressed for this shit.

All I wanted was to strip down and jump under my blankets, defrost and maybe think about what it was The Beast liked to do with his giant body. Just for a minute, until I warmed up. Fuck me for thinking that, but I just couldn’t shake it. I’m the perfect size for what I like. What a weird thing to say.

Except when I passed the hedge that separated our driveway from the neighbors, my mom’s car was still parked there, and that stopped my mood and my feet dead right there on the sidewalk.

As soon as I quit moving, water poured out of my hair and down my face, those creepy little hairline tickles worse than getting slapped hard with water for twenty blocks somehow, and I shivered and wiped at my face with my sleeve, extremely fucking irritated.

I pulled out my phone and pulled up my shoulders, squinting down through the rain at the screen. Ten after five. I didn’t usually get home until six or so, later during football sometimes, but she should have been gone. Didn’t mean she always was, she never made being on time a priority, but I was hoping. And look where that got me.

I ticked through my options as I stood there getting even wetter, and as usual, I didn’t have any. Running home in the rain, that was pretty much like mud practice— shitty, but I’d survive. Standing outside, hanging around waiting while I got all resting heartbeat? That’s how you got sick. If it was gonna be for five minutes, maybe. But I didn’t know that. I had to go in.

Best case scenario, I rolled the dice, made it inside to my room without her seeing me, and she rushed out a few minutes later never knowing I was there. Worst case… well, I’d learned never to bother with those. You wouldn’t think it, but things could always get worse than I could imagine.

I squished up to the front door, careful on the steps that bowed deep and held water, and turned the key in the lock as quietly as I could, pushing the door open, bracing myself. The lights were off, no sign of her in the living room or in the kitchen, and I didn’t hear the shower running.

The thought was there like it always was, Maybe she’s dead, just whispering up from my stomach, but I could sense action and footsteps. She didn’t walk, she stomped, whatever kind of mood she was in, and for someone on the small side, her stomping was vicious, haunted the place, bouncing off the walls and making all the floors creak. She filled the house with a frantic, passive-aggressive kind of stress that was impossible to describe and just as impossible to ignore.

Not dead yet.

She was probably dressing in a mad dash to make time, which meant if I could just be extremely fucking quiet, she’d never know she missed me. Keeping my eyes on her closed bedroom door like I could hold it shut that way, I slipped as quiet as I could down the opposite hall to my room.

My momentary sense of success died in my chest when I stood in my doorway, my eyes torn between the two heavy streams of water dripping from the ceiling, and my mom ignoring both of them and going through my dresser drawers.

She had her shoes and her coat on, and her bag in one hand like she was headed out the door, but her other hand was slid deep in my sock drawer, reaching around.

I should have turned right the fuck back, should have gone to any other room in the house. The front yard, back to school, anywhere else. But I was so fucking pissed she wasn’t just trying to steal from me, she was letting my room get completely splattered while she did it, that I couldn’t turn away.

“Looking for something?”

She spun around, grabbing her bag closer like she thought I was someone who’d broken in to rob her, and then had the nerve to look pissed instead of guilty.

“This room is a mess,” she told me, and I almost laughed out loud. With water draining out of the cracks in the ceiling, yeah, it was a pretty big fucking mess.

I threw my backpack on the bed and snagged the bucket I kept underneath, heading over to stick it under the leak flooding the top of the dresser. The one beside it was a lot worse than it had been the last time the rain was this bad, making a big nasty puddle on the carpet.

If it was leaking that bad out here, my closet had to look like a shower, but that shit was a lost cause a long time ago. I just stared at the puddle a minute, too overwhelmed to move, before she snapped her fingers in front of my face.

“Get a fucking towel and clean that up.” She shoved at my shoulder like I was crowding her. “This wouldn’t keep happening if you didn’t keep it so filthy in here.”

That didn’t make a damn bit of sense, but not much she said did. Did I make my bed? Rarely. Did that somehow make the ceiling leak? Not so much. Wasn’t actually possible for my room to be a mess, because I didn’t have anything to mess around with, but whatever made her feel good, I guess.

Seemed like we were just going to ignore her going through my drawers, act like it was my fault somehow and that was fine. I was in get-her-out-of-the-house mode now and that meant shut up and move things along. Skip pointing out the obvious and just take it.

I went to grab a towel, and if there’d been any on the shelf, it would have been so much easier, but that wasn’t the life I lived. I grabbed the one off the bathroom doorknob and went back to the bedroom. This time she wasn’t rifling through my drawer with some bullshit excuse, she was straight up going through my bag.

“What are you doing?”

She looked up and then looked at the towel I was holding. “Not that one. I just used that one, it’s clean.”

“How is it clean?”

“Just get a different one.”

“Get out of my bag,” I told her, coming over to the bed, tossing the towel down and grabbing the strap, yanking it away from her. “What the fuck are you doing?”

She doubled down and yanked back hard, ripping the zipper all the way open, sending a can of Spaghettios rolling across the bed.

“Where did you get that? Where’d you get the money for that?” She eyed it like it was a fucking gold bar and that made me goddamn furious.

“Got it at the fucking food pantry,” I muttered, trying again to take my bag back, but she had a freakish grip and god knows if I fucked around too hard I’d find out.

“That had better be a fucking joke,” she snapped, like she might actually murder me over it. It wasn’t really a punchline, but I guess I wasn’t sure what it was. A lie to piss her off, which was not the smartest thing I could have said, but my brain seemed dead set on taking the dumbass path. “Don’t you ever fucking embarrass me like that. There’s food in this house, you’re just too goddamn picky.”

Sure, okay. Not sure the catfish and the bait still in the freezer from five boyfriends ago or the can of butter beans that had been around since my birth counted as staples in most people’s kitchens, but in ours it did. There was technically food, I was just a fucking snob living it up with my gas station dinner.

“If you have money to buy food, you can start handing it over. The only way you’d have it is if you took it from me. Mike said you’ve been stealing shit.”

“Stealing what?”

She didn’t answer, there was no answer, but her best answer was always deflect-and-gaslight anyway, so it’s not like I was expecting one.

“You need to start paying for stuff around here. I work so I can fucking feed you and keep a roof over your head. The least you can do is pay for my gas to get back and forth.”

I stared at her a minute, but she didn’t even catch the absurdity. There used to be something inside her I could connect with, a link that might snap her back into place if she was acting so over the top it got wild enough to be funny and she could hear herself, but it wasn’t there anymore. I didn’t know who I was staring at, but whoever it was, they were not looking to connect with me, those days were long gone.

“Yeah, nice roof.” I just couldn’t stop myself from saying it even though I knew it would set her off.

Her eyes got dark and bright at the same time and I knew that’s how she’d look if she ever actually killed me. Instead, she spit at me, one of her go-to moves, and I jerked away. The second I let go of my bag and stepped back, she tossed it, dumping it out on the bed, flinging papers all over as she pawed through it like a dog digging a hole in the yard, looking for god knows what. Money, I guess, but she wasn’t gonna find it in there, I wasn’t that stupid.

I watched homework and notebooks and old tests go flying, fluttering all over the fucking room, landing in corners, in puddles, behind the dresser, and okay, yeah, now the room was a mess. I took a step to start cleaning it up, and she snatched the can of Spaghettios up off the bed and before I realized what she was doing, chucked it at me top speed.

It bit me hard in the shoulder, bouncing off and rolling across the room, and my eyes and mouth opened wide. Should have seen that coming probably, I was old enough to know everything was a weapon, but really, everything?

“What the fuck.” I shrugged my shoulder around, not letting myself wince in front of her, but it didn’t feel great. Crazy made you throw heat, and that was definitely going to leave a mark. A couple inches higher though and The Beast would have had a lot to say about my face tomorrow.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she said, like I was anywhere near her, like that was anything close to what was happening.

“I’m not touching you, Jesus.”

“I saw you try and move on me, I know how you are. Think you’re a tough guy, playing sports. How’d that feel, tough guy, gonna cry?”

Gonna cry was her favorite insult, worked as a follow-up for pretty much everything she threw at me, physical or mental. Taunting me and calling me a girl was some of her classic shit. No answer was a good answer, and for once I managed to keep my mouth shut.

She picked up the peanut butter crackers from the pile and stuck them in her bag without even saying anything while I just stood there and let her. Not like I could stop her.

“Pick this shit up,” she told me, stomping past me, snorting when I backed up out of her way. “Bitch.”

I just held my breath listening to her storm through the living room, almost blind with nausea while I waited for her to come back. The circle back around could last hours if she was mad enough, but I guess maybe work was more important because eventually I heard the door slam and then her car start, and when I heard it leave the driveway I exhaled hard and stared at the mess everywhere.

I really wanted to use her stupid towel to soak up the puddle, but I wasn’t really looking for a tin can to the head in my sleep. Not most of the time anyway.

Instead, I went around scooping up all the papers, tossing them into a pile on the bed, and then went and dug to the bottom of the overflowing hamper for a couple of towels that reeked like mildew to sop things up. I grabbed a pot from the kitchen to catch the other drip, just working on autopilot, blocking out reality and cleaning everything up the best I could. By the time I was finished, I was even wetter, cold and gross and shivering all over. I fucking hated it here.

I sat down on the bed and wondered if I was going to puke. If I was going to just die of I quit, I give up. Tried to give myself a pep talk, a reality check, a heap of bullshit, whichever one my brain would accept, pointing out none of this was that bad, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It could have been worse, had been worse, sobriety pissed people off and as fucked up as she was, it still seemed like sober fucked up, which was… I didn’t know anymore. Jesus, I didn’t care anymore. About anything.

Not sure how long I sat there just numb and shaking and cold in my stomach and hot on my neck, digging my thumb into the sore spot on my shoulder, tasting phantom blood from if that can had hit me in the nose or the mouth, trying to be grateful. My grip on my brain was a little too loose to force emotions through it, but logically I was there. Glad I didn’t have to clean up a bigger mess.

I brought my hands up to rub my face, but they were so nasty I snatched them back, gagging. I finally shoved myself up, grabbed some clothes, and scalded myself in a five minute shower. I didn’t exactly feel warm, or especially dry since there were no towels, but at least I’d washed the scum off me. That helped me feel slightly more human, but there was a long ass way to go.

I always felt so gross and embarrassed after those kinds of fights, if you could even call them that. Like I should have done something a long time ago but didn’t, couldn’t, and now I was a fucking grown adult with a broken backbone acting like a scared puppy who really did want to cry all the time. It was fucking humiliating.

For a while I just paced around the house trying to wear out the anxiety, shake out the shakes. It wasn’t a panic attack, those felt different, more regimented. This was just a panic glitch, my whole body shivering and twitching, stuck in fight or flight, like I hadn’t already made the decision to do… nothing. I wasn’t hungry anymore, and I knew I should be drying off my homework and getting it together, but I couldn’t wrap my head around managing anything productive.

I settled on staring out the living room window, watching as the rain lifted from monsoon to sprinkle and the sky went from gray to black. Fucking Coach T. If he hadn’t kicked me out of practice I could have walked home when it was mostly dry and missed all this drama. Wasn’t like I’d learned much fucking science. Wasn’t like I was ever going to learn much fucking science or learn anything or get out of here. It was too much. It was all way too fucking much.

I pulled my phone out, so desperate to get out of here I thought about texting Walker, saying how about I come over and you suck me off. But that would go bad. Probably really bad. Even thought about texting Ellis, that’s how hard up I was for distraction. If I’d had The Beast’s number, maybe I even would have texted him. Nice sweater. What do you like to do that you’re the perfect size for?

I sighed and had my phone halfway back in my pocket when it vibrated in my hand. I swiped it open and there was Ellis, looking like maybe he was desperate to get out too.

Wanna get drunk?

I really, really did.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Twilight Park was pretty much just a bunch of gravel and tetanus. Swings that flaked rust off on your hands and screamed when you sat on them. A baseball diamond with no bases. What used to be a pretty badass pirate ship with a bell and a wheel and a bunch of cool pieces just begging to be stolen that had been, so now all that was left of it were some ladders and a wobbly wooden bridge where you could sit and drink if no one was sleeping there. It was a shit park.

But Ellis was a shit friend, and I was in a shit mood, so I guess it all worked out.

The rain was gone and the sky was clear, but everything was cold and wet. The night seemed especially black with everything soaked through, and it smelled dark. It felt good to be outside, like finally there was enough room for the bad vibes to start letting go and evaporating instead of feeding off me.

The park had that strong, ominous kind of quiet going on, where you could hear trees breathing and every tiny sound seemed ten times louder than it should— my sneaks crunching through the rocks as I walked over to the pirate ship, Ellis cracking a beer and slurping foam, the creak of the chains that held the wooden bridge together as he swung his legs to make it rock back and forth.

My shoes squeaked and slipped on the wet rungs as I climbed up the ladder and walked down to where he was sitting. His backpack was zipped open, and a mix of a dozen or so cheap cans glowed aluminum in the moonlight. There were streetlights here once, but now just the poles were left, not just the lights missing but the cages too.

The moon was plenty bright enough to see how wet the wooden slats still were. There was nowhere to sit where I wouldn’t be sitting in a puddle, but not much to do about that besides drop down on the other side of his backpack and slide my legs between the chains, dangling them over the edge.

Hard to say how long he’d been here, but there were a few cans that looked fresh glinting up from the gravel underneath us, and he tossed me a full one as he worked his way pretty quickly through the one in his hand.

“Fucking hate when we don’t have practice,” he told me. “Drives me nuts.”

“Yeah.” I opened the beer and sipped the overflow when it came bubbling up, making a face at a mouthful of lukewarm and light. I wasn’t so picky, but it was always better cold. “At least you got to use the weight room. Better than getting kicked out to fucking study.”

“I didn’t get to do shit. Spotted awhile, and then Coach got pissed at me for not staying in my spot and punted me to the fucking film room. Rather go home to my books.”

He tipped his head back, draining his can, and then crushing it and tossing it high, letting it fall into the gravel with a tiny metal ping, adding it to the others already down there.

It was on my tongue to say I went to the library, but then I swallowed it for some reason. Wasn’t like I’d done anything secretive sitting in the dark back corner with The Beast, but for right now, it felt like a secret, felt like something quiet I liked thinking about alone, and I guess I liked that too much to give it up. At least to him. Ellis was just so fucking consistent about ruining quiet things.

“Don’t do that, kids come here,” I told him instead, pointing my toes down toward the empty cans underneath us.

“Kids don’t come here. If they do they have bigger troubles than my fucking litter.” Ellis grabbed another can and cracked it right open. Drinking for speed tonight it looked like, and I could get into that.

He was in one of his depressed moods, which I hadn’t really counted on. Missing practice made him antsy like it did me, I’d expected him to be a hound. Not saying I was a fan of him miserable, but it did make him more manageable to be around when he wasn’t trying to punch shit and jump on you every second.

“You think something’s wrong with Walker?” he asked me out of the blue.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Seems quiet.”

“He’s always quiet. That’s just how he is,” I muttered. Which was mostly true. And if it was more than usual, hopefully it had nothing to do with me because I had all the drama I could handle going on already.

Ellis shook his head, looking out toward the swings and frowning. “Seems different. Seems distracted. He almost caught his fingers in the press today. If I hadn’t been spotting him and paying attention…” His frown turned into a scowl. “What if I wasn’t paying attention? Usually I’m not. What kind of QB doesn’t watch his hands? And you know my routes aren’t slow. It’s him. He’s off his game.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe,” I admitted.

“He doesn’t say anything?” he pressed. “You guys talk a lot.”

Walker wasn’t exactly begging me to hush about fucking his mouth, but I kinda got the feeling that was a self-destructive thing, not what he actually needed. He could give himself away if he really wanted to— and if even Ellis noticed him getting clingy with me, he might just do it— but it wasn’t my job.

“Talking a lot about my shit grades,” I told him, which wasn’t a lie. “He’s worried I’m gonna fuck up his big season and he won’t be able to strut around.”

“Not much to strut about, his arm looks like shit.”

“You telling him that all the time probably isn’t helping.”

He grunted. “It might.

I shook my head. “Lighten up. If something’s wrong with him, why would you being a dick help?”

He grunted again. “Needs to get laid,” he decided. “He’s too high strung.”

“So help him out. Take one for the team.”

He laughed a little, swallowing another long drink. “That’s more your area.”

I was pretty sure that was your basic You suck dick joke and not a specific Walker sucks your dick joke, but I acted clueless either way.

“Nothing to it. All you gotta do’s get on your knees and open your mouth. Your mouth’s open all the time anyway, you’d be a natural.”

He leaned back and his eyes got a little wider, and for a second I swear he looked interested. Or at least curious. Then he shook his head. “Nah. I don’t need him falling in love with me, I just want him to throw better.”

I snorted surprise that probably sounded like a laugh, but he was just hitting a little too observant when it came to Walker. Maybe he was just talking bullshit, maybe not. It was really hard to tell with Ellis, I doubt he even knew.

“He’ll be fine,” I told him. “He’s finding his rhythm.”

“He’s been QB three years, that rhythm needs to be found. You fuck-alls better not screw up my senior year, I swear to god I’ll fuck you up.”

“Just fucking relax.” I finished my beer and cracked a second, rolling my eyes when he grabbed my empty and sent it sailing off into the night, landing at the edge of the gravel.

“Yeah? You relaxed? Waiting to get your nuts chopped off while The Beast teaches you card games? Can’t you get a real fucking tutor?”

“He’s a real tutor.” I was definitely not going to mention the monkey pirate game or writing lines which was probably what I should be doing right now instead of drinking in the park with Ellis. But my blood pressure, or whatever pressure it was that made my insides shake, was calming down and that wouldn’t have happened stuck in the house, so the point wasn’t valid.

Probably shouldn’t mention how soft his sweaters looked either, which was a new thought I had just while we were sitting there, and I forgot how hard beer liked to hit me on an empty stomach. “He knows all the chemistry. Plus he’s free.”

“He’s a creep. He never talks.”

“I think he just never talks to you,” I told him, smirking in the dark.

“Yeah, he’s an asshole too.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah, but people like me.”

“Do they?”

“I brought you beer,” he pointed out, reaching over and shaking his backpack.

“You’re still an asshole.”

“Whatever.”

He grabbed the railing, hauling himself up onto his feet, and then hopping up on top like a goddamn frog, walking the little wooden ledge tightrope style, more nimble than you’d think a guy his size could be, especially after who knows how many drinks.

“Get down, dumbass.”

He turned around, spinning on his toes like a fucking ballerina, then pretending to fall backwards, putting on an over-the-top panic face as he threw himself over the side, landing on all fours like a cat and then somersaulting through the gravel and taking off for the swings. He was too stupid to get hurt, but he put in the effort.

I watched him dive stomach first onto one of the swings with a running start, launching hard and then coasting back and forth, dragging his feet in the puddle underneath to stop himself, stomping and making a huge ass mess.

When it didn’t look like he was coming back, I grabbed his backpack and stood up, climbing back down the ladder and trudging over to the swings. The ground sloped, and the gravel got mushier, muddier, everything wetter the closer I got.

There wasn’t anywhere to put his bag really, so I just sat there on the swing beside him, holding it on my lap as I pulled out another beer. Second? Third? Not great I was losing count so fast, but it didn’t feel terrible either. I had beer at home— hidden, since we were a faux-sober household for five minutes— but even drinking with Ellis was better than drinking alone.

I didn’t know why the hell I hung out with Ellis when he was such a dick to me all the time, but making friends was hard. He was so fucking annoying, never knew when the fuck to quit, but we did sop up the same kind of misery, lived on the fringes of town with no money, had things to hide. It was hard to shake that kind of sameness, even if I wanted to punch him in the mouth pretty much constantly. So we were just… whatever we were. Couple guys who pissed each other off most days but tolerated each other anyway because what were you gonna do.

He held his arm up, crabbing his fingers, and I fished out a beer and slid it into his hand. It disappeared underneath him and cracked open, and after a minute, he flipped around so he was lying on the swing on his back, dragging his feet through the mucky gravel and spilling beer down the side of his face as he aimed it at his mouth.

He swung back and forth staring up at the sky for a minute. He wasn’t bad looking if you didn’t know him. He was built and he had good hair. Pretty in that same trashy, sad-boy way I was pretty, but he was better at smiling. Girls fell all over him like he made them trip, but none of them stuck around long. I couldn’t imagine how annoying it would be to fuck someone who never shut up.

“Remember when they built this park?” he asked me, arching his back and letting his head hang upside down so deep I got dizzy and sick looking at him.

“Not really.”

“I do. I used to ride my bike down here and watch them level out the ground and pour concrete and dump rocks. I used to fucking love trucks.”

I wanted to make fun of him, but honestly, what the fuck was I going to make fun of? Who didn’t like trucks.

“There used to be a sandbox,” he said, pointing in the direction of where the wooden barriers and the sand had disappeared from ages ago. “And a water fountain.” That was gone too, torn out of the ground years after it stopped working which was a long ass time ago. Why bother pumping free water to the shit neighborhoods. Handouts just hold you down.

“Yeah.” I’d forgotten about those things, and remembering made me remember more, how it was crowded at first, people acting like a few picnic tables and some grass and some novelty playground equipment was fucking Disneyland. But when there’s no chance you’re ever going to Disneyland, wasn’t it, kind of? It didn’t take long for it to get ruined, for the city to say this is why you can’t have nice things and stop keeping it up, but it was fun for a minute. “That ice cream guy used to come. With the cart.”

“Mmm. He never had anything good. Just popsicles.”

“Ice cream’s ice cream.”

“Only if you’re poor,” he told me, and I guess I had to agree. No one liked popsicles. “You know, if I was The Beast, I wouldn’t help you with shit,” he told me, struggling to sit up, his shirt sliding halfway up his chest, flashing his six-pack and a whole mural of bruises.

“Yeah, because you’re an asshole.”

“No, because you beat the shit out of him in middle school.”

I shrugged. “I beat the shit out of everyone in middle school. Including you.”

“Yeah, but like… as friends. Beast is not your friend.”

That was true, probably. In fact, that was exactly what I’d told him when I left after school. Friends didn’t put hands on each other the way he put hands on me, soft but rough too, on each other’s faces. He definitely wasn’t my friend.

I shrugged. “Well, it’s not fucking middle school anymore. He’s over it.”

I had no idea if that was true, but if he was still holding it against me he had a funny way of showing it.

“I guess. Still seems weird, him helping you. I’d wanna watch you flunk out.”

“Great, thanks.” It was the same thought I’d had earlier, and I didn’t love having my mind heading down the same fucked up tracks his did.

“Just saying, if I—“

“You’re awfully fucking interested in other people’s business. Why don’t you just worry about yourself for once.”

“Damn, I’m just talking,” he said, all offended.

“What’s your point?”

“Nothing. I don’t have a point. That’s what talking is.”

“Talk less. You stress people out.”

He sighed heavy, then tossed his empty behind us, so far it hit the street, and then grabbed another. “You’re one touchy motherfucker. Maybe you need to get laid.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

* * *

The walk home wasn’t so bad. I left Ellis on the swing, doing his moody, muttering thing, half wishing we’d wrestled in the gravel and scraped our elbows raw instead of talking so I’d have gone home without so much mental baggage, but at least all the beers made a foamy filter around my brain and I didn’t think too deep about shit.

It was only around eleven by the time I kicked my shoes off and fell into bed, but it felt a hell of a lot later. The leaks had stopped except for a few drips every couple of minutes, and I just laid there, staring at the brown spots on the ceiling, wondering if they were bigger than they had been yesterday, how much longer the bubbling up patches would hold before the whole thing caved in. Fuck knows I’d get blamed for that.

The room was spinning a little, and I closed my eyes for a second, and as soon as I did, I felt The Beast’s giant hand on my face. Big palm cupping my cheek and long fingers brushing into my hair and his thumb pushing up on my chin and tilting my head back.

Who touched people like that? Got all familiar and… there were a lot of words marching through my head like I’d spilled a dictionary in there. Possessive. Assertive. Imposing. Controlling. They sounded nice, I guess, but they didn’t mean anything.

Wasn’t like he’d been trying to kiss me or anything. He was just trying to… see if I was hurt. And that was better somehow. And worse. And confusing for a lot of reasons. Why the fuck did he want to do anything to help me when I’d always been such an asshole to him?

I had so much experience watching people’s ulterior motives play out and here I was just seeing blank when I looked for his. Nobody was just a nice guy. Sure as hell nobody was just a nice guy to me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I didn’t drag my ass to school hungover very often, but some days it was necessary. I wasn’t chancing coffee or a shower or anything that might wake somebody up, I just crawled out of bed in the same clothes I slept in, grabbed my shoes and my backpack, and slipped out onto the front steps.

It was way too goddamn bright after the storm yesterday, like the weather just loved fucking with me— throwing rain at me when it would make things worse and sun in my eyes when I really would have liked it to be cloudy.

I sat down on the bottom step to put my shoes on, wishing I’d thought to grab some shades but not willing to go back for them, not sure I even had any. Pretty soon I’d be freezing my ass off wishing for sunshine in the morning, but my headache could have done without.

My shitty shoes were still soaked through from yesterday, which was about the nicest part of my day so far, cooling me down a little as I shoved my feet in, like someone putting a cool cloth on my forehead. Or what I imagined that might be like.

Tell me why I pictured The Beast doing that with his giant hands.

Don’t though.

* * *

Most of the morning was an unpleasant daze. I hated every step on the way to school, and inside was even worse, idiots screaming and slamming lockers, Ellis looking all hyper and fine like he’d slept ten hours instead of drank ten beers, putting Walker in a headlock and slapping me in the face on our way to first period Algebra and the quiz I didn’t study for.

Walker smoothed down his head, fixing his buzz like there was any hair to mess up. “The fuck is his problem?” he asked me, then looked closer. “The fuck is your problem? Jesus, don’t let Coach see you like that, he’ll have everybody running hangover laps.”

“I’ll be fine by practice.” I would. But practice seemed far away. I just needed to make it to lunch. Nothing sopped up a night out like cafeteria food.

Definitely didn’t ace the quiz, but I didn’t fall asleep or puke on my desk, so it felt like a win. I kept my head down and coasted through until fifth period, and then slid into the seat across from Caleb in the library.

It was so fucking bright and so fucking loud, which you wouldn’t think it would be in a fucking library. But I could hear every asshole tapping away on the computers and every page turning, and I swear they must have replaced the bulbs with extra watts because my head was pounding. I did not feel like playing games. Like any kind of games.

“Are you hungover?” he asked me, and his voice was loud and rumbly. Like more than usual. Like he was personally offended.

“Quiet. We’re in a fucking library,” I muttered.

He did lower his voice but that just made me hear it better. “You just get drunk on a fucking school night?” He sounded so surprised, like it wasn’t something people did every day. He’d probably never had a drink in his life.

“Sometimes. It’s what the cool kids do.” I felt bad for a second for basically calling him a loser. But when I looked up, he was looking at me like I was the loser.

“Yeah, real fucking cool. Did you even do your homework?”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but my headache wasn’t having it. “That’s what study hall’s for.”

“No, study hall is for studying. Did you do it or not?”

“Writing your dumbass lines is not homework,” I snapped, and glared around at anyone who felt like shushing me might be a good idea. Not today it wasn’t.

“I’m talking about your class homework,” he told me, lowering his voice again. The guy had some range and every level seemed to hit a little different. He sounded less annoyed with me now, more patient, and I wasn’t sure I liked it better. “You had a worksheet, didn’t you?”

I blinked and had a moment of shivery panic sprawl out across my chest. Fuck. I did have a worksheet. One I’d one hundred million percent forgotten about that was maybe, hopefully stuffed somewhere in my backpack with the mess of shit I’d jammed back in there before I said fuck it all and went to the park to get drunk.

“Fuck.”

“Come on.” He grabbed his bag and stood up from the table, and I looked up wondering what the fuck he thought was happening. I definitely didn’t feel like going anywhere.

“Good here,” I grunted, and started to put my head down on the table, but he put a giant hand on my shoulder, and I straightened right back up like he’d just thrown cold water at me, suddenly wide awake.

“With me. Now.” His voice was another level lower still, like this one was just for me, and thank fucking god because I did not need anyone else hearing what I heard. Which was… I didn’t know what. The Beast being… beastlike. Growly. Bossy. Rough. Something that felt like it tripped some kind of bomb in my stomach. A clock counting down to… I had no idea.

I could pretend that being hungover was making me hear things, feel things that weren’t really there. But I couldn’t pretend I didn’t shove myself up out of my chair and follow him.

He didn’t go far, just to the back corner of the library, the table where we’d sat after school yesterday, about a thousand years ago. My table that he thought was his table. Right now it was no one’s, and when he pulled out a chair and put his hand on my shoulder again, pushing me into it, I guess it became ours.

“Get it out,” he told me, sitting down across from me. “You can do it now.”

I didn’t exactly want The Beast watching me dig through my bag but I couldn’t do much else, so I zipped it open, pulling out the wad of papers, a jumbly, crumpled, wet-around-the-edges mess that didn’t look so promising.

He just sat there in silence while I sorted through everything, and I didn’t even look up to see his expression. I didn’t want to know.

“I lost it,” I finally said when it was obvious after going through everything that it wasn’t in there.

When I looked up, he was staring at me, and he looked away fast. Not me, I realized. He was staring at my fucking forehead, and I fixed my hair to cover up the gash he couldn’t get enough of.

“Okay,” he said after a minute. “You can start writing lines like you were supposed to do last night. But I want you to write them in this. Only in this. So you’re less distracted.” He put a notebook down in the center of the table, a big, thick, green one, brand new five-subject with a shiny cover, and I tensed up like he’d handed me a twenty, some canned goods, a box of 64 crayons, uncomfortable in all kinds of ways, mostly about how I was practically salivating over a goddamn notebook, like what did I care.

“How many fucking lines do you expect me to write?” was what I actually said, keeping my hands glued to the table so I didn’t reach out and grab it.

“As many as it takes to get your grades up.”

“So zero? This is fucking stupid. You’re an idiot if you think copying shit down is going to help me. I have a real test next week. I have real homework. You’re wasting my time.”

“No, you’re wasting your time. And mine.” He pushed the notebook across the table not so gently and it half-skid off the edge and hit me in the chest. “You need to do your real homework. You need to quit screwing around and take this seriously.”

“I am.”

“So you go home, get drunk, and skip your homework. That’s you taking this seriously?”

His voice was too loud and I scowled, at the volume and the content. The Beast was not my friend, I reminded myself. “Yeah, well, there’s some details in between you skipped.”

“Like what?”

I sort of froze. Thing was, people didn’t answer my excuses that way, sounding willing to listen instead of doubtful and I didn’t know what to say. My mom tried to knock me out with my dinner and threw my homework in a puddle? Right.

“Like don’t worry about it,” I muttered, glaring at him. Not my friend. I didn’t owe him shit for explanations.

“Look,” he said quietly. “It’s pretty simple. Prioritize your schoolwork, or you’re going to run out of time. I’m here to help you, but you’re either in or you’re out. If you’re in, you’ll pass that test, I’ll make sure of it, as long as you listen to me. You might not like me by the time we’re done, but you’ll pass. If you’re out…” He spread his hands. “Then what did you even show up again for?”

I wanted to get mad, but he wasn’t saying anything so awful I disagreed with it. And I kind of liked that he was ballsy enough to sit across the table two days in, after teaching me absolutely nothing, and guarantee he could keep me from failing. I was honestly so tired and ready to quit trying, so without him I really had no chance at all.

“What makes you think I like you in the first place,” I muttered.

“Logan—“

“Yeah, fine, I’m in,” I told him, cutting him off so he’d shut up already, just ignoring the way the hair on the back of my neck stood up when he said my name.

I looked down and slid my hands over the top of the notebook, so slick and flat my teeth hurt like I was touching ice. I didn’t even know if it was supposed to be a bribe, but I guess I was accepting it either way.

He reached across the table and flipped it open to the first page, and okay, I knew his hands were massive, I’d felt them on my fucking face smothering me like goddamn baseball mitts for fucks sake, but those things were almost as big as the entire notebook cover and that just wasn’t right.

“Lines,” he told me, tapping the page. “I’ll go get you another worksheet.”

“Mendleton doesn’t give out extras,” I told him miserably, trying to figure out how much more this was going to fuck my grade, but stats weren’t my thing unless it was football.

“I know. But he will for me. I’ll just tell him I accidentally took it home after we were studying.”

I sighed. I should have been grateful sure, but it was still annoying to know that would work, that Caleb who wasn’t even in his class would get better breaks than me just because he looked more trustworthy. I was relieved, yeah, but grateful was out of reach.

He left me sitting there and I closed my eyes a few minutes, waiting for the nausea to roll on by, wetting my lips with my tongue, regretting however many beers I’d had until I was mostly holding myself together. This was doable. Somehow. It had to be. I could not be stuck here forever. There was one way out and I was getting through that door if I had to use fucking dynamite.

Took me another minute of sitting there with my pen hovering to be able to break the seal on a new notebook, and then I just started scribbling Au=gold down the side as fast as I could. I already knew that one, so I wasn’t sure I was helping myself any by memorizing it more, but it was short and it was the first thing I thought of, and my head really hurt. If he’d wanted me to write something else he should have said so.

The trance was a little less secure with a hangover, but it was still there, and as I slowed my writing down, my hand took over while my brain drifted, and my shoulders started to relax just a little. I might never get good at chemistry, but it seemed like I was picking up meditation just fine.

A few minutes later, Caleb’s giant shadow fell across the table and a worksheet full of formulas drifted down beside me. Then a familiar little plastic package on top of that. I stared at it a second and then picked it up, squeezing it in my hands. It was freezing.

“What’s this?”

“Gel pack. Put it on your neck. You’ll feel better.”

“I know what it is,” I muttered, reaching around and slapping the squishy little ice bomb against the back of my neck. It wasn’t a cool cloth, it was maybe better, and I swallowed a pathetic relief whimper so extreme that when I closed my eyes my eyelashes got wet. “I meant where’d you get it,” I said after a minute when I trusted my voice again.

“The office. Told them I bumped my elbow.”

“You’re just out here lying to teachers left and right, Beast.” My voice wasn’t ready to be trusted and it came out kind of rough. “Didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”

“Well, you don’t know much about me, do you,” he pointed out. “But you’re right. I’m not. So quit making me.”

He dropped his backpack on the table and zipped it open. Instead of a big ball of wet papers, he pulled out a bottle of Sprite, a little bag of pretzels, and his travel aspirin. Guy was a walking first-aid kit.

“You can’t have food in the library.”

He snorted. “Oh, so we’re following rules now?”

I reached for the aspirin, and he blocked my hand.

“No. Eat first.” He opened the pretzels and shoved them toward me.

I fucking hated pretzels, but they didn’t sound terrible to my stomach right now, so I popped one in my mouth and sucked the salt off, feeling it hit my bloodstream and perking up a little bit. I sat there letting the whole thing dissolve into mush on my tongue before I swallowed it. I had disgusting fucking eating habits when it came to snacks, all based on making food last as long as possible, not actually enjoying it. Although who the fuck enjoyed pretzels. The Beast, probably.

“Another one,” he said, pulling out the chair next to me instead of the one across. So close I could smell him, and he smelled exactly like you’d think he would, like a library. Crisp and clean and warm and soft, and it was probably just laundry detergent, but not the shitty powdered kind they used in the locker room that smelled like bleach, the kind that came in a tiny black bottle that cost seventeen bucks and said Whisper or Cattails or some other bullshit not-a-smell on the label.

One thing The Beast was not was an Axe body spray guy, which made him smell different than about 98% of the guys I knew. I was fucking glad, since it didn’t make me want to puke. It did make me want to lean my face up against his shoulder and inhale his sweater and that was probably worse, but I’d take it.

“Another one,” he repeated, pointing at the pretzels and then cracking the drink, and for the next twenty minutes I just did what he put in front of me, eating when he said eat, drinking when he said drink, swallowing the aspirin as I worked my way down the twelve multiple-choice questions, maybe, possibly, recognizing some symbols I normally wouldn’t have when they swam up through my brain in The Beast’s sturdy stick handwriting along with a flash of smugness that came from matching cards. If he was actually hacking my brain somehow after one goddamn day of card games, I was gonna lose my shit.

When I was done I slid the paper over to him and he handed me an empty note card.

‘What’s this?”

“Write your number on it,” he told me.

“Why?”

“You practice after school, right? What do you do before school?”

“Sleep?”

“Well, you’re gonna have to sleep a little less. I’m gonna reserve a study room for tomorrow morning. I’ll text you which one.”

I cringed. As if I could possibly sleep less. “Study in the morning? That’s not gonna work.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t fucking want to.”

“Do you want to pass this test? And this class? You want to graduate? You want to go to college? Keep playing football? It’s time to fucking show up. Since you can’t be responsible enough to study on your own, you need to spend as much time with me as possible. So write your number down.”

“I don’t want you fucking harassing me,” I muttered, but I wrote it down and shoved it over because I guess maybe I did.

I didn’t like his bullshit, and he didn’t know what he was talking about, but he yelled at me differently than Coach did, differently than anyone did, and fuck me, but it did something to me. Settled down the shitty This is never gonna work, You were never gonna succeed, This was never real intrusive thoughts, like he was drugging me with his rumbly voice. Like his way of making me face reality was less scary than everyone else’s somehow.

“Be a good boy and get your work done and I won’t have to harass you,” he told me, typing my number epically slowly into his phone like it wasn’t something he did very often. It was probably saying things like Be a good boy that kept him from having any friends. Or kept him from having time for any friends because when he said that all low in that annoyed voice, yeah, I’d fuck that, stupid sweaters and all.

Seemed like some kind of insanity, but he was wearing another gray sweater. This one was more bluish, barely gray, really, but the gray was in there, sprinkling on the extra boring vibes. Made his eyes look more blue, I realized, when he looked up and caught me staring, and that was so fascinating I couldn’t look away for a second.

I knew it was some kind of optical illusion trick, but it was still weird to see them change colors, go from nothing to something just because he put on a different sweater. Then his eyes narrowed a little, and he pressed his lips together and I took a long swallow of my soda because I was noticing way too much.

My phone dinged, and I switched the gel pack to my forehead while I dug it out of my pocket. There it was, The Beast’s number, and a text that said Br.

“Why’d you text me bromine? You trying to say we’re bros?”

He snorted. “No, but if that helps you remember it, use it. I wanted to see if you knew it. You do. So try this one again,” he said, sliding the worksheet back to me and pointing at the next to last question.

I sighed and took the paper back. “Looks different on the phone,” I muttered.

“Yeah. Delivery systems can trip you up. You can try writing it out yourself. See if that hits different than the printout.”

Like some nerd, I looked at all the multiple-choice answers and then copied them out again in my own handwriting. It didn’t seem much different, not with the pressure of him watching me anyway, but I could see how maybe it could. Like maybe in some muscle memory way, if I wrote out enough of his stupid lines I’d just know like reflex. Like instinct. Fuck, was this actually going to work? Hope seemed like something for other people, but I swear for a second I was feeling it before I punted it away.

I fixed the question and pushed it back to him. “Better?”

He looked me over, just a flick of his bluish eyes, and then turned his attention to the paper. “Yeah. Better.”

CHAPTER NINE

The cafeteria was a lot louder than the library as I sat there picking the breading off my chicken nuggets. My appetite wasn’t around, but I forced myself to chew and swallow the soggy, greasy, definitely-not-chicken chunks and pretend I didn’t notice the weird cold spots in the middle. It would help even me out. Eventually. As long as I ate it without thinking about it.

I tossed a napkin over the scoop of watery corn that was definitely a hard pass. I couldn’t even look at that shit without my stomach getting attitude. The sad little slices of peaches… maybe. I’d have killed for something green, but tray lunch had more of an autumn palette.

Walker looked up and behind me a little too late for me to catch on and duck, and Ellis flicked me hard on the back of the ear, sliding into the seat next to me.

“Fuck you,” I snapped, grabbing at my ear, elbowing him so rough in the side he got the message and switched seats, sitting next to Walker instead. The top of my ear was throbbing so hard it felt like it was bleeding, and I purposely focused on murdering Ellis with my eyes so my brain didn’t accidentally wander off into any weird first-aid fantasies starring people I didn’t want to be fantasizing about.

“Damn, you look like you stayed out all night drinking,” he told me, grinning like it was the funniest joke anyone ever heard.

“Why the hell are you so pep squad?” I muttered. “You drank more than I did.”

“Yeah, but I was smart enough to get dizzy on the swings till I puked in the gutter on the way home. Drink smarter, not harder.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Why didn’t anybody ask me?” Walker asked, looking pissy like his feelings were hurt.

“Yeah, sorry, it was a real black tie deal,” Ellis told him. “Elite guest list only, didn’t want you to feel out of place.”

I snorted, tearing the chicken pieces in half and staring at the gray meat inside. Mistake.

“So you can invite yourself over to my place to drink but I can’t get in on whatever you guys do?”

I glanced up, taking a closer look at him. He actually did seem pissed.

“It wasn’t a snub,” I told him. “It was a… nothing thing.”

“Maybe it was a snub,” Ellis argued. “Maybe I don’t wanna have to invite myself over to your place, maybe I want you to ask. Anyway, whattayou want my cooler for, you got a fucking bar in your house, you can drink whenever you want.”

“Fuck you, that’s not the point.”

“Would you guys shut up? Who fucking cares.”

They both looked over at me like I was the asshole.

Walker frowned. “What the hell’s your problem?”

“I’m sick of listening to you argue all the time. You wanna know why you two look like shit on the field? This. This is why. You’re down each other’s throats over stupid shit all day long, you don’t listen, you don’t pay attention, you make dumbass mistakes. Stop blaming each other, own up, and pull it together. My grades might be shit, but at least I do my job.”

“Damn. Hungover much?” Ellis laughed.

I was so fucking hungover, and now my throat hurt from yelling and my head hurt from listening to myself on top of them. I’d never missed the library so much in my life. I looked back toward the line and then over toward the vending machines. “Where’s Riggs?”

“Probably avoiding your bitch ass.”

“Girlfriend drama,” Walker said, unwrapping a cupcake I definitely didn’t want, but I still hated him for having. “Saw them fighting in the hallway again.”

Ellis nodded. “That’s why I never have a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s why,” Walker laughed. “Nothing to do with your—”

“Gimmie that,” Ellis interrupted him, eyeing his cupcake.

“Fuck off.”

“Come on. Listen to Prescott over there, we need to be more in sync. Gimmie half. It’ll be like a mind meld kinda thing.”

Walker rolled his eyes and broke the cupcake in half, then shoved both halves in his mouth until his cheeks popped out like a blowfish.

Ellis howled, not even mad, laughing until he almost fell out of his chair. Fucking idiots. Fucking loud ass idiots.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I fished it out and swiped it open, glad for any kind of distraction, even one that hurt my eyes. I turned the brightness all the way down and squinted.

Right under the Br he’d texted me earlier, it said 17B. 6:30 am.

Six-fucking-thirty, he had to be kidding. But I was already doing the math, setting my alarm for five-thirty, and hovering over my contacts list, thinking about whether I wanted to type The Beast’s name into my phone.

I didn’t, and I wasn’t sure why.

Fine, I finally shot back. Definitely was not looking forward to getting up before the sun. To fucking study. Like I didn’t have anything better to do first thing in the morning than play card games. In an empty study room. With The Beast.

I swallowed and grabbed for a chicken nugget, my appetite suddenly raging back with a vengeance. My phone buzzed again as I started to shove it back in my pocket, and a second time as I swiped it back open.

Mg

Don’t cheat.

I snorted, staring at the screen, imagining him sitting in class somewhere typing with his big hands on his tiny phone, punching all careful like he didn’t know how to use it. Probably didn’t have anyone to text.

Magnesium, I typed back. And I don’t cheat.

Good. See you tomorrow.

For a second, I was literally about to text back Think you mean Cu tomorrow and then I almost slit my own throat for making a fucking chemistry joke, even if I didn’t actually type it out. Jesus, what was the guy doing to me.

“Who the fuck are you texting all goofy?” Ellis demanded, grabbing at my phone, startling me back into the cafeteria just in time for me to shove it back into my pocket.

“Your dad,” I said, glaring at him, wishing those kind of jokes pissed him off like they did everybody else. Goofy. Fuck him. Like I’d ever been goofy in my life.

* * *

By practice I was mostly recovered, thanks to The Beast’s care package and the shitty cafeteria food. But it turned out Riggs had a rougher night than anyone, and we all got stuck listening to the Dangers of Alcohol lecture and running hangover laps anyway. You always wanted to kill the guy who caused that, except they were always barfing up their liver by the second lap, so you never did.

Coach didn’t let us go until almost seven, and by then it was dark. But it wasn’t raining and at least I knew no one would be there when I got home, so I could deal.

I got used to walking home in the dark a long time ago. It didn’t scare me, even through my shit neighborhood. Well, I shouldn’t say that, I guess. My body still did the scared reactions— sweaty palms and spiky pulse and prickles on the back of my neck when shit seemed a little off. I just didn’t care. If someone wanted to come at me, fine. I’d either take them out or let them finish me, depending on how I was feeling. There wasn’t any in-between anymore, which I guess made things easier. Decisions were hard.

Nobody jumped me, nobody noticed me at all except for some little twelve-year-old girl standing out on her porch yelling Bitch at the top of her lungs when I walked by. Maybe she wasn’t talking to me, I just kind of always assumed.

The driveway was empty when I got home, just the way I liked it. I knew it would be, was sure it would be, but I was still so relieved I felt about as sick as Riggs on lap two.

It was quiet and dark inside, and I unclenched a little when I walked in and locked the door behind me, at least as much as I ever did. There was shit all over the place, a normal person might have thought they’d been robbed, but it was just a typical late for work mess.

I picked up the glasses and the dishes, emptied out the ashtray, but left all her clothes and shoes where they were because if I touched them she’d go off, either calling me a pervert or accusing me of stealing shit, or ripping it, or what the fuck ever she was on about these days. Cleaning up didn’t do much to make the place look better, but at least I wasn’t literally tripping over shit. At least we wouldn’t get fucking ants.

When the dishes were done and put away, I scrubbed out the sink and plugged it up, filling it with hot water and dish soap. The washing machine hadn’t worked for months, and normally I might shove some shit in my duffel and trek across to the laundromat. I hadn’t minded so much in the summer, since they had AC. But football season, I was too goddamn tired.

I grabbed a handful of tshirts and underwear from my room and plunged them under the water, doing my best to scrub them clean without stretching them out too much, trying really hard to rinse them good enough I wouldn’t smell like lemons and degreaser. Which was better than dirt and sweat, but still not something you wanted to aim for.

Once I’d squeezed and twisted out all the water I could, I tossed the wet clothes on hangers and hung them up on the empty nails in my room, cracking the window even though it was cold, and balancing the fan with the too-short cord on top of my dresser and aiming it in their general direction. They’d mostly dry in a few hours and I could spread them out and try to iron them the rest of the way, get the worst of the wrinkles out. But somehow the seams always stayed wet and cold, and everything would feel stiff and sticky and cling to me weird tomorrow anyway. What were you gonna do. I kept missing my chance to do laundry in the locker room and I needed fucking clothes.

It was nine o’clock before I sat down on the bed and cracked open the Spaghettios I didn’t eat last night, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Instead, I had to read like fifty pages of some book about chasing dogs through the woods that I couldn’t understand for shit, and then algebra, which I could feel myself losing my grip on because any class I had first period was always a struggle to pay attention to, and then chem. Another worksheet and then Caleb’s stupid write these formulas down nine million times to help you remember bullshit in my new notebook.

Instead of doing any of that, I opened up my phone and thumbed to the chemistry app he’d had me download, while I drank down Spaghettios with my other hand.

Periodic Pirates was the dumbest fucking game I’d ever seen. It was obviously meant for little kids, although why the fuck little kids were learning chemistry I couldn’t say. You were supposed to be a pirate trapped on an island with a professor who was also a monkey. And to get to the X in the middle of the treasure map, you had to type in element symbols along the way, because the monkey professor got hit in the head with a coconut and couldn’t remember them. And also battle more pirates who were also monkeys.

None of it made any fucking sense, and the graphics were dumb and the music was annoying, and the high-pitched monkey screeching when the timer started running down made my eardrums bleed, but for some reason I kept playing it.

Caleb must have thought I was so fucking stupid. Teaching me with video games and flashcards and rewarding me with candy bars like I had the IQ of a fourth grader, which maybe I did. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he busted out crayons or Play-Doh next time I saw him.

My gut clenched a little, something I thought was embarrassment but that didn’t stop in my stomach. A hot queasiness that swirled around and then sent a tightness up through my chest and down through my groin as I suddenly felt his hands on my face again. Big phantom fingers holding my jaw. Looking me over. Saying What happened to you? like I couldn’t take care of myself.

What had happened to me? Why the fuck did I keep thinking about him putting his giant hands on me instead of thinking about knocking him out for putting his giant hands on me? Freak.

I didn’t really understand why my dick was hard except sometimes it just got that way when I got angry. But a rage boner was still a boner and no reason to let it go to waste, so I ditched the game and the Spaghettios and pulled my dick out and went flipping through porn.

None of the videos were scratching my itch how I liked it though. In fact, it was all just fucking irritating me, my hand half-ass stroking my cock as I swiped through big dick this and cum shot that and bareback caught on camera until I finally just threw the phone down and let my imagination have a go. Me. Caleb. Men’s room. Stupid sweater. His big hand on my face, holding firm, looking bothered…

I grunted hard, and jerked forward, not expecting at all to nut so fast, but suddenly there was jizz all over my hand for literally no reason, like my dick forgot it was looking for a plot. Fine. Whatever. Nosy fucks in stupid sweaters and big hands on my face, guess that pulled the trigger for me somehow. Nothing personal, Beast.

* * *

After a shower, I tried hard to read the stupid dog book, but it was so not happening. I flipped ahead a few pages and then a few more, skimming for anything that would keep my eyes open, but for fuck’s sake, I did not care about nature or what the woods smelled like or what flowers grew there. Fuck me. The outdoors was about as interesting as church, and I didn’t want to read about either of them unless maybe they were on fire or something.

I gave up and pulled out my notebook so I could start writing lines. It wasn’t real homework, but I could copy shit down in my sleep, which was good because I was half asleep already.

I jolted straight up when someone banged on the front door hard. Not police hard, but pissed off hard, and I heard the doorknob rattling as they tried to walk right the fuck in.

“Mike! Mike, where you at?” someone yelled. “Open up man, don’t leave me hanging, I got cash.”

Fuck.

I jumped up and ran across the room and flipped the light off, instinct built in from way too many people banging on way too many doors in the middle of the night. Yeah, there was plenty of chance a dark house might convince people it was a good time to break in. But I’d still rather they think the place was empty than know I was home.

Guys looking to get high got desperate, but I’d been around enough to know their followthru was directly tied to whatever they were using. Some would fuck shit up all night without even remembering why, and some would get bored and walk away, and the ones with some sense left could mostly put the brakes on when it was in their best interest. The last bridge you wanted to burn was a good supply main.

Guys looking to get high were also unpredictable as fuck though, so I was not giving away my position. If that was supposed to make me a coward or something, I didn’t fucking care.

“Mike! Open the door, bitch, I’m not kidding!”

I could hear them tapping on the living room windows, creeping around the house like normal people did, totally fine. I’d turned all the lights off out there, always did, and my heart slammed when I remembered my window was open. It was high up and kind of hidden and hard for anybody to get through, but not impossible. Forcing myself when I really didn’t want to, I snuck across the room in the dark and turned off the fan, and then eased the window shut as quiet as I could.

I’d kept a steak knife under my mattress since I was in grade school. Didn’t pull it out a lot, but liked to know it was there, and I slid my hand underneath, fishing around for it, swearing under my breath when I found it business end first. I pulled it out, gripping the handle tight until my knuckles hurt, and then sat on the floor at the end of the bed and listened.

I could hear them rattling at the back door now, twisting the knob and knocking hard, then kicking, screaming for Mike, saying they were gonna light the place up, call the cops, come back with Tori and kick his ass, and then some other shit I didn’t catch when their voice got too high.

This was for real not somebody looking to buy weed, which made me wonder what the fuck was in the house, but it’s not like it mattered. Nothing I could do about it. I’d tried flushing drugs once when I was young and dumb— it’s a good way to lose most of your baby teeth all at once. 911 sure as fuck wasn’t an option, and I couldn’t get out of the house, so dark and quiet was the only way to be. They’d go away or they wouldn’t, and then we’d find out if I cared or not, I guess.

I held my breath until I was pretty sure they were gone, and then just as my heart started to beat slow enough I could hear around the thuds, an empty bottle shattered against the back fence and a flashlight beam swept back and forth across my window. Someone was in the backyard.

“Mike! Mike, I’m gonna kill you, you motherfucker, what the fuck!”

Jesus Christ.

My closet barely had room for clothes, and I didn’t even keep mine in there anymore since it leaked so bad. It was about the nastiest place in the house, but right now it seemed like the safest place I had left, so I got down on my stomach like I was doing tackle drills and inched across the carpet to the door, creaking it open and shoving myself inside.

It was cold and damp and it smelled like ammonia and mildew, and who the hell knew what was living in there, crawling around in the walls. I’d been in here way too many times, hiding from shit like this and way worse, but not for awhile. Just like riding a bike, it turned out. Two hundred pound tackle hiding in a goddamn closet like an eight-year-old.

Yeah, this year was fucking crushing it. Making it to graduation was gonna be a goddamn miracle if shit kept up like this. Not a whole lot of homework I could do sitting in the pitch black, holding my breath.

Could pull up the pirate game maybe, with the sound off, but that seemed like asking a lot with my brain pretty focused elsewhere. I opened my phone anyway, checking the time, checking the juice, staring at the text from Caleb that said See you tomorrow. Tomorrow wasn’t that far away really, if I squinted.

Another five minutes, another busted bottle, and someone screaming Fuck you at the top of their lungs. For a second I almost put myself into hysterics, thinking about that little girl on the porch yelling Bitch at me on the walk home, imagining she was the one skulking around the yard with a flashlight.

I clamped my mouth shut, shaking with laughter over something that wasn’t even funny, punching myself in the thigh until my eyes watered and I finally calmed down. Sat there for another five and then another, counting out three hundreds until I started to nod off.

It had to be late. They had to be gone. I needed to get back up. Iron my clothes dry. Do some more homework so I didn’t flunk the fuck out or get Caleb up in my face again about how irresponsible I was, because maybe I’d knock him out next time and I probably didn’t want to do that.

But I was so goddamn tired, and my muscles were so sore and stiff from being jammed in this tiny space, and I knew how bad it was going to hurt when I unfolded myself and got up. The knot in the center of my shoulders was already on fire. I couldn’t stay here, but I couldn’t move.

I tipped my head back until it clunked against the closet wall and closed my eyes for just a minute. I’d count to three hundred one more time and then I’d get up.

I didn’t even make it halfway.

CHAPTER TEN

I stood in the kitchen trying to wake up, picturing Caleb in my head and then imagining smashing his face in with a dodgeball like I had when we were kids. Except in my imagination, he wasn’t having it. He grabbed the ball out of the air and tossed it, giving me that intense stare I couldn’t handle and reaching out to grab my face and look me over.

I twitched my shoulders and shook him off me, wincing at how stiff and tight my muscles were. Fuck him for forcing me awake so early I was having nightmares standing up. Definitely a nightmare. Definitely not a daydream, even if it was morning.

Six-thirty was way too fucking early to show up at school, especially when you had to walk twenty-five minutes to get there, and you’d slept for about an hour last night. But somehow I’d managed to drag myself out of the closet to shower with my eyes still closed, and pull on some cold shorts and a damp, lemony tshirt, wishing I was dead. No wonder I was delirious.

There was a box of knock-off Cheerios on the counter that had been there god knows how long, and I picked it up and shook it. Pointless, since I could tell it was empty. Still, I opened it up, sticking my arm down into the plastic bag, rooting around for the last couple stale rings, and then licking the dust off my fingers before putting it back on the counter. Fuck food anyway. I needed caffeine.

I filled up the pot at the sink and dug around in the cabinets for the coffee. When my mom was feeling speedy on sobriety or whatever she was smoking these days, she moved all the stuff around in the cabinets. Not that there was enough shit in any of them to make it much of a job. Still, it took three tries to find the coffee grounds and a mug, and by the time the coffeemaker was steaming and spitting, she’d pulled herself out of bed and was standing in the kitchen in leftover work makeup and one of her short robes.

People could do what they wanted in their own houses. I’d been told that forever, and I guess I believed it for the most part. But I still got weirded out when she walked around like that, like she was backstage, which was pretty much always. I just didn’t need to see that much of her, and also I was pretty sure she did it just to make me uncomfortable. So she could say things like I thought you were gay, why should it bother you? If tits don’t turn you on, what difference should it make?

Her face was mostly blank, her eyes looking giant with her fake eyelashes still glued on, but nothing much going on behind them. That could have been good or bad, but I never stopped being cautious. I had no idea what page we were on, and it was always smarter to play dumb and pretend you didn’t remember the crazy ass shit she did to you, so that’s what I did. Suck it up. Walk it off. Ride it out. I rubbed my eyes and turned around to stare at the coffee maker, trying to make it drip faster by sheer will. “Morning.”

“Look, I don’t want to be a bitch…” she told me, clearly about to be a bitch and her voice saying she was definitely looking forward to it. “But you need to keep it down at night. Mike works hard and he needs to sleep.”

I turned around and stared at her, too stunned to respond at first. “Keep it down? I don’t know how the fuck I can be any quieter. I sleep, I study, that’s it. That’s what I do here. Maybe he was hearing all his fucking clients tapping on the windows in the middle of the night.”

“Okay, you need to watch it,” she snapped, wrapping her robe tighter around herself aggressively, with a scowl, like I was the one making her cold. “I told you, he’s not into that. This is a sober house. He knows people, that’s not a crime. Just because you don’t ever have friends doesn’t mean people who do are up to something shady. I swear to god you’re so fucking embarrassing.”

I gnawed at my lip, trying to keep the worst things I was thinking inside where they’d eat me alive slowly instead of get me killed on the spot. “Yeah. Right. Whatever. Keep your blinders on, it’s fine. I’m sure that’ll make things better.”

“Stop being an asshole. If you’re going to stay here—“

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? I don’t stay here. He stays here. I live here.”

“He lives here too. And you’re nineteen. Mike says—”

“What does Mike say? By all means, let’s all stop and listen to what your latest rando has to say. What does he want? Money? He wants me to move out so he can cook meth in my room? What? Lay it on me.”

“You should be paying rent. And bills. Heat, electric, water, that shit’s not free, Logan. And buying your own food. I shouldn’t be paying for you since you’re over eighteen. I don’t have to. Legally.”

This shit was complicated. I worked two jobs during summer, landscaping five to twelve and flipping burgers two to ten. It paid for football and my phone and bare minimum being alive, but only if I was careful. I could pull it off with no school or sports to worry about, but once fall came around I had no shot at juggling them all. Which meant I had to stash most of it but keep two gimmie piles. Cash she was gonna demand from me for whatever reason she felt like and cash she was gonna steal from me that I had to leave around like a decoy. I couldn’t let on there was more than she thought no matter what kind of threats she threw at me, or I was fucked. Not that there was much since she ended up with half of it anyway.

“I help you every way I can,” I told her, and god knows that wasn’t a lie.

“Not enough. You need to be pitching in with groceries, gas, that kind of thing. You don’t need to be wasting your time with football after school, you need to get a job.”

I stared at her. “I can’t quit football.”

“Well, you can’t keep living here free either. You have a whole room to yourself, that costs money most places.”

That shit was funny, like my room was even livable by anyone’s standards, let alone worth a fucking nickel, but I didn’t even have the energy to laugh. “Yeah. Hotels.”

“Maybe you should start thinking of this place like a hotel, then.”

“Right. Okay. So maybe I’ll start bringing some guys over to split the cost with. Since it’s a hotel. That cool with you? Make some noise that’ll really keep you up at night.”

I could literally see her go pale underneath her makeup. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want you talking like that in front of Mike. I’m fucking serious,” she hissed, and it was straight up venom.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want a lot of things. Like you fucking with my head every time you move a new guy in. You’re my fucking mother. Act like it. Or maybe I’ll start bringing guests home and room service them right in the middle of the living room. You think Mike’ll still want to play house with you then?”

“You’re disgusting.” She really meant that, it was obvious.

“Back at you.”

She grabbed the empty cereal box off the counter and threw it at me. It bounced off my chest and landed on the floor, all echoey empty. Pretty fucking tired of having shit thrown at me. “Don’t you even think about bringing one of your nasty friends back here to my house. I could kick you out, you know. Right now. Today. Whenever I want. Mike says I could call the cops and have you removed for trespassing.”

With or without Mike, I’d heard that line since I was thirteen, along with a ton of other things she could do involving cops and juvie and jail and foster care. For all I knew it was true, not much I could do about it if it was.

“I don’t think anybody’s calling the cops around here.”

“You think he doesn’t have cop friends? You think he doesn’t know people who’d lock you right the fuck up for the way you treat me? The way you act around here? You can start treating both of us with respect, or you can find your own place to live. I’d love to see your lazy ass pull that off. If I come back on Monday and he has anything bad to say you’re fucking out of here. You better get it together.”

Fuck. My shitty ass memory had completely forgotten this was spa weekend or juice weekend, or whatever she called it when she was sober. The two days every couple of months she disappeared with her friends to whatever rooftop apartment was available through the girlfriend network to sunbathe and sip champagne like a bunch of reality stars.

A few times when I was little, she’d dragged me along, and I’d seen way too many things I wished I could unsee, sitting in the corner with a book while they all got shrill and sloppy, giving each other manicures and then snorting coke off each other’s long glittery fingernails. No wonder I hated fucking books.

I turned around to fill up my mug and chug it, burn my tongue if I had to just to keep my fucking mouth shut and not make things any worse. Turning my back on her was the wrong move too though.

“Don’t fucking ignore me, Logan. Did you pay for that coffee? Put it down and get out. Get the fuck out.”

I could tell by the wild ass pitch in her voice something bad would happen if I didn’t. And she was definitely going to wake up Mike screaming that way, and seeing as how I wanted no part of that— or the third-degree coffee burns I was imagining— I dipped.

Good motherfucking morning to me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The study rooms in the basement were mostly for makeup tests. I remembered taking an eye exam in one before drivers ed, and I was pretty sure it was where the nerd clubs like yearbook and dragon shit met after school. It took me a while to even find 17B, and by the time I did I was twenty minutes late and in a really pissy mood.

I’d been kind of hoping I’d show up and some janitor would be like Are you kidding, school doesn’t open at six-thirty, but the chains were off the door and there was already plenty of action, people walking the halls and the dull roar of the free breakfast kids talking poverty over fruit cups in the cafeteria. I could be one of them if I got up early enough, but my ego only let me get fed at school once a day. Plus I just didn’t have the energy.

When I opened the door to the study room Caleb had booked us, I thought I was hallucinating. He was sitting there with his extra-long legs propped up on a folding chair, reading some ass old yellow page book I saw all the smart kids carrying around. He had two desks shoved together, and two massive hot coffees and a greasy diner bag were spread out on top. I definitely smelled bacon.

“Wasn’t sure you were coming,” he said without looking up, finishing his page and then turning the corner down. You weren’t supposed to dog-ear library books, but half the cover was torn off that one, so it probably didn’t matter. “Hope you like hashbrowns. They gave me two extras.” He finally looked up and his whole face changed so fast I wondered what the hell I looked like. “Jesus, you look like shit,” he told me, not letting me wonder for long. He held one of the coffees out to me. “Here.”

I wanted to reach out and take it so fucking badly, but it was not feeling like that kind of morning. It was feeling full-on shields up, because I was too goddamn attacked and vulnerable to be letting anyone be nice to me right now.

“You brought breakfast?”

“I was starving. I’m not gonna stop and get a sandwich and not get you one. I have basic manners. Come on. Eat. I can’t wait anymore.”

He nudged the desk toward me and put the coffee down, then started to unpack the bag, sorting out thick ass sandwiches wrapped in paper, and buckets of little round hashbrowns, and ketchup and sugar and cream. He seemed to like sorting everything in neat little piles as much as he liked lining up all his stupid note cards. Dude was one anal motherfucker.

And I was fucking starving. I’d burned those cold Spaghettios off in fear sweat quick last night, and Cheerio dust was not sustaining me after that walk to school. So I sat down and popped a hashbrown in my mouth, swallowing a groan along with my pride when the salty, greasy goodness exploded on my tongue. How long had it been since I had some legit hot food that didn’t come in a square on a tray? A fucking while.

I made myself take the lid off the coffee and focused hard on stirring in all the cream and sugars he passed my way, so I didn’t scarf down the food in one bite. Once he was half done with his, which didn’t take long, I finally unwrapped mine, my mouth watering like a fucking sprinkler system over ham and bacon and egg and cheese on Texas toast. The boy did not skimp. This shit was three meals. For a second, I legit thought I was going to cry. Act like you’ve been there was a struggle this morning.

“Thanks,” I forced out before I started to eat, as slow as I could manage, which wasn’t slow.

* * *

“Alright, let’s see your homework,” Caleb said, kicking back when all that was left was a bunch of wadded up papers and napkins and half-empty coffees.

Damnit. If it hadn’t been for the fucking breakfast, I wouldn’t have felt guilty at all. But now I felt myself fucking squirming as I stared down at the desk. “I didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean you didn’t do it?” he asked me after a pause that filled the whole room. I wasn’t sure how my stomach could still feel so empty when I’d just eaten so much, but it ached in there. “Which part didn’t you do? The worksheet or the lines?”

“Any of it,” I admitted, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to explain why. “I had practice. And a life. I was fucking tired.” Okay, I’d explain a little, I guess.

He angled his desk around so he could stare more directly at me. “You don’t think I’m tired? I put actual effort into helping you not fail, you know. You could at least pretend to care.”

“I care. You don’t know what fucking tired is, bitch. Just teach me normal. I don’t have time for your stupid mind game shit.” I don’t know which word my voice started wobbling on, but by the time I got to the end of the sentence, there it was.

“Someone needs a nap,” he said, standing up and collecting the trash, tossing it all in the can in the corner, just casual, like that was a normal thing to say.

I could still smash his face in. I definitely could. If I wanted to. Which I did. I definitely did. But god I was tired.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m serious.” He pulled a big cushy sweatshirt off the back of his chair and rolled it into a ball and handed it to me, and I realized for the first time he wasn’t wearing a sweater. Just a long-sleeved tshirt. Gray— greenish-gray this time, but still gray— but it wasn’t the same. Casual Friday, maybe. Or laundry day. Whatever the reason was, it made me sad. I was used to the sweaters. “Here. You look terrible. Just put your head down and rest until homeroom.”

I just stared at him. I seriously, repeatedly could not tell if the guy was fed up with me, or if he was on my nuts. Or maybe both. “What?”

“You’re too tired to learn anything even if I taught you. And I need to catch up on some of this Gatsby bullshit anyway.” He put his hoodie down on the desk in front of me like a cozy pillow. I hated cozy. “Take forty.”

“Take forty,” I said, repeating him like an idiot, glancing down at his shirt. A few blond hairs were clinging to the gray fleece and somehow that made it look even more inviting. I could fucking smell him on it.

“Yeah.” He picked his book back up and settled back down in the folding chair next to me, and when I just sat there like a doped up idiot, he reached over and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, guiding my head down onto the desk, my eyes closing like I had zero control over them as I buried my head in his wadded up sweatshirt. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t just—“

“Yes, you can.” His hand got tighter on my neck, holding me in place, and I let him. Fuck, I let him so hard. “You can’t learn if you can’t function,” he told me quietly. “You need to get more sleep. I know you know that. I want you sharp for fifth period, not cranky. Your attitude’s bad enough already. Now rest.”

Man, did I want to argue. Tell him to piss off and get his giant, warm hands off me, and stop telling me what to do. But it wasn’t like anyone was going to know if I slept for just a few minutes while he sat next to me and made sure nothing bad happened. It wasn’t like I was actually even listening to him since I already wanted to doze off. So really, it was almost like I was telling him to fuck off by doing it. At least that was what I managed to convince myself of before I passed out.

* * *

“Hey. Logan.”

It was a fucked up sensation, jolting awake when you were too tired to do anything about the jolt. It felt a little like drowning, fighting hard to force my eyes open, track down my body and where I was, what I was doing, when no part of me seemed to want to move.

“Logan.” Caleb’s voice curled around my name, and his hand curled around my shoulder, giving me a gentle shake. “Bell’s gonna ring in like two minutes. I gotta go. Get to class, I’ll see you in study hall.”

I was barely awake enough to remember which classroom I was in before I lifted my head up enough to watch him walk out the door. Oh, this sucked. This really sucked.

Dozing off for a few minutes was so much worse than just gutting it out exhausted all day. My eyes were so tired they burned, they felt fucking bloody when I rubbed them and probably looked that way too. My head hurt, my neck hurt, my whole fucking body hurt. Except my stomach.

My gut felt warm and full and maybe a little fluttery, not used to having food in it so early. I sighed and pushed myself up, eyeing the half a coffee I still had left sitting on the desk next to me. Okay, maybe I could manage to get myself upright.

I reached out for the cup and realized I was still sitting there with my arm wrapped around Caleb’s wadded up sweatshirt. God, it was soft. I stroked my thumb across it like I was petting an animal, and it sent a shiver through me like static electricity. Well, I couldn’t leave it in the fucking classroom, could I?

I wasn’t gonna go chasing him down to give it back, either, not when I had ten minutes before homeroom to try and get at least part of my algebra done. I shoved his hoodie in my backpack and grabbed the coffee, wincing as the first bell rang like a goddamn fire drill. I’d give it back later. Probably.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It seemed like we were permanently moving to the table in the back corner of the library, and I dropped down across from Caleb, exhausted, staring at all the cards laid out across the top, barely seeing them. Those forty winks had definitely been a big mistake. My blood was running like a clogged up drain, and I felt about as good. And yet somehow, study hall was my favorite part of the day, and my hands were already itching to turn cards over even if I wasn’t sure my brain would be able to read the flip side.

“How you doing?” he asked me, and I shrugged, barely enough juice in me to lift my shoulders.

“Okay.”

“You still don’t look so great,” he told me, like I didn’t know. “Are you sick?”

“I’m fine,” I told him, trying to swallow a yawn that came out twice as big to spite me. “Let’s go, let’s do this.”

Kind of homework do you have today?” he asked me, like we weren’t in any hurry.

I looked at him blankly. “For Chem? I haven’t had it yet. It’s last period.”

“No, for everything. I just wanna have some idea of how much you’re trying to handle.”

I almost laughed out loud. That list was too long for even my brand new five-subject to hold.

“Algebra, Spanish, English,” I said, ticking off the kind of answers he wanted. “So far.” I bit my lip. “And that Chem worksheet from yesterday. I still need to do that.”

“You will,” he assured me, and tell me why I felt my face get hot. “Kind of grades you get in those other classes?”

“I don’t know. Bs mostly.”

“Really?”

I scowled so hard it hurt my head. “Yeah. Really. I’m not stupid, I’m just not good at chemistry. You know, on account of all my head injuries.”

I turned away from him, remembering I actually did have a head injury he was a little too obsessed with, balling my hands into fists so I didn’t pick at it.

“You keeping up? With the other stuff?” he asked me, but I didn’t think it was a real question since the answer was so obvious.

“I manage.”

“So, no.”

“I manage,” I repeated, and then sighed a little. “Football season’s always kinda rough.”

“Yeah, looks exhausting. No wonder it’s hard to keep up.”

I thought he was mocking me at first, but his face looked serious.

I snorted. “Where was all this compassion hiding yesterday?”

“Yesterday you showed up hungover. Today you tried.”

I tried absorbing that, but it just bounced off.

“Yeah, well trying doesn’t count for much.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t know. Everyone? Life experience?”

“Well, that’s not true. Trying is the first step. The hardest step. Nothing gets done without that.”

“Yeah, that’s bullshit. People get what they want without even trying all the time. Look around.”

He shook his head and waved his hand, dismissing them all. “Those people don’t matter. You showing up matters. But we have to find a schedule that’s going to work. One study hall a day is not going to do it, we need to put in some hours. So, what about this weekend? Tomorrow? You can come to my place. Like around noon?”

It was the weirdest fucking thing. I sat there weighing my options, and for the first time in forever, I realized I had one. A bright, shiny little idea started lighting up a path in my brain. Not the kind of path a good person would take, but luckily that wasn’t me. I was a desperate person and that meant bending rules and getting creative with ethics where survival was concerned.

Noon tomorrow was maybe perfect. But not at his place, no matter how interested I maybe was to see where The Beast lived. Bet his room was filled with books.

My mom was dipping out early morning, so I’d have the house to myself. Except for Mike.

If I knew anything from experience, it was that she did not disclose my boy-crazy status to her dates in case it freaked them out, and also, she only dated guys who would freak the fuck out about it. Her literal panic this morning made it pretty clear Mike wasn’t an exception to that rule.

I’d done this kind of thing once before when I was twelve, to a guy who wore filthy cowboy boots and spit tobacco juice into tin cans all over the house, who liked to throw beer bottles at me or kick me in the stomach if I was too loud when he watched football on Sunday mornings or if I rooted for a team he didn’t like. One Sunday I sat down right next to him on the couch and started talking about how fucking hot football players were in their uniforms. Couple hours later, he was cleared out and long gone like magic, those nasty tobacco cans the only proof he ever even existed.

Mike was the same kind of guy, just with different shoes. Be quiet, my way or the highway, I’m a real man shit. Wouldn’t even sit through that tourist commercial with two guys holding hands, flipped the channel like he was scared to death. I had a decent hunch it wouldn’t be too hard to run him off with the right kind of eye-opener, but it was go big or go home time. And The Beast was extremely fucking big.

If I played my cards right, I could have the house to myself for real again by the end of the weekend. But I was gonna need a prop to do it.

Maybe using Caleb this way when he’d been unnecessarily, annoyingly not shitty to me this week was possibly not the nicest thing to do. Hell, clearly even having a brain that would suggest an idea like that to me meant I was a garbage person. But I’d stopped giving a shit what anyone thought about me and my actions… oh, about fifteen years ago. I wasn’t gonna start having feelings now.

Probably I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had another choice, but I wasn’t seeing one. Caleb was right, one study hall a day wasn’t gonna cut it. I needed after school study time. Early morning even. I needed my house back.

I couldn’t do more nights of terrorizing half-sleep, holding a knife in my hand, waking up to lies and threats I had to carry around all day. At best I’d end up passing out on the field. Worst, I’d fucking reach up to scratch my nose in my sleep and stab myself in the face.

Plus now there was the whole find-your-own-place-to-live thing popping up again. I couldn’t count on that being a bluff forever. Sleeping in the park was not gonna get me to graduation.

I needed to get rid of my mom’s shady boyfriend and I needed to pass Chemistry and Caleb Heath was going to help me kill two birds with one makeout session. One thing I could guarantee was that he wouldn’t fucking hate it.

“Yeah. Tomorrow’s good,” I finally told him. “But let’s do it at my place.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Trinity was an easy win, and thank fucking god because I felt like shit. All their jocks played basketball, they barely even had a crowd show up. Usually getting rough with an underweight line from a sideways school gave me all kinds of adrenaline. But I was fucking exhausted. Nine-thirty on a Friday and I was ready to sack out.

“Hey, dummy, you coming to Walker’s?” Ellis snapped me with a towel, all wet and hyper from the showers, and I realized I was the only guy left who’d barely started stripping off his uniform. Sometimes undressing was a fucking chore.

When he aimed it toward me again, I snagged it out of the air and yanked hard enough to leave towel burn on his hands. “Fucking stop.”

“Jesus, whatever. What’s your problem.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like you constantly harassing him.” Walker came up next to me, pointing at his forehead, then at mine. “You got something…”

I reached up under my hair, swiping at my head and pulling back tacky red fingers. Not gushing like the other day, but still hanging on. For fuck’s sake. I grabbed my helmet off the bench and slammed it into the top of my locker, and then stood there breathing hard, staring inside it, down at my shit shoes and my ratty ass backpack sitting at the bottom, Caleb’s sweatshirt sticking out of the zipper. Why the fuck was I still carrying that thing around?

I wiped my hand on my pants and pulled my jersey off, turning half around, taking a breath and trying not to act so much like a psycho. “What’s up at your house?” I asked Walker.

“Celebration party. You coming?”

I snorted. “You’re gonna celebrate this win? It was a gimmie.”

“A gimmie’s still a win. What do you want me to call it? Friday night let’s get drunk party?”

“I gotta sleep,” I told him, dumping my pads. “I gotta study.”

“How’s that going? You’re gonna pass, right? Caleb’s smart. You must be getting… better.” He was faking more confidence than he was pulling off, but I appreciated the effort anyway.

I dropped down on the bench and unlaced my cleats, thinking about the games and the flashcards and the lines, how much he liked it when I did a good job. How wanting to get it right to show off in front of him, like when he’d watched me fill out that worksheet earlier, seemed to make answers pop harder in my head.

It wasn’t that hard of a leap to make, I guess. I liked competition. Smarts weren’t sports, but I still liked winning. I still liked beating him at games and flexing and looking good. Still liked fifth hour better than any other part of the day even though Caleb was a fucking bossy prick. Who gave me snacks sometimes. Okay, a lot.

“Yeah,” I finally told him. “Yeah, I think I’m getting it. I hope. He’s a pretty good tutor, I guess.” Didn’t need to oversell it since odds were he wouldn’t feel much like tutoring me after tomorrow. Whatever. Didn’t really need a tutor anyway.

“So take the night off. I got a keg.”

“How’d you get a keg?”

“Big Riggs is home for the weekend, he got us one. Come on, you know it’ll be gone in an hour.”

I sat there thinking, rubbing at my shoulder. That stupid Spaghettios bruise landed right between my muscle and bone, and it ached. Wasn’t like I didn’t spend summer to fall slamming bodies and covered in bruises, but that one bit something extra.

I didn’t even like beer, and half the time the kegs broke before they were half-empty, but fuck it. I’d worked up an appetite and he’d have food. My stomach was already spoiled by a massive breakfast and figured we were eating like that now. At least I wouldn’t go to bed hungry. I yawned, nodding. “Yeah, alright. I’ll come for an hour.”

* * *

The Walkers were rich, or what passed for rich in Maddox. Three stories, full basement, backyard pool, driveway as big as a parking lot. The kind of house people robbed in the movies. And probably real life, but I didn’t keep up with the police blotter unless Ellis was in it. Town was small enough they were only twenty minutes from me, but it might as well have been another solar system.

I caught a ride with Riggs and his older brother who’d already crushed an easy six-pack at the game and couldn’t sit still in the front seat, turning around every two seconds to tell me how easy it was to get laid in college. Great, I guess, but I just wasn’t feeling the hype tonight. I was also painfully aware that making the completely insane decision to wear Caleb’s stupid hoodie to this thing meant that yeah, my arms weren’t freezing, but also he was all I could smell, his whole spicy, fruity, paperback combo grabbing at me every time I inhaled.

The kitchen was already a bomb site when we got there, the big island in the middle loaded down with half-empty bottles and half-empty plastic cups and half-empty bowls of potato chips. Rich people had such shit houses. They were always just filled up with trash they didn’t care about and didn’t pay attention to.

At least when we hung out at Ellis’s and he’d zap a bag of pizza rolls and toss around Mountain Dews, it all got eaten instead of plates and drinks getting turned into trash cans and ashtrays. Not that we’d hung out there in a while.

There were half a dozen pizza boxes open on the counters, most of them almost gone, and I grabbed a slice, scarfing it down without even paying attention to what it was until my mouth started burning because someone had thought jalapenos were a good idea on pizza.

Some blond girl from my civics class was sitting on the counter next to the last box of pepperoni, making out with a guy from the baseball team. I couldn’t remember his name, but I remembered what his ass looked like in baseball pants. I really wanted a slice of that pepperoni, but I didn’t want to slide right up to them like a creeper, even though there was a whole little crowd of guys watching them go at it and not caring, just laughing and making jerk off motions like they were twelve. Fucking perverts.

I wondered what they’d think if I was the one sitting on the counter, making out with Baseball Pants. If they’d still be watching and laughing and getting worked up, or if they’d make a big thing out of it, or run away scared.

It wasn’t any big secret I was into guys, but also most everything I did was a secret so it kind of worked out that way by default. Still, I’d take stealth fucking over making out at a party any day. I didn’t know if that made me a prude or a slut honestly.

I grabbed another slice of jalapeno and the top cup off a big, leaning tower, and went looking for the keg.

* * *

Game parties multiplied quick. Cheerleaders told the dance team and then every guy in school showed up thinking they had a shot at any of that. Most everybody was crowded on one side of the living room, so no big mystery where the beer was. My size and my status meant I parted crowds during football season, and I slipped to the front where Howser was manning the keg, swishing his long hair around like a shampoo ad, demanding five dollars from anyone he didn’t like.

“I know you don’t have five bucks, so how about some food stamps,” he said when I showed him my empty cup.

“How about you fill this up or I walk out of here with your teeth in my pocket.”

“Like I don’t know why you don’t want me to have any teeth,” he said, miming a blow job.

I snorted, raising my eyebrows. “That’s not really where my head was at, but I guess it could be if that’s what you’re into.”

He stared at me, playing this dumb game of chicken straight guys liked to play with me sometimes. Not-so-straight guys it turned out a lot of the time when they lost. Chicks dug Howser, but he wasn’t my type at all, so I was relieved when he just took my cup and didn’t say anything else, handing me back a foamy ass beer. I was too tired to let some guy practice sucking dick on me tonight anyway.

* * *

The beer and the pizza was a pretty sorry payout for being stuck in a house with all the same assholes I went to school with, but I guess it was better than going home, wondering if I was gonna be waiting out a repeat of last night, another friend of Mike’s getting worked up, trying to break in while I camped out in the closet. It’s not like I was scared. But I’d be stupid not to be.

I didn’t like Walker’s parties, never had, they always made me uncomfortable, and I really didn’t like his mom. But wow, everybody else did. They’d try to give her keg cups and try to get her to dance, and mostly she’d say no and just sit in the far corner of the living room with her wine glass, supervising and chaperoning and being the coolest mom in town, repeating the old line about how she’d rather everyone got drunk here where there was an adult around than out in a field somewhere. But sometimes she’d say yes.

Sometimes she’d end up dancing like a stripper without the stripper clothes, sitting on somebody’s lap, being the kind of obnoxious my mom would absolutely be if I ever had parties at my house. Which I never fucking would.

Walker’s mom was basically a version of my mom if she’d been born with money. I think it was maybe why I didn’t mind him too much when really he should have annoyed the hell out of me with all his team captain, rich kid bullshit. I knew when you lived in enough denial every part of you was eventually fake. Had to be when everyone else got to go home and you had to stay and be the cleanup crew.

Money hid one hell of a lot, even when you weren’t really trying to hide it. People just assumed you had your shit together, like your mess was on purpose and made you cool instead of trash. But I knew what four bottles of wine in a two-bottle body looked like, the kind of tolerance that kept you smiling and upright when you should have been dead.

When you were dressed in nice clothes, surrounded by nice things, wore expensive perfume to cover up the alcohol stench that clung to you no matter how much you had in the bank, people didn’t see it a lot of the time. But I did.

I tried to avoid her when I heard her loud, drunk, flirty laughing coming from the corner of the living room, taking a whole circular route to get to the sliding door and outside to sit by the pool. But she called my name, and I made the mistake of looking over and making eye contact instead of pretending I hadn’t heard her.

Normally, I’d ignore her anyway, but I didn’t want to be the reason she was pissed off later, didn’t want Walker to come to school Monday with a big gash on his forehead because his friend was rude to his mom and he just let it happen. I didn’t know his life like that, probably wasn’t how things worked in this house, but why take chances.

Maybe I was a little overprotective of the chickenshit gay quarterback for some odd reason, or maybe I was projecting, or maybe I was just living in reality. Either way, I circled back around to where Ellis was sitting in the big doublewide armchair and she was perched on the arm with a hand on his shoulder, looking gross.

“Hey, Mrs. Walker,” I said, taking a sip of my foamy beer.

“Logan. I haven’t seen you in forever.” She flipped her long hair around like a cheerleader. “Tess, remember?”

I nodded, like there was any possible way I was calling her Tess. I didn’t even like the way she called me Logan. It sounded weird. Dirty. Not the kind of dirty I liked.

She reached out and grabbed my hand, tugging me closer, and I tried not to puke and yank my hand back. “I heard you got a scholarship. That’s so nice for you. College probably wasn’t on your radar before football. I’m glad you could get some help.”

You’d think that shit would insult me, but I heard it just about every day, how I’d be nothing without a scholarship and I should be grateful anyone was willing to look at me, take a chance on me, what with my background and all, like I hadn’t had anything to do with it. Mostly, it was true. But it seemed like I deserved credit for channeling what probably would have been murderous rage into football and leaving it all on the field. For working summers to pay for my equipment and getting myself to games and not fucking up school until the very end. I didn’t ever get credit though, so it’s not like it really bothered me.

“Thanks.”

“Senior year’s pretty exciting. Games, dances, prom...” She lifted my hand up and shimmied around in her seat a little, leaning forward far enough I could see down her shirt and then looking disappointed when I didn’t dance with her. God, she was nauseating. “You have a girlfriend?” she asked me.

Ellis laughed, and she looked over at him and smiled. “What’s so funny?”

“Wrong team, Tess.”

“What?”

“Logan doesn’t like girls.”

Her tiny, drawn-on eyebrows shot up and disappeared under her bangs. “That’s not true.” She turned back to me with cartoon shock on her face, squeezing my hand with her skinny fingers. “That’s not true, is it? Look at you, you’re too handsome. Just waiting for the right girl, I bet, aren’t you. Shy, maybe. You finish that beer and I’ll pour you something stronger. We’ll bring you out of your shell tonight.”

I glared at Ellis, and he smirked. Yeah, none of that was fucking happening, I liked my shell fine. He could have that cougar all to himself. Sucked for Walker, in a lot of ways, but I wasn’t getting involved in that kind of party for anything.

“Maybe later, Mrs. Walker,” I muttered, untangling my hand from hers as nicely as I could and heading for the pool again.

Outside felt hella nice after being in there, cold air smacking me in the face, sobering me up hard before I even got drunk. Maybe a little too hard for my taste, and I gassed down half my cup in one swallow.

There were maybe half a dozen people outside, standing around quiet and solo, smoking in the dark, dotting the backyard with cherries. The party was clearly inside where the music and the keg and all the empty bedrooms were, which was a big goddamn draw for people who were only getting laid in their cars.

I sat down near the edge of the pool, remembering all the swim parties I’d been here for, all the times someone had gone in with their clothes on, usually thanks to Ellis. It was covered now, too cold to swim, but I could hear the water underneath, I thought, lapping at the sides, wanting out.

It was hard to feel bad for Walker, living in a place like this with everything he needed and more shit he didn’t, even if his mom was a drunk who hit on his barely legal friends and his dad was never home. At least there was food in his fridge. Heat in the winter, air in the summer, a pool, a bedroom that didn’t leak when it rained, no drugged out neighbors tapping on his windows at night. I wondered what I’d be like if I had all those things. Or any of them.

I probably wouldn’t be failing Chemistry. And if I was, I’d probably have some fancy ass tutor who came to the house, not an over-aggressive freak who made me flashcards like I was a baby, who followed me into the bathroom and made me take naps before school.

I shifted on the cement, my ass getting numb already from sitting on the cold, hard ground. Which was true and all, but didn’t explain the hard on. Or why I was still wearing this stupid hoodie when I told myself ten times to give it back. Or why I was so fucking stressed out wondering if I could really get Caleb to kiss me tomorrow when I kissed whoever the fuck I wanted all the time and never had any pushback, even from guys who thought they had the world convinced they were straight.

Like he knew I was thinking about him, or at least around him, Walker came up and sank down next to me on the cement. His red cups were stacked four deep under his fresh one, and he sat there quietly and took a sip.

“Sorry about my mom,” he said after a minute.

“Yeah, me too.”

“I kinda like it better when she’s pissed off and won’t let me have people over.”

I shrugged, but I knew what he meant. When shit was dark, at least you knew how to keep your guard up. It was waiting for the crash that took all your energy. And waiting for it to happen in front of a bunch of people was a heavy drain. “It’s alright. Nobody cares. Everyone likes her.”

“I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” I told him, and he snorted. He glanced around and I guess decided the handful of miserable assholes brooding in the yard didn’t matter because he reached over and put his hand on my thigh. High up.

I sat up straighter. “The fuck, man.”

“Stay the night. You can stay in my room.”

God, that was tempting, just not in the way he wanted it to be. “Nah. I’m not into that.”

“You were a few weeks ago.”

“You sucking my dick and me sleeping over are not the same thing. And that was a few weeks ago. Things change. Now act like a fucking hetero and move your hand before your mom realizes what team you play for.”

He sighed, but pulled his hand back, tapping his fingers on the ground, making me twitchy. “You won’t even let me suck you off? You don’t have to spend the night. You know I can do it fast.”

Jesus. It was annoying how guilty I felt blowing him off, how careful I felt about his feelings. I’d hooked up with a dozen horny closeted boys, but Walker just seemed especially pathetic and clueless. So needy and broken when it came to wanting dick, like he’d kill himself to get it but didn’t know half of what he was asking for. I hated being the only one who saw the caution tape wrapped all around him.

“Look, it’s not you,” I told him. “You’re fine. You’re good. Don’t be so desperate. I’m just not looking to hook up, I’ve got too much going on.”

“You’re into Caleb.”

I glanced up when that hit me out of nowhere. “Fuck no. I’m not into anybody. That’s not how shit works.”

“Seems like you’re into him.”

It was right on my tongue to ask why the hell he thought that, but that was not my kind of conversation. What the hell did I care, it’s not like it was true.

“Lookit, Gossip Girl, you need to get yourself a boyfriend to bounce this kind of bullshit off of, not go begging assholes like me to fuck your mouth. Have higher standards for fucks sake.”

He sighed. “Right.”

“You realize we’re not friends, right? Why do you keep talking to me? People notice.”

He gave me a hard look, showing off how much tolerance was in his DNA, not nearly as drunk as he should have been. “You know why. You’re the only person I know who sees through the shit around here. You make me feel like I’m not crazy.”

I swallowed hard, not expecting a deep answer that made me feel almost good about myself.

“You’re not crazy,” I told him.

“Also you’re the only gay guy I ever hang out with.”

I snorted. “Yeah, trust me, I’m not. Hit your knees in the locker room, you’ll see how wrong you are. Or better, just forget all the assholes around here. Somewhere there’s a nice gay boy who’s gonna want to hold your hand and… eat sushi or look at paintings or whatever it is you like to do. So just… don’t do stupid shit you’re gonna regret just because you’re drunk and you hate your mom. College is like six months away. And I hear it’s really easy to get laid there. So just… don’t do anything stupid,” I said again. “You’ve got a lot to lose here. Even if it sucks.”

He grunted and took a big swallow of his beer. “Are you sure we’re not friends? Kinda seems like we’re friends.”

“I don’t have friends,” I told him, putting my cup down and zipping up the hoodie a guy who was definitely not my friend had made me use as a pillow while he sat beside me reading while I slept. I wondered if I’d even recognize a friend if I did have one.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I stuck around for a few rounds of beer pong, mostly because I didn’t want to ditch Walker so hard. Unlikely as hell, but Ellis could have been right. He did seem a little… something. Once guys started pulling out lawn darts and fireworks though, I knew my kind of luck couldn’t sustain that. I couldn’t do an injury or an arrest, so I bounced.

The walk home would have taken thirty minutes, probably, on a normal night, but I was worn down and a little drunk and it seemed extra dark, so it probably took me close to an hour. Which put me walking up the street at the exact time I saw my mom’s shitbox Camaro skip over the curb and slide diagonal into the drive, stopping so close to the garage door it shuddered.

Welp. That was a quick detour through sober living.

I paused a few houses down to watch her get out of the car, my stomach turning sour, wondering if I was gonna have to puke in somebody’s bushes. The driver’s side door groaned with the ugly metal on metal rub you could hear a block away, still out of alignment from the last thing she’d hit, and she stumbled out, one leg of her bright pink tights shoved into her boot, the other one bunched up around her knee. Always classy.

She dropped her bag and swore something nasty as she bent down to pick it up, groping for the side of the car to keep her balance.

I should have stayed at Walker’s. Should have let him blow me or let his mom grope me, or whatever would have had me passed out in a guest room right now instead of spying on this shit, wondering how the fuck I was going to get in the house.

It was fucking ridiculous she’d made it home in one piece and for the ten-thousandth time I wished she hadn’t.

I was an asshole. I knew that. Didn’t mean life without her wouldn’t have been a hell of a lot easier. I’m sure people would miss her. People she was nice to and people she owed money to. Just not me.

Silver lining, I guess, was that falling off the wagon most likely meant she was drinking away her feelings because no more Mike. Sure, he’d probably show up a few more times, begging or threatening or smashing headlights like all of her other Prince Charmings, but they never hung around for long once they figured out how big of a bullet they’d really dodged. Fresh off the sober train, you found out quick who she really was.

So, great. I’d have my house back. Have my normal shitty life back. I could study at night instead of standing guard against who knew what. Plus I wouldn’t have to make out with my annoying ass tutor as part of some sketchy, convoluted scheme. Definitely relieved about that. Definitely.

I sighed and headed for the house. If she passed out in the yard, which was more than a little possible, getting her inside was going to be a way bigger pain in the ass than making sure she got in upright. And I was tired. So tired.

“Logan! Logan!”

I never knew if she was going to be gushy, hang-all-over-you drunk, or pissed off drunk, but her voice was irritated, so I really hoped this was a passing out soon situation and not a throw everything in the house at me while she told me how having a kid ruined her life situation.

“I hear you,” I said, keeping my voice low, trying to keep it dull too, playing dead instead of putting out bait. You’d think I’d be better at that after so many years. “You don’t have to wake up the whole block.”

She glared at me, stumbling again and catching herself, claws on the hood as she wobbled in her boots, trying to look casual as she straightened back up. Awesome. It was pretend-I’m-not-drunk night.

“Do you have your keys?” she asked me, putting one hand on her hip, leaning to keep her balance. “I think I left mine at work.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, how’d you drive home then, hotwire?” I leaned over and reached past her, plucking her keys out of the ignition and handing them to her. “Here ya go.”

She snatched them away like I’d been trying to steal them, her big clump of forty million sparkly keychains glittering in the streetlight as she swung them around on her finger. I’d caught that thing in the eye more than a few times, and I wanted to take a step back, but I didn’t.

“Smart ass. Always a fucking smart ass,” she said, shaking her head.

“Maybe don’t drive home like this,” I told her. “Easier to keep track of your keys.”

Her keys froze in mid-air and then she slammed them on the hood of the car with an angry rattle than made me wince, scratching up the scratched up paint. “Drive home like what,” she asked me in her murder voice. It wasn’t a question though. It was a dare.

Why did I always do this shit? Why couldn’t I just shut my mouth and go inside? “Forget it. Nothing.”

“Like what? I don’t know what you mean like this. You got something to say, say it, smart guy.”

She poked me in the chest, put her fingers on Caleb’s hoodie, and then I recoiled, taking a few disgusted steps back, automatically wiping at the spot with my hand like I could get her off me. Off this stupid sweatshirt I shouldn’t have been wearing that I just might never take off.

She didn’t see the disgust though, she saw fear. Maybe there was some of that too, I don’t know. Either way, it made her happy. Just mom shit, you know. She came at me and poked me again, harder, more like a shove and I took another step back because what else was I supposed to do?

“That’s what I thought. Be scared. You fucking pussy. Just a judgmental little girl, aren’t you. You talk big but you’ve got nothing to say.”

“What do you want? Am I supposed to fight you or something? You’re wasted, it’s obvious, I’m not an idiot. Pretend all you want, but not for me. I don’t even care.”

“You don’t know anything about anything. I had… one drink, non-alcoholic, with the girls. To celebrate. Going away this weekend. And Mike. I’m gonna miss him. You don’t know anything. About love. There’s not even alcohol in rose water.”

She staggered and slurred through her sentences, and I shook my head. “Okay, whatever. You’re still going tomorrow?” I asked her, skeptical.

I wasn’t even sure where she was supposed to be going this time, but her leaving at five am like she’d been talking about the last week seemed unlikely. Then again, if she wanted to do something for herself, she usually found a way.

“Of course I’m still going. I need a fucking break from you. I deserve one, all the shit you put me through. Don’t fuck with Mike when I’m gone. I’m serious. Don’t fuck around, Logan, you know what I’m talking about.”

I frowned not sure which one of us was confused. “Wait, I thought you broke up with Mike.”

“Why the fuck would I do that? You think I don’t deserve someone? You think I want to be a fucking single mom forever? All these years I spent alone because of you, and someone finally looks past that and what, that bothers you?”

I sighed. Great. Back in the habit and a boyfriend. Hadn’t been this lucky in a long ass time.

“No, I just… Never mind. Great. Have fun on your trip.”

“Look, there he is.” She pointed past me to where Mike’s stupid custom paint Subaru with the stupid spoiler and alien lights pulled up on the curb and embarrassed the front yard, splashing us with his not-at-all-street-legal brights. Who the fuck even tricked out a Subaru? She waved at him like he was on the other side of town and might not see her fifty feet away.

“Hey, girl,” he called out to her as he poured himself out of his car and across the yard. He was drunk too, just not as rough on his feet.

“Logan thinks I’ve been drinking,” she yelled back, and he laughed, swooping in and grabbing her under the arm as she started to slide down the side of the car.

“Logan needs to mind his own goddamn business, isn’t that right?” He jostled her up to standing, and she squealed and laughed and punched on his chest like they were in some horrible stage play. “Before someone knocks him the fuck out.”

I felt so fucking gross standing there, just taking it from this asshole, just keeping my mouth shut while they talked about me, and feeling that slow loop of denial failing in my brain— me not wanting to believe any of this was my life, and not having a choice, and not being able to deal with that either, so I just stayed mostly shut down like even my autopilot was broken.

“He’s always so mean to me,” she was whining. “After everything I’ve done for him. You know how hard it is to raise a kid alone? Especially one like that? Who doesn’t appreciate anything. He thinks he’s smarter than me. Always thinks he’s smarter than me.”

Mike laughed, looked over and sized me up with his bloodshot eyes. “This kid? This kid can barely read, I’ve seen him try to do homework. Holds the pages upside down.”

She giggled again and I felt myself go dark, darker, blot out for a minute. How was this such a mess? She was fucked up again and this loser was still around? I’d been bracing for a crash, but this was worse. This was bad. This was spiral-into-all-night-parties, strangers-ODing-in-the-bathtub kind of shit, I could smell it.

“Don’t let him be mean to you this weekend,” she told him. Because I was the problem here. I was the bad guy, so goddamn mean, telling people not to drive drunk, acting like I could read. Or whatever.

“Oh, he knows to keep his head down around me. Don’t you, kid?” He kicked his foot in my direction, trying to get my attention or maybe just trying to kick me. “His pussy ass is gonna keep his mouth shut all weekend or maybe I’ll wire it shut. Might be a good idea, don’t you think? Keep him from running through all the groceries.”

I finally made myself start walking toward the front door, one numb foot in front of the other, going to sleep the only escape from this shit, always the only escape.

“Yeah, go cry in your pillow you little bitch,” Mike yelled after me, and then there was yelling across the street, somebody telling him to shut up and him yelling back for them to go in their house before he kicked their ass, and I took the last minute distraction as a win, jamming into the house and into my room, locking the shitty lock on the shitty door that wouldn’t hold back anyone who wanted to get in, but pretending that it would.

Whatever guilt I had left over doing whatever I had to do to scare this asshole away took off fast. It was him or me time, and if the answer was him, I probably wasn’t gonna survive this. Maybe literally.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights, just dropped my backpack, kicked my shoes off, and crawled under the sheets, reaching under the mattress and pulling the steak knife back out, slipping it under my pillow. I couldn’t make myself hold onto it, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I didn’t want to act scared or if I was afraid of what I really might do if someone decided to bust through my door, but having it close was better than not.

Not really letting myself think about what I was doing, I zipped Caleb’s hoodie up to my chin, flipped the hood up over my head and stuffed my hands in the pockets, curling into a ball and smothering myself in anything that wasn’t this life. Pretending soft and clean and warm and smelling good were things that really existed outside this stupid sweatshirt. I closed my eyes, fishing around for the exhaustion that was always somewhere close to the top, latched on tight and passed the fuck out.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I don’t know how, but my mom got up and out of the house, girls weekend such a big draw even a still drunk hangover couldn’t stop her.

The house was a wreck. I couldn’t tell if they’d fought last night or just stumbled around drunk, but furniture was knocked over and couch cushions were tossed across the room, and in the kitchen there was a broken plate and a whole fresh box of cereal spilled out, just sitting in the middle of the floor waiting for someone to pick it up. Not like anyone else was going to, so I cleaned up the best I could while trying not to make any noise.

It was humid and wet outside, and everything inside felt humid and wet too. The floor still felt sticky even after I wiped it up, the carpet felt sweaty, it was so cloudy it felt foggy indoors like I had to squint to see.

On the plus side maybe Caleb wouldn’t notice how dirty everything was. Not much I could do about it anyway. Not like I should care. Wasn’t like he was child services. He was showing up for one reason only— he just didn’t know it yet.

I blasted through a three minute shower and then I paced around in front of the window waiting for him to show up like it was a date instead of me just making sure he didn’t ring the doorbell and wake Mike up early. The guy had a clockwork schedule, dead opposite of my mom, and I needed to time shit right if this was going to work.

Caleb showed up right at noon, a couple minutes before, actually, because yeah of course he did. Parked in front of the house behind Mike and got out of his nice-but-not-so-nice-it-would-get-snatched car and stared at the house a second, shoving his hands in his pockets and standing still on the sidewalk.

I didn’t need a good imagination to know what he was thinking. Some version of holy shit should I be in this neighborhood as he stared at the peeling paint, and the sagging floorboards on the porch, and the grass that was somehow overgrown and dead at the same time.

It hadn’t ever been a nice house. Someone should have lit a match before they even built it like everything else on the block. I tried to keep it clean inside, but outdoor maintenance was pretty beyond me. Couldn’t do much for the grass without a lawnmower and I never could tell weeds from flowers.

He looked different today and I knew why right away but it still took a minute for it to lock in. He was dressed like a normal person. No job interview looking bullshit. Jeans. A black tshirt. Or maybe just really dark gray, but he looked… different.

Must have been his weekend gear, I guessed. Or maybe he just wore his shitty clothes to come over to my shitty house. He adjusted his backpack straps on his shoulders, did a little adjusting to his hair as he glanced up at the gray sky spitting rain, and walked up to the house.

I kept my hand on the knob until he hit the porch, so I didn’t look too eager, and then pulled the door open and shuffled him inside. I had less than an hour to seduce the guy and be tonguing on the couch intense enough to send Mike screaming in the other direction when he got an eyeful on his way out the door.

Was this plan seeming dumber every second? Yeah. Did I have any other ideas? No. Was I way more interested in finding out what Caleb Heath tasted like than I should have been? No comment.

“Hey.” Caleb sized me up real quick, same way he had the house and the neighborhood, doing an hour’s worth of work in a second. “You look better. Get some sleep?”

If that was actually true, I didn’t ever want to know what I’d looked like yesterday. Like, I always looked good, but I’d seen my reflection. My ass still had zombie vibes.

“Yeah, I guess.” I wasn’t used to someone checking up on me, and it felt… annoying, I guess. Not like part of the plan. “You look weird. What happened to your sweaters?”

His lips twitched a little and I don’t know why he always just laughed at me when I was rude to him. That was annoying too.

“Dry cleaners,” he told me, and I just couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. Beast had a hell of a poker face when he wanted to.

He stood in the doorway wiping his sneakers off on the mat forever, like it mattered in the slightest if he tracked wet shoes across the nasty ass carpet. It felt strange having him in the house. Felt strange having anyone in the house, but he seemed bigger here than he did at school somehow. He had a few inches on me, yeah, I was dealing with it. But it was more than that.

He looked out of scale, like when stupid kids shove a Barbie into a dollhouse where it obviously doesn’t fit. He made the whole room seem like a toy, like he could just blow the whole house over with one good breath.

When he was finally done stomping off his shoes, I led him over to the couch and he sat down, unzipping his backpack and pulling out the notebook he always had with him, all business. He had to swing his long ass legs to the side to keep from tangling them under the beat up coffee table, and I was aware all over again of the years of burns and stains and razor marks on the tabletop.

He glanced around at the outdated electronics and dingy furniture and then back at me. I expected some remark about… well, something, but all he said was, “Congrats on the game. Winning,” he elaborated, because I must have looked as unplugged as I felt.

“Were you there?” I don’t know why that made me nervous, but I stood there picking at my fingernails like an idiot until he shook his head.

“No.” He looked kind of embarrassed. “But I looked it up.”

“Oh.” I shrugged. “No big deal. Trinity sucks.”

“After I slipped them all those secret plays and everything.”

He was teasing me, and it felt weird. I hadn’t expected taking away the buffer of school to make any difference and I’d been extremely fucking wrong. The Beast was crackling in my house, making all my plans jumble up in my brain.

He looked at me still standing there and raised his eyebrows up. “Got your notes?”

“I left them at school,” I lied.

He rolled his eyes and then frowned. “What, seriously?”

“Yeah. Seriously.”

“We were supposed to go through what you have,” he said slowly, and I could feel him not quite buying it. “So we can see where you need the most work.”

“Yeah, well. I need work everywhere. Don’t need notes to tell you that. I figured we could, you know, like, do something else.”

He rubbed his finger across his chin and looked down at his notebook and then back up at me, and I swear I could see his brain whirring behind his eyes like he was trying to reboot himself. If he didn’t come here expecting a curveball, that was his own fault. Finally he nodded. “Yeah. Okay. We can—“

“You want a beer?” I asked him, jumping the gun a little, but I was parched, and I needed to calm down. Sure, I wasn’t technically supposed to have beer in the house according to the new made up rules, but in that reality my mom was sober instead of pretending and Mike was a good solid businessman whose clients didn’t try to kill me at night, so what the fuck ever.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, nodding again, and that was a shock. Can’t say I expected The Beast to have any kind of wild side crazier than keeping candy bars in his locker. Good news for me.

I went into the kitchen and got down on my knees, pulling the crisper drawer out and snagging two beers from the ten bottles I’d managed to line across the back of the fridge unnoticed. Helped that no one had ever eaten an actual vegetable in this house, and those drawers got zero use.

When I stood back up, I realized Caleb had followed me into the kitchen, was looking down at me with his arms crossed and a funny little smirk. My heart did a crazy twist in my chest, and I gave him a once over. A real one, not the quick glaze I’d been giving him for the last week, barely seeing him except when I caught myself looking and then making myself go blind again.

I’d always just known what he looked like, so I guess I’d kind of forgotten what he looked like, if that made any sense. Now that I let all the details fill in, he looked different than I thought. He might not play any sports, but his tshirt was tight enough to hint at some pecs and a hard stomach, the kind of shape you wanted to put your hands on that was hidden under those sweaters. His jeans fit, which wasn’t always the case with tall guys. Fit pretty fucking well, actually. So, fine, he didn’t suck to look at. And that smirk was really getting to me. I’d definitely never seen that before.

I kicked the mostly empty fridge closed behind me, scowling as I went over and handed him a beer. “What?”

He smirked a little more, enough to make a dimple pop out. Since when did he have dimples? Seemed like I would have noticed that. “Nothing. Just enjoying the view.”

It may or may not have taken my dumb shit self a full minute to realize he was talking about my ass. And then I did something completely out of character. I blushed.

“Whatever.” I pushed past him, back to the living room, twisting off the cap and shooting it off my thumb toward the trash can in the corner. Missed. I growled in the back of my throat.

Hard to say what I was so grumpy about. This was going better than according to plan. Looked like I was barely gonna have to lift a finger to get the guy’s hands on me. I just hadn’t expected him to beat me to the punch. It was… unsettling.

Also— and I couldn’t believe I was about to admit this, even just in my own head— I guess I had a very small, very stupid… crush on The Beast. I wasn’t even sure when it had happened, he was just so fucking nice to me. Which was bullshit in itself, so the whole thing was bullshit.

Except if I’d been living a different life, if I didn’t need to make a move on him for a reason that had nothing to do with him, maybe… I didn’t even know what came after maybe, but I didn’t get to find out. And that wasn’t fucking fair. So yeah, I was in a messed up mood. Whatever.

“Aren’t you going to pick that up?” he asked me, looking over at my bottle cap, sitting back down and twisting his own cap off, putting it politely on the tabletop. He took a long sip, and I watched his throat as he swallowed, wondered how that throat would swallow around my dick. Pretty well, by the looks of it.

I flopped down next to him, picked up his cap, and shot it off my thumb in the same direction as mine. Missed again. “No.”

“Brat,” he said mildly, like it was the most normal thing to say in the world.

My stomach disagreed, picking up the twist my heart had made and running with it, pinging through my organs and limbs and bloodstream with a hot rush. I wasn’t even so sure what was turning me on so much, but man, this was a hell of a plot twist.

“You need to pass this class to keep your scholarship, right?” he asked me after a minute of sitting there in silence.

I looked over at him. “Pretty sure we’ve covered this, yeah. You drunk off one sip?”

“I need you to start taking this seriously, or there are going to be consequences.”

“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” That sounded like a threat, but… I wasn’t sure what kind.

“I can’t help you decipher your notes if you don’t even bring them home. It’s gonna be hard enough to catch up on everything you’re behind on. If you can’t even show up with the stuff you’re supposed to study how do you think you’re going to learn it?”

I hadn’t made a lot of space in my brain for imagining how any of this would go other than me faking forgetting my notes and reading off his, leaning closer until I made a move. Which admittedly was a seriously low-value plan. I just didn’t usually need moves, so I guess I’d ripped off some D-movie plot and not even given it a second thought. But I definitely should have anticipated weirdness.

I could not have anticipated this kind of weirdness.

I went from pissed off to warm and cozy to pissed off again as he sat there lecturing me— the same shit he said in the library, but it hit different at home. There are going to be consequences hit real different.

If I wasn’t so attracted to assholes in the first place, I’m not sure that would have made my dick hard. But it might have. In any case, it did. Which was dumb. And annoying.

“Whatever. It’s not like it matters.” It didn’t. In an hour, he’d be out, and I’d be my own tutor again and not his business. Just how I wanted it.

“Of course it matters. Don’t you want to get out of here?”

“More than you can imagine,” I muttered, and I could feel him look over at me. Probably with pity, but I didn’t feel like making sure.

“Then start listening to me,” he said firmly. Then he put his hand on my knee.

Not gonna lie, it startled me hard, and when I looked up, it wasn’t pity on his face. It was the intense kind of look guys square up with when the huddle breaks. Amping themselves up. I knew exactly what was about to happen and I couldn’t let it. I leaned in and kissed him first.

His lips were so fucking soft I almost pulled back, and he kissed even softer. I wasn’t used to either of those things. I fooled around plenty, but always in a rush, always with someone who didn’t give a fuck about kissing, just used it as something to keep your mouth busy while you undid buttons, so you didn’t have to look each other in the eye. I was guilty of that myself.

I got the feeling Caleb had never kissed like that in his life.

He movie-kissed. Sucked at my bottom lip, teased me with his tongue until I opened my mouth to let him inside. Slid his hand up the side of my face, which I guess was my favorite place to have hands now, so soft and strong I almost whimpered into his mouth. He cupped my jaw, tilted my head, controlling everything, making it seem like he was the one who’d kissed me first anyway. Fuck it was good.

He branched out after a minute, but not a lot. Touching my neck, my hair, the back of my head. Keeping things purely in the kiss zone like he expected to be there for awhile.

I didn’t fight it.

Not saying I didn’t want more, but there was something about him— about the way he touched me, stroked me, grabbed me by the scruff with his massive hands— that I was really into. Made me feel like he could probably snap my neck if he felt like it, which was an interesting feeling when he was being so soft. Made my heart feel like it was beating two patterns at once.

Or something like that. Describing romantic stuff was not my forte. Not to say kissing him was romantic, but… it was different than the shit I did in the locker room, that was for damn sure. Any of those guys touched my face they’d be pulling back a few less fingers. Him I just wanted more and more of, and I let myself have it, kissing like I might never stop.

Hard to explain it, but it felt serious. Which was maybe just what kissing him was like, he was a serious guy. Patient. Stubborn in the nice way I hadn’t known existed a week ago. He kissed like he bossed me around— like it was how he wanted things, so that was just how it was going to be, and god, I was so into it. I would have let him do that all day except I wasn’t so good at patience, and my hands were greedy, reaching for his chest and his stomach, trying to push him horizontal.

Eventually, he gave into my weight, let me lean him back onto the couch and finally get on top of him, back in charge the way I liked. This wasn’t how I did things— I wasn’t used to the whole laying down together bit, and I definitely wasn’t used to feeling like the small one— but I was kind of into it, fitting in between his legs a lot better than I expected.

His hands slipped around my waist, holding me close to him, so I slipped mine underneath him, sliding up his back, pushing his shirt up a little. I could feel his back muscles, thick and ripply, and when I glanced down I could see abs peeking out from under his shirt. Just a sliver, but enough to get the idea. The dude was sneaky ripped. Not just fit, but cut. Like I wanted to take those jeans off and see that v.

“Fuck, when did you get jacked?” I demanded, shoving him down and kissing him harder.

He laughed quietly against my mouth. “A while ago. Where have you been?”

“Clearly fucking the wrong guys,” I muttered, grabbing for the hem of his shirt, and he laughed again. It was kind of a nice laugh, all deep and grunty and breathy. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and pulled me back down to kiss again, and I let him, because why the hell not. The guy could kiss. The abs would still be there in a minute.

I slipped my hand up under his shirt, following the lines and ridges of his muscles. I felt his lips curve into a smile as I inched my fingers toward his nipple, the kiss getting harder, the breathing getting heavier. I really needed to know what kind of noise he’d make if I pinched him hard. Like really needed to know.

And then the overhead light flipped on, blinding us.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Shit.

I had legitimately forgotten this was a setup.

Caleb’s fault, obviously, for turning shit upside down and being into me, and now Mike stood there in one of his stupid shiny suits, his wallet and keys in his hands, walking in on us on his way out the front door just like I’d planned. Except now I just wanted him to go away and let me get back to what was the best make out session of all time.

Yeah, this was feeling like a big fucking mistake. But too late now.

Caleb jolted underneath me, blinking hard and fast against the light, and tried to get up, push me off. But my thicc ass was heavy enough to keep him pinned down and I stayed firm where I was, not letting him move, using him as my prop just like I’d intended and only feeling like one percent bad about it. Which frankly in my world was a lot.

“I’m making out with my boyfriend. Do you fucking mind?”

Caleb looked bewildered, and he tried again to get up. But I put a hand possessively on his chest and shoved him back down.

“Yeah, I fucking mind. Get the fuck up. Your mom know you slut around like this?”

“You mean does she know I’m gay? Yeah. That doesn’t make me a slut.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “No shit you’re gay. You’ve got rainbow dripping off you, freak. Groping on the couch in the middle of the day, that makes you a fucking slut. And you got beers? Not in my house, bitch. Get rid of this shit. Clean your ass up before your mom comes home to one less problem.”

“This is not your fucking house.” My voice was shaking so hard I was half afraid I was going to push past rage and into crying and wouldn’t that be great. I barely even registered the rest of what he said— that apparently I hadn’t shocked him at all— I was just so fucking tired of him laying claim to the one thing I had left. “I don’t care if you’re sleeping here. I don’t care if you park your stupid shitty car out front, I don’t care if you’re fucking my mom. Say it all you want, this will never be your house.”

“Dude.” I swear I’d almost forgotten Caleb was there, until he snapped at me under his breath. Like he thought I didn’t know what I was doing.

Mike sneered at me, narrowed his eyes and looked sick, like I was the kind of thing he scraped off his skank ass shiny shoes. “Boy, your nasty mouth is gonna get you killed if your stupidity doesn’t do it first. If I’d talked to my Daddy like that he would have spanked my ass purple.”

My eyes opened wide, and my face got hot, my blood trying to rush everywhere at once. I wasn’t sure if he was literally threatening to kill me or just trying to insult me. He was definitely trying to embarrass me in front of Caleb, which worked… to the tune of making my dick chub up something hefty.

There was a second of cold, sharp silence, when all three of us seemed completely frozen, the anticipation of what might happen next overwhelming everything.

“I uh…” Caleb pushed himself up, dumping me off him onto the sofa next to him, so apparently he had more than enough strength to move me if he felt like it. Interesting. “This is my fault, sir. I brought a couple of beers, it was dumb, I’ll dump them out. We really only had a sip. I’m really sorry. We’ll just go back to studying. I really need to pass this chem exam and we’re supposed to work together. Is that… okay?”

I stared at Caleb and his sudden gross subservient bullshit, asking Mike if shit was cool, if shit was allowed, acting like he needed his permission to be in my house. I kind of wanted to kill them both, my rage so hot it was making my vision blister. But Mike was relenting, easing back down to his aloof, fake cool, throwing up a dismissive hand as he shook his head.

“Studying. That’s fucking it. None of this.” He made another dismissive gesture, decidedly daintier, in our direction. “And there’s no alcohol in this house. We’re sober here.”

“Got it,” Caleb said, loud enough to cover my cynical snort, picking the beers up off the table and walking them into the kitchen like he’d been here a hundred times.

Once he was gone, Mike glared at me as he shrugged into his coat. “You know, your mom puts up with shit most people would disown you for. You’re the kind of kid that deserves every bad thing that happens to him. Every single one.” He smirked, ugly, shaking his head. “Make sure my house is fucking clean when I get home, slut.”

Well. That really could have gone better.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“What the fuck was that?” Caleb demanded, coming back in from the kitchen a minute later, dropping down next to me on the couch. “That guy lives here?”

“My mom’s boyfriend.” I heard how dull my voice sounded and pulled myself together, rallied and put my game face on, ignoring the way my heart was still pounding, the way my blood felt sour like I’d been low-key poisoned. Not sure how I hadn’t seen this was a bad plan. Wasn’t really ready to admit that yet though. I shrugged. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“He’s more than that. Your mom know he talks to you like that?” I glanced up at him and he clearly read the Seriously, dude? on my face because he backtracked. “Yeah, okay, not that kind of situation. Got it.”

I felt my face twisting into a sneer. “Yeah, you definitely don’t got it. Why the fuck did you act that way? Oh, I’m so sorry, sir. Please. can I just study, sir? I’ll dump these beers right down the sink, sir. Fucking bullshit.”

He stared at me a second, his mouth moving but nothing coming out. “Are you kidding me?” he finally demanded. “How did you want me to act? I was afraid he was actually going to hurt you or something. I didn’t want him to kick me out.”

“I don’t need you protecting me,” I told him, and I didn’t, but I had to admit it felt pretty good. “Anyway, he can’t kick you out, this is my house. I can do whatever the fuck I want here.”

“You’re…” He shook his head like I was being an idiot, and okay, fine, fair. “Is he coming back?”

“Not till late. They work till like two. At least.”

“Who’s they?”

“Him and my mom. But she’s gone for the weekend.”

“You’re here by yourself.”

“Yup. You got me all to yourself for hours and hours,” I told him, and pushed him back down on the sofa, climbing on top of him again, seeing if I could get away with ignoring what just went down and sliding things right back on track.

When I made a move to lean in, he put a hand on my chest and kept me there, inches from his pretty lips. “No. Fuck no. Are you kidding me?”

Apparently not.

I grunted, displeased, pressing my hard on into his leg. You’d think panic and terror would have deflated me, but it sure didn’t. “What?”

“Is that why you invited me over?”

“What do you mean?” I asked him, playing dumb.

“I mean, that seemed very calculated and convenient. Scripted, practically.”

Yeah, so he was as smart as he looked. What did I expect, really. Still, I wasn’t one to fess up unless I had to.

“Scripted how? You’re the one that came onto me.”

“Logan.” God, he said my name really nice. Really made me wish I hadn’t fucked around like this, being an asshole, when it didn’t get me what I wanted anyway and probably made things ten times worse.

“I don’t—“

“I don’t like being lied to,” he said bluntly, interrupting me. “Just so you know.”

I chewed the inside of my mouth, thinking a minute. “You were into it,” I finally said. You were down, I had to fight to cut in and kiss you first. Telling me that’s not what you came over hoping for? You were all Enjoying the view, hur, hur before I even had a chance to do anything.”

For a second, he looked like he might back down and let me start kissing him again. Then he frowned. “Because I’m into you. Not because I wanted to use you to mark my territory or whatever that was about.”

“It’s…” I couldn’t exactly argue when he had it so spot on. Still. Didn’t mean things couldn’t change. Also, he was into me. I’d fight for that. “Alright, fine, but… I was feeling it though. For real. I just… didn’t realize it so much till you got here.” I pressed against him again. “Still feeling it.”

He twisted his mouth into a dubious knot and then sighed, shaking his head. “Dude, this is messed up. Like that guy… I feel like that could have gone really badly, Logan. I don’t really think he should be around you.”

It was so bizarre, somebody giving a shit like that. Especially somebody I was rubbing up on, so I guess I wasn’t doing my best work if his mind was still on my living situation.

“Yeah. Well, we fucking agree on that.” He wasn’t easing up much on the frowning, and I exhaled, exasperated. “Look, it was maybe not my brightest idea, okay? I just thought it might freak him out enough to make him take off. It does sometimes. She doesn’t exactly bring home the most enlightened guys. And I really need him gone, you know? This whole situation is… fucking up my study vibe.”

“Your study vibe,” he repeated. The disbelief was strong, and okay, fine, I sounded like an asshole. Lean in, I guess.

“Yeah. It’s all fucked up. You’re my tutor. You’re supposed to like… help me out… in that area or whatever.” Cute flirting was not my game, and I was absolutely roasting myself giving it a try, but I had zilch left to lose and I really did not want his big hands or his big brain leaving, so Hail Mary it was and that’s what my dumb ass came up with.

A smile played around on his mouth, which I really didn’t expect, but it didn’t quite bust through. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed or giving me a hard time or what. If he was mad I could make up for it plenty of ways. Kind of might even like to.

“That doesn’t really sound like an apology, brat,” he finally told me. But his voice dropped low and soft, and he grabbed the front of my shirt again, tugging me forward just far enough so my lips could brush against his.

Fucking A. This guy was a safecracker, and he had all my numbers.

“Is that what you want? An apology?” My voice came out all breathy, not how I meant it at all, didn’t even sound like me, but he seemed kind of into it.

“Maybe.” He pulled me closer again, kissed me full-on, hard this time, and brought his other hand around to grab my ass. I rocked against him and made a ridiculous whimpering noise and I didn’t even care.

“Wanna rough me up till I say I’m sorry?” I asked him, getting into the idea, imagining the tables tilting. “Wanna get even?”

“Maybe,” he said again. “Or maybe I’d rather just punish you like the bad little boy you are.”

It was so unexpected and filthy I didn’t have time to hold back my moan because I didn’t even know it would be there.

“Mmmhmm,” he said, squeezing my ass and sounding smug. “That’s what I thought.”

“What’s what you thought?”

Instead of answering, he let go of my shirt and slid his hand in between us, unbuttoning my pants and sliding his hand straight down inside to palm my dick through my briefs. Fuck yeah. He was so much more go than I expected. But I was down for a guy who took action, always.

“You do realize you were on top of me. I felt it.”

I grinned. “Felt what?”

“Your dick get hard when he threatened to spank you.”

“I…” My face got hot, and maybe my dick got a little hard when he called me out, and maybe that made my face a little hotter. What the fuck. “That’s not what he said,” I argued. “He said. If. His.” I ran out of air in my lungs trying to force the words out.

“That…” He pressed along the length of my shaft, making my eyes half close as he blissed me out, “Was most definitely a veiled threat. Except I think he’d probably beat the shit out of you in a very not-fun way. And I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to protect you from everything. Would you like that, baby?”

His voice had gone that kind of silky-rough that voices go during sex, but these weren’t the kind of promises and dirty talk I was used to hearing. I’ll protect you from everything? What the fuck kind of foreplay was that? Baby? Dude was nuts thinking I was gonna stand for somebody calling me that.

Except I fucking liked it. A lot. I rutted into his hand and reached for another kiss, and when he smacked me on the ass, I jumped and moaned again as he wrapped his fingers around my cock.

“Logan. Answer me.”

I looked up at his face, at his eyes that weren’t just blue, but smoky gray-blue, the color crayon I always wanted to break because it was really pretty and really irritating at the same time, always seemed just slightly out of focus. He was almost completely impassive, but there was something behind his eyes, something warm, something I wanted. Every single thing he was doing to me, I wanted more of it. I just wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted me to do to get it.

“I don’t… I…”

“Do you want Daddy to spank you?” he asked me, squeezing my dick harder, then easing up and just stroking the tip with his finger, coaxing precome out and making my underwear an embarrassing mess. Making all of me an embarrassing mess. Caleb Fucking Heath trotting out the daddy kink are you kidding me.

I nodded without even thinking about it, my mouth dry as hell like I’d been eating sand. Fuck, I did want that. Since when? Since when did I have a single kink that wasn’t just get my rocks off quick before someone walks in? Daddy? Spanking? But yeah, this was some come-in-my-pants level wanting.

“Do you want Daddy to take you over his knee for being naughty? For using me and hurting my feelings? Do you want me to pull your pants down and paddle your bottom until it’s nice and pink and ready for fucking?”

I’m pretty sure my mouth was open wider than it had ever been. What the fuck. This had been hiding inside him all this time? While I’d just been getting basic bitch blowjobs in the locker room?

I slammed my mouth shut so hard my teeth clanked and I nodded hard. I did not get moved on like this, ever. And I didn’t get turned on like this either.

“Say it,” he told me. “Tell me.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes, Daddy.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Take me to your room,” he told me, and gave my hip a little smack with one of his huge hands.

Wouldn’t have even taken that much to get me moving, but fuck I ate it up in a way I couldn’t begin to understand. I nodded and climbed up off him, following his orders like that was just a thing I did. Which… Okay, whatever.

Mike wouldn’t be back for a good twelve hours at least, and with my mom gone on her bullshit until Monday, the place wasn’t getting much more private. But I guess if we were really about to get all wild and kinky and shit, I kind of wanted another closed door between us and the rest of the world too.

I led him to the back of the house, his giant shadow hulking over me, stretching all the way across the cheap paneling in the hallway like he was ten feet tall. I normally would have been more embarrassed having him roam around the place, but my embarrassment might have topped out and held when I called him Daddy. Still wasn’t exactly sure what was so hot about that, except he made it really, really hot. Not an explanation, but a fact.

Sure I had Daddy issues, but I had all kinds of fucking issues. Issues weren’t the same as turn-ons. You didn’t see me getting all hot and bothered over anger issues.

My brain bit back at that though, throwing up a highlight reel of all the angry, under-wraps fucking I did, and that hit a little weird. Okay, maybe something to think about. Later. Way fucking later after I’d come my brains out.

There were two fist-sized dents punched into my bedroom door, like anger issues come to life. They weren’t from my fist, but I was still plenty angry about it. I should have thrown a poster up over them or something, but number one, I didn’t have a poster, number two, if I did, someone would just tear it down, and number three, I hadn’t thought anyone would be seeing my bedroom today, now had I?

If I had, maybe I’d have made the bed. Or washed the sheets. Or vacuumed the nasty brown carpet that wouldn’t have looked any less nasty. But I didn’t. And I probably wouldn’t have anyway. What you see is what you get if you want it.

I pushed the door open, and Caleb walked in and looked around, really making the place seem extra cramped. He was almost brushing against the ceiling fan blades, and those extra inches he had on me just wouldn’t stay out of my business.

There wasn’t much to look at, even less when I tried looking at it through someone else’s eyes. Everything was kind of brown, not just the carpet. The walls were streaked and stained from all the years of my mom smoking and then quitting and then smoking and then saying she quit when she obviously didn’t, probably hoping she’d burned out my olfactory nerves so I couldn’t tell she was lying. Harder to say Sorry, there’s no lunch money this week when I knew she just dropped a fifty on a carton of menthols. Harder, but sure as shit not impossible.

The room barely fit my bed and the reject dresser with two missing drawers. But I wasn’t exactly hosting a big wardrobe, so it wasn’t like it mattered how many drawers I had. Hell, the nicest thing in the room was his hoodie, folded up sitting beside my chem notes on the dresser.

He turned around, and for a second, I thought he was out, and I wouldn’t have blamed him, but he was just going back to close the door. Or trying to. I stepped in to help him because the whole deal was crooked and wobbly in the frame, and you had to lift and push just right to close it. When it latched shut, my face was red— not from exertion, but from your basic humiliation.

Not the nice Daddy knows what you need kind that I guess I was into, or even the ragey You’re a dumb slut who doesn’t belong here kind, but just the gross, dirty kind where someone sees shit you wish they didn’t. Kinda thought I’d left that kind of humiliation back in grade school when kids at the cafeteria table would stare at the sketchy ass lunches I brought, dried up pizza and pickles and the bottom of the cereal bag for dessert. Guess not.

When I turned around, Caleb was right on top of my ass, standing so close I spun right into his chest. The dude had like no footprint, no presence, to be standing that close without me knowing, and my brain latched onto being annoyed by that because it was easier than living in those weird, depressing kid-zone thoughts when I was trying to get laid here.

“Fucking move, dude,” I muttered, reaching out and pushing against his chest. But mid-shove, it turned into a grope, me curling my fingers around his shirt and clawing him back because damn did the boy feel fine under those clothes. Not quite as beefy-wide as I usually liked when I was in the mood for a big guy, but solid all the same. There was plenty to fight back against, plenty to slam into and wear out my aggression on. Yeah, so maybe that anger issue shit was more prevalent than I thought.

He reached up and grabbed me around the wrists, backing me up against the door, crowding me so hard I thought I might splinter right through it. He bent his head down until he was close to me, and for fuck’s sake, it felt like being toyed with by some kind of wild animal when he shoved his height in my face like that.

I wondered if he could lift me. Pick me up and toss me over his shoulder fireman style. Being two bills on a good weight day, I really fucking doubted it, but something about the way his eyes narrowed when he got close made me feel like he might smash those doubts to pieces.

I swallowed and licked my lips, everything drying out again. Was I afraid of this dude? Yeah. Maybe a little. Not like I thought he’d do anything to me, or that I couldn’t beat him to death if I had to, more like… I had no clue which way he was going to turn minute to minute.

I’d had the rug jerked out from under me so many times I didn’t even feel it anymore. I just rolled with the punches and kept getting punched, and I was too numb to notice. This was different. This was all breathless excitement, waiting to see which unexpected part of me he was going to touch next.

“You wanna push me?” he asked in his low, rumbly thunder voice, and I shuddered. I knew right away he didn’t just mean did I want to shove him. Which I still did. Except the closer he got, the more I wanted him even closer, the less I actually cared about breathing.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

His eyes lit up with approval and it made my chest all tight and expandy at the same time, like I was baking a pretzel in there. “Good. Pushy boys are my favorite.”

I only had a second to wonder who the fuck all these pushy boys were before he was kissing me again. His hands around my wrists got tighter until I figured my pulse was throbbing in his palms, and he pressed my fists back into my chest and my body back against the door so hard and so tight I was in pain all over as he kissed me so fucking softly it felt like a tease.

The harder I kissed back, whining and forcing tongue while he held me still, the lighter his lips got until they were just barely brushing against mine. It took me longer than I’ll be admitting to catch on. To realize he wasn’t just messing with me, or playing some edge game, he was training me, the way you do with a dog and a treat.

The next time he leaned in to kiss me, I kept my tongue to myself and didn’t try to get loose and grab his dick. I just let him kiss, and after a few seconds of reading the slow rhythm he seemed to like, I kissed back. Soft. Slow. Careful. A tiny suck on his bottom lip before pulling back. Relaxing into it and letting his mouth take me over like a sigh until he started to relax too, his grip on my wrists loosening, leaning a half step back so I was a little less squashed against the door.

“Look at that,” he said when he broke off the kiss and took a whole step back. “You can behave if someone teaches you how.”

Jesus, this did not seem like the same guy I’d been spending study hall with. Except maybe a little. Maybe a second here or there when he put his hands on me. Kept his eyes on me a little too long. Fuck me, The Beast was filthy.

“Why would I wanna fucking behave?” I asked him, missing the tightness around my wrists in a bad way, wanting him to grab me hard again, hold me tight. “I thought you were gonna spank me.”

The word sounded a little funny coming out of my mouth, like maybe I was saying it wrong, but the way he looked at me… I didn’t think so.

“I am,” he assured me, giving me the smallest, briefest nod. “Oh, I absolutely fucking am. But I want to see what kind of boy you are first.”

I smirked. “I think we both know I’m the baddest boy there is.”

He leaned close, dropping his voice almost to a whisper, like he was sharing a secret with me. “I think we both know that act is pretty tired.”

My smirk slipped off my face for a second as he touched another deep, empty part of me I didn’t know existed. It wasn’t an act. Everyone knew I was the worst. If anyone should know it, it was the guy whose glasses I’d smashed like eight times in a row when we were kids. What else did you have to do to prove how shit you were?

Except with him staring at me like that, I felt like he could see something I didn’t want anyone to see. Yeah, I liked being an asshole. But then I was sorry. Then I wished there was any other way to feel better besides making other people feel worse. The baddest boy there is didn’t have a conscience. I secretly did. And even though there was no chance in hell he could know that, it kinda seemed like he might.

“Whatever,” I muttered, and let my hands slip out of his loose grasp, down to the front of his jeans where his dick was nice and hard. At least one thing was reacting the way it was supposed to.

He took a deep breath and I watched him close his eyes and smile. His eyelashes were long and blond and fluttery, curled up at the end all fancy and stood out against all the sharp angles on his face.

He really was pretty. Funny how I’d never exactly noticed, he’d just always been The Beast. That stuck up loser asshole that I hated without giving it another thought.

I quit stroking him through the denim and went for his zipper instead, and I was almost more excited than annoyed when he grabbed my wrists again.

“Did I say you could do that?” he asked me, his face getting stern, frowning at me when he opened his eyes.

I kept one hand on the button, the other on his zip, not pulling away but not moving ahead either. “What, I have to ask permission?”

“This time you do. Naughty little boys have to learn to be polite.”

I should have fucking laughed— or at least wanted to laugh— when he said that kind of shit, but I wanted to moan instead. I was really, really fucking into this. Like no lie, I was bursting-at-the-seams greedy for more without even really knowing what more meant.

“Thought you just said I wasn’t a… bad boy.” I had to clear my throat to jar the words loose with him staring at me so hard.

“There’s a big difference between bad and naughty, don’t you think?”

I did think that, actually. One word made me feel kind of shitty and dirty and the other one made me feel nervous with a side of hard on. Since when I wasn’t sure. Since always? Or since Caleb?

“Fine. Whatever. Please can I touch your cock?” I asked him, playing along.

“No.”

“No?” My fingers twitched, ready to open up his pants and grab him anyway, see what happened, but I didn’t. No means no and all that, even when he was clearly fucking with me again.

“Not yet. First punishment, then reward.”

The word punishment was a good one, putting a death grip on my guts like I wanted to pee and come and vomit all at once, but in a good way. I could feel my face getting red and I tried to push past it without him noticing. “You think your dick is a reward?”

“I know it is. Now. Do you know about safewords?” he asked me, grabbing my fingers, pulling them away gently and then holding onto my hands like we were doing some kind of romantic shit. “Stoplight system, red, yellow, green?”

Kinda the last thing I expected him to say, but who hadn’t taken a stroll around the internet to see what was what? Maybe looked up videos called shit like Str8 Boy Whipped Until He Cries Like a Bitch and Safewords? “Uh, yeah. How do you know about it?”

“I’m not new to this.”

Again, not really what I expected him to say. “What, like you did this stuff before?”

“A few times.”

The massive surge of jealousy was totally inappropriate, but it swelled up in my chest and sat there like a bubble that wouldn’t pop as I scowled and pouted and imagined that a few times probably meant fifty.

“With who? Guys at school?” I tried to imagine guys on the team bending over for him, calling him Daddy, and it was a little too easy. I was late to the party and I didn’t like it.

“That is none of your business. Would you want me telling people you called me Daddy while I spanked your bottom?”

Fuck me, the dude was not even a little quiet about talking like that, like it was a normal everyday part of his vocab.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

He raised an eyebrow and I backed down, even though the idea was pretty hot. People knowing he was mine and to back the fuck off seemed like some territorial bullshit I was here for, since I guess somehow I was all murdery over him now. Still.

“Okay, maybe not,” I admitted. “But I haven’t, you know, said that. While you… did that.”

For some reason him being all casual about saying kinky shit made it harder for me, and I swear to god the look on his face made me think he liked me being awkward.

“You will,” he said, all confident like an asshole. Why was I so into assholes though.

I pulled my hands out of his so I could shove my thumbs in my pockets and pretend I was casual too. “Yeah, so? When? We getting this moving or what?”

“You say red, things stop right away,” he said, not exactly answering. “Say yellow, we take a break. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, I’ve seen stoplights. I’m not here for traffic school.”

He gave me a look I’d definitely seen before, when I was being rude as fuck and he just seemed to think it was funny. Gotta say, I got different vibes from it now. But maybe not that different.

“Alright, smartass, let’s go, then. Turn around and stick your nose in that corner.” He jerked his chin and glanced behind me to the corner of the room behind the closed door.

It took a second for the words to make any sense.

“Wait, what?” I turned my head in that direction and then back at him. “I thought we were fucking.”

“I told you, punishment first. You need some serious discipline. And that starts with some corner time. Unless you want to safeword.”

I didn’t need to safeword. Not for something that dumb. But I didn’t really feel like fucking doing it, either, even if he got off on it. “Uh. That’s not hot,” I pointed out.

“You sure about that?” Caleb reached out and tugged my zipper open the rest of the way, then grabbed my jeans at the belt loops and worked them down to my thighs.

I stood there half undressed, flashing my briefs at him, my dick hard and wet and trying to peek out of my waistband. Not because of any corner time, just because I wanted to bone. And I guess because I liked when he undressed me a little. Embarrassed me a little.

“Why don’t you give it a try,” he suggested. “Just to see.”

I pulled my lip into my mouth, sucking on it, trying to work up some saliva so I could fucking talk. Say Slap my ass, dumbass, I’m not looking for this kind of Daddy shit. But the words didn’t come, and I shifted back and forth until he took my elbow and turned me around.

My jeans were barely clinging to me, and that made them slide down to my knees, and I widened my stance to keep them up, making it harder and more embarrassing to walk when he steered me the couple steps into the corner. My pants were too loose, I kept losing weight, pissing Coach off. Stress probably, and the low-income free lunches didn’t make much of a dent when I was working off so many calories. The government didn’t spring for seconds, and one taco might have been enough for a third-grader, but for a high school football player, fuck nah.

Weird thing to be thinking about as I tried to get used to standing there, but maybe not. My stomach was already feeling empty— hunger or nerves or what have you— and I was already feeling humiliated, so why not vomit up a few more humiliating thoughts. Make my eyes sting as I stood there staring at the chipped lead paint and cobwebs hiding out behind my door.

Then Caleb put his hands on my shoulders, worked his fingers hard into my traps and I relaxed a little, the hard slump of my muscles making me realize how tight they’d been. He dropped his head down, worked his mouth over the top of my ear where it was burning bright red, then against my temple, something like a kiss that left me shaky inside. This was weird. So weird. So embarrassing and weird, and I wondered how long I’d have to do this before he let me touch his dick.

He slid his hands down from my shoulders and around my waist, slipping his fingertips down the front of my briefs, just barely. He was so slow-moving it made me shiver, gave me too much time to think about how long it’d been since somebody touched me.

I’d been too wrapped up in other shit to do much socializing lately, to even want any, honestly, but his touch was so firm and light and good, and I was desperate for more. To keep his hands on me for as long as possible even if playing this kind of game was what I had to do to get it. And I definitely wasn’t overcompensating, talking about how much I didn’t like it. I definitely wasn’t so embarrassingly turned on for reasons I couldn’t understand that I thought I might black out.

“Do you know why naughty little boys need to stand in the corner?” he asked me.

“Um.” My voice sounded like busted glass and came out of my throat all sore like I’d been facefucking all day. “No.”

“To think about how they’ve been acting. So they have time to calm down and behave so they can take their punishment like good boys. And so their Daddies can enjoy watching them squirm and decide how red they need to spank their little bottoms.”

He slid his fingers further into my shorts until they were stroking my shaft, light from the base to the tip, just playing, teasing, the shit I hated. The shit I thought I hated. But what the fuck did I know?

“You like to watch me squirm?” I asked him, trying hard not to squirm right then. I was quivering under my skin from trying so hard and I knew he could feel it.

“So much,” he hissed in my ear, so intense it made my heart beat quicker. “You know I come by your practices? Hang around, pretend to be chilling by the fence, but really just show up to watch you get that tough love coaching and then pout about it. Coach Travis yelling at you, getting all red-faced till you throw your helmet? Nasty hot.”

“Dude, that’s some sick shit,” I told him, not thinking that even a little bit. It was maybe one of the hottest things I’d ever heard, him following me around without me even noticing, getting off on watching me get chewed out.

“He ever take you in his office after practice? Spank you for half-assing your drills?” he teased me.

I groaned, and my underwear got tighter and wetter as I got thicker under his hand. “Fucking freak,” I whispered— maybe to him, probably to me, because I was thinking about it now. I wasn’t even into Coach T, but it didn’t seem to matter. I was into getting spanked, I guess— anybody could be a stand-in.

There was something really… odd about me being jocked out at practice at my roughest and most violent and him thinking stuff like that about me. I couldn’t put my finger on what I liked about it, but I was definitely there.

“Maybe next time I stop by to watch I won’t leave when practice is over. Maybe I’ll wait around until you come out all wet from the showers and march you right home with me. Ask if you’re giving a hundred and ten percent. Give you some maintenance and motivation on your backside.”

The growl in my throat was strained, painful. The words were hot, but it sucked, knowing it was true. I was too tired, too hungry, too stressed about my grades and my home life to focus like I needed to. I was off my game. Not as much as Walker, but I was. No amount of spanking was going to fix that, no matter how much I might want it to or how much I got off on it. Still felt nice to think about in a fucked up, tortured way, though, like it might help, getting punished by my Daddy.

Jesus, just the thought of him showing up to my practice was making my dick and my eyes both wet. The thought of someone waiting for me after, where no one ever waited for me? Walking me home, giving me attention? This shit was making me feel hella weak and sappy when it was supposed to just be making me feel kinky and horny. Would he hold my hand on the way home? Would he put me in the corner when we got there? The corners in his room were probably a lot nicer than this one.

He pulled his hands off my dick, out of my shorts, and I whimpered, but he just brought them around to the back, stroking the backs of my thighs right above where my jeans were barely hanging on, threading his hand in between my legs, rubbing my balls.

“Oh, yeah,” I whispered. I jolted at my own voice, how desperate I sounded, how shaky and pathetic. Then his hands inched up, fingers slipping into the legs of my shorts, pinching at my ass, pushing in between my cheeks and finding my hole, giving in a soft stroke.

“Like that?”

“Mmm, yeah, Daddy.” The word came out easy, too easy maybe, but it felt good and right and hot and dirty and damn, I was gonna come so hard for him.

I squirmed back against him, getting all worked up when he was barely touching me, like some loser freshman virgin. But the harsh, heavy growl that came out of him said maybe he liked loser freshman virgins. Or at least liked me squirming and calling him Daddy. Well, that made two of us.

He leaned over me again, kissing the side of my neck, slow and wet, and then sucking softly as he groped my ass, really getting all up in there, shoving his hands up inside my underwear, probably stretching them all out. He could rip them in half for all I cared, I wouldn’t complain. My whimpery little moans were trying to be demanding, but they weren’t complaints at all.

“You sound like a boy who doesn’t get touched enough,” he murmured, and I winced at how true that was.

“Touch me, then. Quit screwing around with all this pervert shit.”

He laughed, deep and just mean enough to interest me. “So, which pervert shit is making your dick so hard? Calling me Daddy or standing in the corner?”

I shivered without meaning to. “Fuck you.”

He squeezed my ass hard, sucking and biting along my collarbone when I groaned. Goddamn he had a lot of moves that felt good.

“Keep going,” he told me, a low, encouraging threat like he really wanted me to. “Keep running that shitty mouth of yours, because I’m gonna take every bit of it out on your ass.”

“Do it, then.” I squirmed back into his hands, not exactly sure what I wanted. I didn’t want out of his grip, I wanted him to squeeze me harder until he left lots of bruisy little fingerprints, marking me up ways I wouldn’t be able to explain in the locker room. I wanted all the pain and threats and followthru, and so far I was just getting a bunch of bullshit teasing. Which felt pretty good, yeah, but I needed a lot more. “I’m gonna fucking explode, man. This is just cruel.”

“Okay.” He pulled his hands away and I started to turn around, but he grabbed me by the elbow and spun me right back, then held me there with a light hand resting between my shoulders and swatted me once on the ass.

It wasn’t too hard, but it was loud enough to sound like a smack, catching me half on my shorts and half on the skin peeking out. I didn’t really expect the sound to be so hot. So… spank-ish. My shoulders flash fried, my shirt sticking to me, and the back of my neck and my ears burned, and I had that weird I-have-to-pee, I’m-gonna-puke feeling again.

It was something like humiliation, except it didn’t feel bad, so I wasn’t sure how to explain it. I didn’t like being embarrassed, I didn’t like feeling ashamed, and I figured that’s what I was supposed to be feeling with this kind of game. As a sex thing, I totally could have handled it. As a… whatever this was, it tied my brain in a knot, like it didn’t want me seeing what was going on in there.

“Not just yet,” Caleb said, his voice getting smooth and low, soothing as he rubbed his hand across the spot he’d just smacked. “You come out of there when I say you can. Understand?”

I nodded, staring down at the carpet like I’d been bad, feeling… nauseated, but in a good way? Jesus, this was not how I felt when I watched Str8 Boy Spanked to Tears videos. Not that there was any way he was going to spank me to tears, so it clearly wasn’t the same, but man, I did not expect kinky shit to get me so moody.

“I said, Do you understand?” he asked me, still quiet but not so nice. I’d done something wrong, and right away I knew what it was.

“Yes, Daddy.”

It should have felt weird to say that. Or unfamiliar, at least. I’d never called anyone Daddy in my life. My actual dad was who knows where, and my mom hid me from most of her boyfriends growing up, not that I would have used that word on any of them anyway. And up until about ten minutes ago, I didn’t let guys top me, even with words.

But coming out of my mouth all breathless and whiny, it felt natural as hell to call him that. Right now I didn’t want anything more than for him to actually take care of me, like that bizarre promise he’d made in the living room. Paddle my ass like a baby and tell me he was in charge.

All the fight I kept in reserve, all the rage in my blood, it was quiet. I was quiet. I just stood there wanting him to see how good I was, waiting to see what happened next.

“Good boy,” he told me, like he knew exactly what I wanted, and kissed the top of my head, the tall motherfucker making me feel tiny as hell which should have been fucking impossible. I was a lineman for Christssake. “Stay.”

He backed away from me, and it made me feel kind of spacey and lost for a minute, like I had to remember how to breathe again without his big ass shadow hulking over me. It felt kind of lonely. Like lonely enough to make my eyes sting a little. Which was stupid as shit.

I was quiet, holding my breath so hard my chest hurt as I listened to him move around in my room. Not turning around to see what he was doing or thinking or looking at was its own kind of torture, but I could hear the floorboards creaking under the worn down carpet, then a sound like pages flipping like he was looking through my notebooks or something. I guess I didn’t care. Most of the shit I had to hide, he’d seen already— plus a lot of shit I guess I’d be hiding from now on.

I let my breath out and finally lifted my head up, staring at the spot where the walls met, wondering why the fuck I was doing this and why my dick was still so hard. Standing in the corner was kids’ stuff, but I was seriously devoid of kids’ stuff, and it was filling me up in a weird way, making me feel young and small and nervous and… safe. Which wasn’t anything I ever felt as a kid. Or ever, I guess, although muscles and growth spurts helped.

“Are you thinking about how naughty you were?” Caleb asked me, and I jumped. His voice seemed loud and my heart beat faster, like someone might overhear him. I didn’t want anyone to hear him but me. I didn’t want him to say that shit to anyone but me.

“Yes, Daddy,” I repeated into the corner, even though I hadn’t been. Not like he was going to know.

I heard my mattress groan as he sat down on my bed, and I pictured him sitting there, all massive and probably too tall to fit in the thing. I hadn’t fit in it right since middle school, but nothing bigger than a twin could fit in this room, so what were you gonna do.

“Are you thinking about what a naughty boy you were, tricking me into coming over here so you could use me for some stupid game? To piss off somebody that might have hurt you?”

I jerked my shoulders, my muscles clenching. Back to that, huh? Fine, yeah, I felt guilty, kind of. And stupid. And defensive.

“He wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“You don’t know that,” Caleb told me, and his voice had a little edge to it. “That was a very dangerous thing to do. Don’t you care about yourself at all?”

“No.”

The room felt really fucking quiet after I said that, no hesitation, with a snarly laugh. I could feel the disgust on my tongue, how fucking absurd it was that he’d even ask that question. Part of me knew that was fucked up, but it didn’t change the answer.

“Come here,” he finally said, his voice pushing through the heavy silence.

I swallowed and turned around, and the room seemed too bright, even though the one bulb in the ceiling was on its last legs, buzzing and flickering and giving off brownish light instead of white, and the sky was sunless and gray outside the one tiny window.

The way he was staring at me made me wish it was pitch black. It was pity, I guess. Or something like it. Some of the he needs therapy to love himself bullshit that was so goddamn trendy. Some people just didn’t have any fucking feelings was all. Some people didn’t need to give a fuck about themselves or anything else. Made things easier anyway. What the hell was so wrong with that?

You’d think a guy so tall would have shitty posture from ducking under things all the time and bending down to reach normal sized stuff, but he sat up so straight on the edge of my bed he reminded me of the military recruiters that skulked around outside school, always looking for the kids with the shittiest shoes and the beat up backpacks, trying to get them to sign their lives away.

I was always on their radar, and without football, I maybe would have done it. Just because I didn’t have options, because Caleb was right— I didn’t care about myself at all, so why not volunteer to get screamed at and used as a warm body for abuse since I was already great at that. Hell, if I fucked up my grades and my scholarship fell through, I guess volunteering to die for shit I didn’t believe in was my plan B.

“Logan.” Caleb raised his hand and curled his fingers at me. “Come here. Now.”

I swallowed and took a step toward him, and my jeans started to slide. I grabbed them and started to pull them back into place and button them, but he wasn’t having any of that.

“Don’t even think about it.” He shook his head. “Let them drop. They’re not coming back up.”

I stood there a second having a quiet meltdown inside my head, waiting for it to burst out of my chest, but it didn’t. I could hear myself having a full-on mental tantrum, screaming no fucking way, and I wasn’t sure why I didn’t actually argue out loud, but I didn’t.

I let go of them and they slid all the way down to my ankles, and my chest and my underwear both got tight, humiliation creeping up on me, and okay, I guess I liked it. Just in this one instance. Liked where it was headed anyway. If it would ever fucking get there. I started to step out of them, and he stopped me again.

“Don’t. Leave them right where they are. And come here.” He pointed to the ground in front of him, between his spread legs, like he expected me to shuffle across the room with my pants around my ankles.

I stared at him, like I could hypnotize him maybe, remind him I used to beat the shit out of him and I didn’t have to do what he said, but all that happened was that his eyes and his face stayed calm and firm and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to back down and I was going to do exactly what he said— no matter what that was.

It seemed to take about a decade to walk across the room in tiny baby steps with my jeans like handcuffs around my ankles. If the corner knocked me down a peg, this knocked me down ten more, and by the time I was standing in front of him my face was burning hot and my brain was wobbling a little, wondering if I was the kinky fuck I thought I was, or just some kind of broken freak, because he seemed big in a brand new way. Not just a six-five giant that should have been playing basketball, but like an adult. An extreme adult. And I felt… not like an adult at all.

“Good boy,” he told me, and he reached around to grab my ass in both hands, pulled me toward him, and there wasn’t anything I could do besides let him. Stand there all awkward with his forehead pressed into my chest, smelling his hair— that fruity, waxy, bookish smell I got a whiff of when we sat close in the library, that I wrapped myself up in when I slept in his hoodie. It was almost a hug, not quite, and I guess it made me want one, because instead of slouching there like an uncomfortable statue, I brought my hands up to his shoulders and then after a second just looped them around the back of his neck.

He gave me a few soft pats on the ass, and I had to fight hard to slow my breathing down, like I’d just run ten laps after practice. “Good boy,” he said again, and my face twisted up like feeling good was painful. Which I guess it kind of was.

I thought he was going to let go, but instead he turned me and pulled me even closer, sitting me down on his knee and snaking his arm around my waist, holding tight like I might bolt.

Why the fuck didn’t I want to bolt.

I wanted to hate it, I wanted to hate all of this, I knew how fucking stupid and dangerous it was to let my guard down and like this. The way I liked it when he gave me food and checked my homework and let me sleep while he sat there quietly and read a book and Jesus, how long had we been playing this game because suddenly some shit was feeling different. Like maybe wanting to call him Daddy wasn’t even a new craving at all. Maybe that word had been there a while, I just hadn’t realized it was the one I wanted.

Fuck. Maybe I was kinky as hell.

He leaned close and pressed his forehead against my jaw. Even sitting on his fucking lap he was almost taller than I was. Goddamn outrageous.

“You don’t care about yourself because no one ever taught you how,” he said quietly, and I bent close to hear better, hating myself for it. Just because he was whispering didn’t make it a secret, didn’t mean I had to be curious about what he thought, what he had to say. I was, though. When I tilted my head to listen, his arm got tighter around me and his fingers dug hard into my hip, making me hear the next part even better. “But Daddy’s gonna take care of you now. I’m gonna care about you. That’s why you’re gonna get spanked. Because I care about you enough to punish you when you’re naughty. Teach you to do better.”

I shook my head, not having any words that were right. I wanted some hardcore sex, that was all. I wanted fall-back-on-the-bed, tear-your-clothes-off, nasty groping, come-on-the-walls sex. With no fucking talking. Every time he said this shit, it felt like pieces of me were falling off. Like he was seeing me more and more naked, and I couldn’t cover myself up fast enough.

Caleb Heath did not fucking care about me. Role playing was all well and good and apparently my thing, but I didn’t need someone putting twisted ideas in my head like that.

“Can you just fucking do it then,” I muttered.

Kinda thought he’d keep edging me, keep on with the soft dirty talk and the cuddly stuff, and maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much. But instead, he tipped me right over, moved me from sitting on one knee to leaning over the other, and then reached down and scooped my legs up so I was sprawled all the way across the length of the bed, right over his lap.

I wasn’t stunned silent very often but that did it. Just somebody being able to lift me and move me around was pretty fucking trippy, but move me into this position, wrap an arm across my back and haul me closer, lift his knee up, shift me forward a little like he knew exactly how to spank someone, that did all kinds of fucked up shit to my head.

All the way up until now I’d still kind of thought he was messing with me, or maybe he was gonna beat me up a little while we fooled around or something. I was used to guys talking big, saying one thing but never living up, never actually intending to. That’s just how shit was, dirty talk. No one was actually gonna suck my brain out through my dick, no one was actually gonna make me see stars, no one was actually gonna put me over their knee like a naughty boy. Except for that last one, I guess.

“You like this?” Caleb asked me, and I squirmed around a little, waiting for the answer to show up. Didn’t take long. My dick rubbing against his lap, my jeans still tangled around my ankles, his hand resting on my ass, I was on fire.

“Yeah.”

“What color?”

For a minute I was going to say red, because the heat on my face was all I could think about. “Green,” I finally said, after I realized what he was asking.

“Sure? Not yellow?”

“Green. You gonna ask this shit the whole fucking time?”

He slapped me hard on the ass, so hard my whole body jolted, and I rubbed up against him, rolling my hips a couple more times for good measure while he smacked me again and then again.

“Little boys don’t swear at their daddies. Understand?”

“Fuck.” I seriously didn’t mean to say that, it was just a lot to take in, the spanking, the scolding, the way it pounced on my dick so hard, making me horny like I didn’t even know what. I swung my hand back behind me to cover my ass, wiggling around on his lap. “Wait, I didn’t mean to.”

“Then you know what to say. Red means stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop. I just want… That’s not fair, I wasn’t ready. It was an accident.”

His fingers circled around my wrist and pushed my hand up to the center of my back to keep me from blocking my ass. “No more accidents. And no more swearing. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I won’t.” I probably would, but at least I’d be prepared the next time.

I wasn’t really expecting him to be a pushover, but I guess I kind of liked it. I didn’t get good breaks or second chances, and him giving me a little one now softened me up, made me relax over his lap.

He put his hand on my ass and squeezed and goddamn that felt good. I really was an ass guy, loved to get groped. When a guy gave me head and gave my cheeks a good grab while he did it, I remembered. This was better though. Way better.

“Now,” he said, so slow and patient it felt a little like mocking, a little like hypnotizing. “What color?”

“Green,” I told him, the word coming out just a quiet sigh. I didn’t have the energy for much else all the sudden, I just really liked resting there with his hand on my ass. Felt like I could fucking fall asleep, and wouldn’t that be hot.

“I saw your notes over there,” he told me. His hand curved down lower to the back of my thigh and his fingers started teasing along the edge of my briefs, slipping inside again, and I moaned. I was so fucking easy for those big thick fingers. “Thought you said you forgot them.”

“I lied,” I admitted.

“Why?”

“Because I was looking to get up on your nuts, why the fuck do you think?”

Shit, I really did swear a lot.

“Logan.”

The way he said my name, all slow and teasing and disappointed was so fucking hot I melted a little and shivered at the same time. For fuck’s sake, how was this so goddamn good when I hated being told how to act?

“What? I didn’t swear at you. I can’t swear at all? Why not?”

“Because those are the rules. And you need to start learning to follow the rules.”

“I always follow the fucking rules,” I muttered. “I just fuck them up all the time. It’s not my fault.”

“No,” he agreed, squeezing my wrist and rubbing my ass a little. “It’s not your fault. Things are hard for you, aren’t they? It’s hard to listen. Hard to remember. Hard to keep up when you’re so tired and worried all the time.”

I didn’t really understand where this was coming from— how he got in my head or why my throat was getting all raw and my eyes were getting all hot. I squirmed on his lap, so embarrassed I thought I might just self-destruct. My dick was still rock hard, but now I felt like curling up on his lap and crying and I don’t know why the fuck that was a turn on, but it was. It’d gone past kinky and fucked up into just fucked up.

His grip around my wrist loosened, and he pulled my hand up next to my head so I could slip it underneath me, like he knew I needed to hide my face in my arms. He seemed to know fucking everything and it was creepy and also exactly what I wanted. He stroked the back of my head and then dragged his nails down the back of my neck, and I sighed again, like the touch forced it out.

“You don’t have to worry anymore, baby. Daddy’s here. I’m gonna help you with all the tough things, okay? I’m gonna make sure all the rules are fair and you get everything you deserve. No one’s gonna hurt you anymore.”

An ugly sob clawed at my throat, but I held it back, just barely. What the fuck was this? It felt like a dream and a nightmare rolled into one, like the worst kind of teasing and the best kind of promise, and all I wanted to do was lean into it, believe him, like anything he was saying could possibly be true instead of it just being a lot of weird not-even-that-dirty dirty talk that was totally doing it for me.

“You are,” I pointed out, and there was pouting in my voice I didn’t put there. Something inside me was taking over part of my brain, some instinct I’d had no fucking clue existed, and thank god because I didn’t know how to do this, but I really wanted to do this. “You’re gonna spank me. That’s gonna hurt.”

God, I hoped it hurt. I’d never wanted anything like this, and here I was dying to be absolutely torn apart by his giant hands.

“Mmm.” He rubbed my ass, soft across both cheeks, pulling my shorts up a little and petting at the skin underneath, making me sigh again. “Your bottom’s gonna sting. It’s gonna get all red and sore. But it’s gonna feel so nice. Because you’re gonna know Daddy’s spanking you for your own good. Because I care about you and want to teach you to stop being naughty when you don’t need to be. You just let me take care of teaching you to behave and then you won’t have to worry anymore. That won’t hurt, will it? It’ll feel nice to let someone else be in charge, don’t you think?”

God, how the fuck was it The Beast saying these things to me, and how was I buying in so goddamn hard.

“Yes, Daddy.” There was nothing in the world I hated more than someone telling me what to do, and I was craving it like crack. Because I knew he’d do it right. “Please, Daddy. Take care of me, please.”

I didn’t care at all how stupid I sounded. I barely heard myself. I barely felt myself. I was so needy I was practically numb, my whole body just vibrating with anticipation. Like amped-up-before-a-big-game, drug-like adrenaline times fifty. This shit, whatever it was, was addictive.

“Alright, baby. Daddy’s got you.”

When he finally stopped fucking around and teasing me, and his hand came down in the center of my cheeks, it didn’t feel like those first few swats he’d scolded me with. It wasn’t hard, it didn’t sting, but holy shit did it make me burn. It sent shivers all through me, inside me, straight to my balls and my dick, up to my core, sparks everywhere. The next smack was right on top, giving it back to me, doubling, tripling everything I was feeling before it could sink in the first time.

The swats came at a quick, steady pace, easing out from the center to cover both cheeks, back and forth, firm but gentle with his big hand. Every smack nudged me forward just a little, rubbed my dick up against his thigh, making me afraid I was going to come so hard I’d soak my shorts, leave a spot so wet on his lap he’d think I pissed all over him. Well, maybe not so much afraid as desperate.

“Fuck, harder, Daddy, please, fuck please.”

Caleb laughed a little, but I didn’t even care. “Is that what you need?” he asked me. “Harder?”

I nodded, and fuck, just nodding was sending hard jolts through me, setting me on edge.

He gripped my ass hard and squeezed. “Well, you can’t seem to watch that dirty mouth of yours, so I think you’re gonna get it. Why don’t you tell me what you did to get punished, naughty boy, so Daddy knows how hard he should spank you.”

At first, I could only grunt. It was really fucking hard to think thoughts other than more, harder, more, and there was still a part of me screaming Get up asshole, this is crazy, this is not what we signed up for. But I swallowed everything down and fought hard for words, digging for the answers I knew were in there somewhere like I was taking a goddamn Chem exam. Except I was passing this shit.

“I tricked you,” I managed to say. “I invited you over to trick you. I didn’t even want to study, I just wanted to make you hot for me so we could get caught together. I just wanted to use you to scare that prick off.”

Yeah, it really did sound shitty when I said it out loud like that. Really did sound like I was a massively fucked up person. So I guess maybe I was getting just what I deserved. Didn’t exactly explain why it was such a turn on, but who even cared.

“You know why that was bad, right?” he asked me.

“Dangerous,” I mumbled. “And mean.”

“Not just that. It’s disrespectful. To both of us. Who we are, who we love, who we hook up with isn’t a weapon. It’s not scary. You can’t treat it that way.”

“I… Yeah, I know that.” I got hung up on some of that, on the disrespect part, on the love part. I didn’t want people to hate who I was, but when people already did, it kind of seemed like it was my business to do what I had to do. Still. I guess I did feel a little gross about it. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. But like I tried to tell him, the rules weren’t always fair for me. “I was just doing what I had to do to get rid of him.”

“You think it worked?”

“I… I don’t know.” I did though, and I shook my head, my eyes burning. “I don’t think so. I think I just pissed him off.”

“Not really worth it now, was it?”

I swallowed hard, tasting regret, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. “No.”

“Next time you need help, you ask Daddy to help you. No more tricks. Especially not ones that make you feel bad. Understand?”

“Yeah. Okay.” I was getting kind of tired of the you can count on me foreplay since it wasn’t going to feel so good when this was all over and he went home and I was stuck here and fucked, but whatever. I could believe it for an hour or however long he could go for. I could let Daddy take care of me for that long. Surely I deserved a fucking hour of letting someone take care of me.

He stroked the back of my head, and real truth, I would have taken five minutes of that and been happy. “Alright, naughty boy. Daddy’s gonna spank you hard now so you learn your lesson. You behave and take what you deserve.”

He didn’t wait for me to answer that time and thank god, because I was so done talking. And thinking. I just wanted to get lost in some fucking pleasure and it turned out getting my ass lit up was my kind of pleasure like whoa.

He wasn’t kidding about spanking hard. This time when his hand came down, the sound echoed off the walls of my tiny room, making me nauseous with embarrassment. You could hear the skin-on-skin even muffled through my underwear, and it was fucking mortifying, especially when I made little whimpering sounds that one hundred percent sounded like a boy being spanked, a matching set of naughty noises that fucking killed me.

He was going after both cheeks, still steady, but faster, snappier, catching the bottom of my ass and making me bounce with every smack. The sting was infuriating— itchy and hot and overwhelming, but still not enough. The frustration started to twist out of me, and I kicked my legs until my jeans worked their way off my ankles and I was laying there in just my shorts and socks and tshirt, suddenly feeling painfully vulnerable.

Without my legs trapped together, I spread them wide, my right foot hitting the floor, giving me some leverage as I tried to dodge his hand. It was instinct more than anything. I didn’t really want to get away, but my brain was splitting, running parallel tracks of yes, yes, yes, and fuck you, get off, no one’s the boss of me.

I’d never felt anything like this before, actually wanting to give in to someone, wanting to accept pain and punishment. I was pretty fucking blindsided by what a mindfuck it was, and it was killing me a little inside. It just went against the natural order of things, me not being completely focused on holding everything together, being the one in charge.

I was no noob to pain, had all kinds of injuries from football, all kinds of injuries from a lot of things, but damn, Caleb could lay down a smack with those big ass hands, and spankings might be kids’ stuff, but it fucking hurt. Just a few dozen smacks in and my skin was getting tender, past just stinging, more like raw, and I clawed at the sheets feeling helpless and strong and angry and loved and not knowing what I wanted except just him. Whatever he said I needed, whatever he said he’d give me, whatever he said I was, I was here for it.

It still fucking hurt.

When I pushed up on my elbows, kicking against the floor with my foot again, Caleb pushed me back down with his arm across my shoulders and grabbed the waistband of my shorts.

“We both know this is exactly what you need no matter how much you fight it. Am I gonna have to pull your pants down and spank your bottom bare?”

I whimpered, and it was ugly. A high-pitched, baby animal thing that was fear and desire and sex and loneliness all tangled up. I wanted him to get me naked. Needed him to get me naked. But fuck this was humiliating.

Every step I took towards this Daddy shit— or whatever kink it was that had me over his lap with my ass burning, shaking like a leaf— made me feel less in control, less like I had any fucking clue who I was. What kind of bad ass, heavyweight jock wanted his underwear pulled down to get his bare ass spanked?

This kind, I guess.

“Fucking try it,” I snapped at him, surprising myself, but not really. The only way I knew how to want things was by convincing everyone so hard that I didn’t give a shit, since there was no way I was actually going to get what I wanted anyway. Part of why I kept doing sketchy shit to gamble with my scholarship probably. Yeah, I wanted it. Needed it. But I hated needing things. Made me feel disgusting to want help, to need special attention, charity, just to level up.

I was goddamn brilliant at sabotaging myself. But I was good at protecting myself too. At least I thought I was. Somehow though, Caleb’s growly, grabby promises felt a lot more like protection than me fucking up my life until there was no one left to bother me.

He laughed. Fucking laughed, deep and dark and threatening, and I shivered. “Oh, baby, you really do like to push, don’t you. That’s alright. Daddy’s gonna give you everything you ask for. You need it rough, we’ll do it rough.”

He yanked the waistband of my shorts, peeling them down over my ass, slipping his hand under me to untangle them when the front got caught on my dick. His fingers didn’t mess around, didn’t play at all, like he didn’t even care how hard I was, just came right back and worked my underwear down to my knees, trapping me again with my own clothes, like he had with my jeans.

I liked it and I hated it, just like all of this, and when I tried to squirm and kick my legs, it was just pathetic. I could barely move, and he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me right up against his side, pinning me close. He was so big and warm and comforting, and it felt so good it hurt.

How long had I wanted this? How long had I wanted him? This all felt so familiar and right like I’d been waiting for it so long.

Slowly, gently, he rubbed his palm across my bare ass, and I groaned, my voice melting out all over just like my body did, slumping and relaxing into a puddle over his lap. Just his light hand smoothing over my cheeks felt sandpaper rough, burning and stretching my skin, and my eyes watered from it.

“You’re so pink, baby. But since you like being naughty so much, Daddy’s gonna have to turn you red. I’m gonna spank your cute little bottom until you cry or you tell me to stop. You remember how to tell me to stop?”

“Stop fucking calling me baby,” I panted, and I expected him to slap me in half, but he just kept rubbing.

“Remember your safeword, little boy?” he asked me, still all calm when I was obviously trying to rile him up. Not really sure why I was doing that, just because it was fun, I guess.

“Red. Red. But I’m not gonna fucking use it. Just shut the fuck up and do what you’re gonna do already. I’m green for life, bitch.”

I could hear the shaking breath of a laugh, feel it in his stomach.

“You really do like being naughty, don’t you? That’s okay. You keep on running that mouth, Daddy’ll make it better.”

I started to do just that, opened my mouth to tell him to shut the fuck up again, and his hand came down hard. Whatever bullshit I’d been about to say came out of my mouth shaped like an embarrassing squawk instead. The smack was loud, vibrated through me all the way from my toes to my teeth, sent an ache through my skin like nothing I’d ever felt.

My underwear was worn so thin I hadn’t thought it’d been offering up much protection, but holy shit had I been wrong about that. It was like going out in frostbite cold with one glove. Both hands were cold, but one was worse. One was a lot worse. Him slapping my bare ass was a whole new ballgame.

He seemed ready to take my smart mouth on too, beating my ass the way I needed, no more games. No baby, no sweetheart, no what color now, just a hardcore spanking I couldn’t get enough of. Hard, fast swats on each cheek and across the center, too quick for me to suss out any pattern if there was one.

Truthfully, it was hard to latch hold to the experience at all. There was a big difference between watching porn with your dick in your hand and being porn, with your dick thrusting hard up against a guy’s thigh, your thoughts just a big soup of gonna come, don’t come, yes Daddy, I’m sorry Daddy.

I was making a lot of noises, most of them filthy, all of them embarrassing, but never in a million years did I think he was actually going to keep spanking until I cried or tapped out with a safeword. I was wrong, though.

Plot twist: I didn’t tap out.

One second I was humping his leg, coasting on the pain and the embarrassing sounds and the way his huge hands covered so much of me at once, agonizing over how he could pin me down and control me so easily, and the next I was sobbing. Just broken choking into the sheets, tears and drooling while I tried to catch my breath and couldn’t.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried over anything. Well, no. I had ultra-vague memories of smothering my face in a pillow so my mom didn’t hear and tell me to stop being a little bitch over whatever bullshit was killing me at the time. Probably something stupid. But I didn’t do that anymore. Didn’t know I could do that anymore, I really thought all my big feelings were dead and gone.

Not that I could have told anyone what I was feeling now other than goddamn my ass is roasting and Jesus Fuck, I need to come. I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me but there was definitely something making me feel busted open and hurt and relieved. I brought both hands up to wipe my face off and bit into my knuckles to try and shove some of the hiccuping sounds back down my throat.

Like he promised, once I started crying he stopped spanking. He let his hand rest on my ass, and while I’m sure that was better, it still felt like he put a hot pan down without a towel underneath it, the burn building up and up and up under his palm.

I moaned and wriggled around, half tortured, half buried in ecstasy, and he used his other hand to push my shirt up and rub my back. That felt good, and so did the shh, shh, shh sounds he kept making, which were soft and quiet and sounded like a lullaby, not like shut the fuck up.

“Can you get up on the bed?” he asked me after a minute, and I nodded and kind of push-crawl-edged my way around him working my way up onto the bed in what had to be the most embarrassing way possible just so I didn’t have to stand up and show him my massive hard on which he definitely knew about or my face that was covered in sob-jizz, which he also definitely knew about. Fuck me.

I eased down onto my stomach, and he slid up next to me, stretching out on the bed which yeah, was too small for him. He took up the whole goddamn thing, which wasn’t so bad, really, when he reached over for me and pulled me close, then closer, then right up on top of him. Dude was strong.

I tried to brace myself up, hold my weight off him for a minute, tried to find some way of making it less embarrassing to sink and snuggle into his body, but I gave up. It was just too much work, and I finally melted down on top of him. He acted like I wasn’t heavy at all. Or maybe it wasn’t an act. It didn’t feel like I was squashing him.

I was squashing my dick a little, but I guess that was okay. I kinda liked the pressure. Plus it was mashed right up against his, and the guy was rock hard through his jeans. Which I figured, but it was nice to know for sure.

“I can’t believe I used to beat the shit out of you,” I muttered into the hollow of his neck. I fit there, really nice, my head tucked against his shoulder, and I sighed, just couldn’t help it, it felt so good.

He laughed, wrapping one arm tight across my back and reaching down to rub my ass with the other. “I bet you’re sorry now.”

“If that was supposed to be revenge, once isn’t gonna cut it.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about that.”

He didn’t say what that meant exactly, but it felt like a promise of more, and I didn’t trust promises, but I did like more.

“So that’s what you’re the right size for,” I realized, and it was almost funny.

“What?”

“In the library the other day. You said you were exactly the right size for what you like. That’s what you meant?”

He snorted. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.”

“Did you mean me? Were you thinking about doing that to me?”

“All the fucking time.”

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t seem even a little bit embarrassed to admit it, and god if all that obsessive stalkery shit didn’t light me the fuck up, make me feel so damn good.

Too bad I had no idea how to feel good.

“Why the fuck are you into me, Beast. I’m an asshole.”

He gave my ass a hard sudden squeeze and damn that was satisfying. “No, you’re a brat,” he said softly. “You’re a grumpy little brat who’s had things too rough, who’d be much nicer if you had someone taking good care of you.”

Fuck, I couldn’t be nice with a gun to my head, but he really had me wishing I could.

“Someone like you,” I asked him, just to torture myself.

“That’s right.”

“Want me to call you Daddy?” It came out sneering, but only because I was nervous. Only because I liked the idea so fucking much I had to pretend I didn’t. And I was pretty sure he knew that.

“Words came out of your mouth pretty easy,” he pointed out, not letting me off the hook.

I felt my chest getting hot. That was a little too true for my liking. “Yeah, well. Whatever. I like porny shit. Doesn’t really mean anything.”

“Doesn’t have to. Sometimes it does. Some guys need to be looked after.”

“I don’t. I look after myself.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

I lifted my head up, squinting at him, trying to get a read and failing as usual. Kind of ridiculous he could see right through me, and I couldn’t see a damn thing when it came to him. Still wasn’t sure if he kept himself locked up that tight on purpose or if I was just Beast illiterate. “That a joke?” I finally asked him.

“No. Not at all. It’s pretty obvious no one takes care of you but you. But I could change that. If you let me. I could Daddy the fuck out of you.”

I snorted, but my heart beat hard in my chest, wanting something I didn’t even really understand. At least not with my brain. But my gut, my intuition… kind of got it. And I was disgusted with myself for being so goddamn weak. Wanting candy and cuddles and consequences, an amped up version of what he was already giving me. What the hell was wrong with me wanting so hard when I’d trained myself not to do that so fucking long ago?

“I don’t even…” I shook my head. “Why would you even want to do that? Why are you into this shit?”

I guess the question I really wanted to ask was why the hell am I into this shit, but I wasn’t sure I needed that answer right now. Plus I was hella curious for real. Not too often you cracked open a Chem tutor and found a prize like this inside. At least I wouldn’t think so.

“Truth?”

“No, fucking lie to me. I’m asking because I want a bullshit answer.”

He snorted and stroked the back of my head. “So grumpy, baby,” he teased me in a quiet voice, and I growled and relaxed at the same time. Didn’t want to like it. Really liked it.

“Fine, don’t tell me.”

He shrugged. “Because I love watching big bad asshole jocks turn into whiny little boys. When they blush and squirm and cry from getting spanked, it’s a massive fucking turn on.”

That was not the dirty answer I expected from a fucking bookworm science nerd. It was so much better, and I tried not to drool all over him. “Christ, Beast, how many Sharks you had?” I finally muttered.

He ignored me. “Also, some guys really, really deserve a chance to relive some of their backstory without all the trauma. Get a do-over with someone taking good care of them. You’re an asshole jock and a fucking mess. You tick both boxes with a big fat black permanent marker.”

I didn’t even know how someone could use words that way, put them together so they were so nice and so mean at the same time. I was also pretty sure that was not how life worked. I swallowed hard. “I feel like I should be offended.”

“Are you?”

I thought about it a minute and then shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I kind of want to kick your ass.”

“Only kind of?” He brought his hands down to cup my cheeks, squeezed a little until I moaned. “I can feel how lonely you are. How closed off you are. How much you don’t trust anyone. I don’t blame you. No one treats you right. But I would.”

“Fuck you. Fuck off,” I muttered, rocking against him, daring him to squeeze me harder, spank me harder, hurt me until I stopped feeling or started feeling or whatever the fuck it was I wanted.

“Better watch your mouth. Don’t want Daddy to spank you again,” he teased me, like he could read my mind, and he was really good at that. Too good, probably.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I definitely would. I’d turn you over my knee and spank you any time I thought you needed it. And you need it, don’t you? You liked that. Didn’t just turn you on, it made you feel good, didn’t it?”

“No,” I muttered, lying, hiding my face in his neck again. “Yes.”

“You’re blushing, aren’t you?”

“Fuck off.”

“You like it don’t you. You like me.”

“I said fuck off.”

“You took your spanking so well, baby,” he bent and whispered in my ear, and I squirmed. It wasn’t like I was a slut for praise, I actually kind of hated it, but I was competitive. If I was top ten, I liked to know.

“You’ve done that a lot, haven’t you?” I asked him. “Felt like you… knew what you were doing. Like you’ve spanked a lot of guys.”

“I told you, that’s private.”

“I’m not asking for names. Just…”

“Numbers?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve spanked a lot of guys,” he finally agreed. “But not like that. And you are who I always wanted.”

I lifted my head up, too surprised to even dole out the absurdity that deserved. “Fucking why?”

“Because you’re perfect,” he said, like it was obvious, like it was the easiest gimmie answer on the test. “You’re adorable and innocent and you have a terrible attitude. I’ve never seen a guy who needed to be daddied as much as you. You’re exactly what I want.”

I ugly choked on an awkward laugh, feeling uncomfortable and special at the same time. And also like he definitely had the wrong guy. I wasn’t exactly what anyone wanted. “You don’t know shit about me.”

“I know a lot more than you think,” he said seriously. “I’ve watched you come to school worn down year after year and no one ever say a word. I’ve watched your clothes get too small and your shoes get too thin, and nobody care. I’ve watched you try like hell to master shit in class and get halfway there and get no credit for doing your best. I’ve seen you get cocky during football season, and I’ve seen you withdraw when it’s over and you don’t fit in anymore. I’ve seen how much you need to be taken care of.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a legit stalker,” I whispered. My blood didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to run hot or cold. It was yeah, a little terrifying to hear him lay my life out like that, spot-on at every point. He wasn’t just showing up to watch me at practice, he was actual watching me on the daily. Creepy as fuck.

On the other hand, it was hard not to like that.

It was embarrassing, but somehow knowing he’d seen all that made the ugly, jagged, lonely part of me smooth out a little, like maybe I hadn’t been so alone after all. And okay, that was kind of twisted, but twisted was all relative, I guess, seeing as how I was laying on top of him while he fondled my red hot ass. Seeing as how calling him Daddy made me forget for a minute that no one in the world gave a fuck about me. Made me feel like a different person in a different life.

“You’re like obsessed with me.” It wasn’t even an accusation, it was more like me fishing for more. Tell me you were always there. Tell me what you see.

“I keep an eye on what I want,” he told me, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “I want you. I’ll rough you up in bed the way you like. I’ll make you come every fucking day. I’ll be strict with you. Paddle your ass when you step out of line just a little. Make damn sure you stay on track until graduation. And I’ll give you everything you need. Tell you you’re good. Keep you safe. Wrap my arms around you and hold you all night.”

I kind of thought I was going to die. Dude just comes into my house and my whole goddamn world goes sideways in an afternoon? He lays out a whole alternate universe plan where somebody… he… took care of me? What the fuck was I supposed to do with that? I was all for being stalked, being spanked, I’d even choke on him if he asked nice, but… what the actual fuck.

“Man, you need to just stop fucking talking,” I muttered.

He laughed a little and raised one of his hands up to stroke my hair. “I’ll make sure you pass Chem,” he said quietly. “I won’t let you lose your scholarship. I’ll make sure you get the fuck out of here. Any other classes you need help with, tell me.”

It was hard to breathe with him being so nice, and I tried to imagine a life where he was gentle with me. Told me I was good and held me at night. I’d never had a guy hold me. I guess this right now was as close as I’d ever gotten and honestly, it was pretty fucking nice. Pain and crying and everything included. Still. It was a fucking bullshit fantasy, and whatever he was selling, I couldn’t afford it.

“I don’t need help. I just need my fucking house back so I can study. Shit’s just been… distracting. Otherwise I’d be fine. I wouldn’t even need you.”

“But you’re not fine.”

“I will be.” I didn’t know if that was true or not. Odds weren’t great, probably. Fifty-fifty split on a good day and when were those. But I was really tired of listening to all these fake promises, my head was starting to hurt from it, and I reached down and slid my hand under his shirt, shoving it up his chest.

He didn’t complain about it, so I took a minute to look him over. He was surprisingly tan, all smooth skin and definitely waxed. Kinda vain, but I guess he did put in effort, even if it wasn’t all to my taste. Tiny pink nipples— nice and plump, though— and I inched over and latched onto one to see if maybe that would shut him up.

It didn’t, but it turned his talking into moaning and humming and that was good enough for me. He made some nice sounds while I sucked and bit, teasing one nipple between my teeth and the other one between my fingers. Some guys got all pissy when you licked on their nips, like only chicks were supposed to like that or something, but I was a fan.

I liked the taste, how chests were always a little salty and sweaty and spicy and soapy, usually some combo of all of them depending on when you got a mouthful. And I liked the texture, all tight and bumpy and like somehow you could taste how they were darker, like the color was all concentrated on your tongue. I liked how they got all hard when you blew on them and how you could suck half a pec in your mouth if you were greedy enough, which I was.

I’d been known to leave some rough looking marks on guys, hickeys and teeth, and I was working up to that on him. The way he arched up into my mouth when I sucked hard was a bright green, go, go, go if I ever heard one.

But then I slid one hand down his body and found his dick, and the sounds got way better. You know my attention deficit ass was licking right down his belly a second later, ditching his nipples and heading south to get more of those noises.

This was hardcore better than talking, and the way he kept one hand tangled in my hair and the other on my shoulder, I still felt wanted as hell even without him saying so. Possessive touching was a lot more my speed than sweet talk.

I flicked his jeans open, spread the zipper and there was a beefy eyeful of dick swelling the front of his dark blue Calvin Kleins. Not the priciest label, but still a label. And he was so fucking hot for me he was about to bust right through them. Something fucking satisfying in that.

I bent down and sucked the tip of his dick through his shorts, working my jaw and soaking the front of them until I could taste him through the cotton, all salty and sweet. He groaned hard, an almost scary sound, his voice was so fucking deep, and I wondered what he sounded like when he came.

It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered that.

When he was feeling nice and solid in my mouth, I grabbed his jeans at the hips and worked them down a little bit. Not all the way— that would have been too nice. But just to his thighs, to keep him strangled there, just far enough to give me room to get his dick out, but not enough for him to spread his legs and really have a good time. I did like my fucking revenge.

I glanced up at him, and the way he was smirking down at me, I could tell he knew I was being a dick. And pretty clearly didn’t fucking care. He squeezed the back of my neck and reached for me, pressing his thumb against my bottom lip until my mouth opened.

“Love being naughty, don’t you, baby?”

His voice was quiet and soft, and just like that, I wanted to sob again. I didn’t know what the fuck he was doing to me, but whatever it was it sure messed with my head and made my dick hard. I felt like a knot I was never going to be able to untangle.

I nodded and teased my tongue out, lapping at his thumb while I stared at him. His pale blue eyes just sucked me in, made me never want to look away. Something about him was so strong and so safe and I didn’t want to let that wobbly feeling go.

“Your smart mouth’s gonna feel so good around my dick.”

I almost laughed out loud. He was just so unexpectedly nasty, and I was so here for it.

Yeah, I sucked some cock, but I was never desperate for it, never ached to have anybody down my throat all salty and swollen, making me gag. But squeezed in between his legs in that tiny bed that suddenly seemed just the right size, it was all I could think about.

I tore my eyes away from his and lasered on the prize, grabbing the waistband of his underwear and peeling them down until his dick popped out. He was thick enough to make my ass clench and make me drool at the same time. Hard, and red, and so on edge looking, like it was throbbing and angry. It matched the rest of him, I guess— all hidden away under nice modest wrapping, but way tastier than you expected when you took a peek.

I curled my fingers around him and took my time slipping my hand up over the head and back down the shaft, feeling his veins pulse under my fingertips, his silky smooth skin sliding along with my grip. He was all breath— deep inhale, shaky exhale— and that was hot, but not enough.

I braced against his thigh and inched myself closer, slowing my hand down to a stop at the base of his cock, holding firm and then leaning in to lick right under the head. Then across the tip. Then right over the slit and finally that was enough to get a groan from him, hard and loud and with a side of hip thrusting as he lifted off the bed and I led him right into my mouth and down my throat like a pro.

He tasted damn good. Warm, salty, a little bitter, just enough to make my mouth water, and I worked my tongue and my jaw, taking him deep, sucking hard, then easing up and jerking with my hand, fucking him into the back of my throat, showing off my total lack of gag reflex.

He appreciated all of it, and he made sure to show me with his jagged, stuttery moans and his hands in my hair, stroking my neck, grabbing at me like he was drowning. He knew how to make a guy feel good, I’d give him that.

After a few minutes, I was feeling a little regretful about not undressing him for real. Wanted to reach under, roll his nuts, maybe get them in my mouth and suck a while if he could take it, but I couldn’t really do that the way I had him trapped.

I reached up slow with my free hand and found a belt loop, let go of his dick with the other, and kept sucking hands-free while I grabbed his jeans on the other side too. I tugged them down a little, waiting for him to lift up and help me out, but he gripped my hair tight with his fist instead, pulling my head back until his dick popped out of my mouth.

“Stop,” he told me, unsteady. “I’m gonna come.”

“Okay. I don’t care. I’ll swallow.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I wanna fuck you.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I don’t bottom,” I scoffed. It was more a habit than a hard, fast rule, but I broke habits even less than I broke rules.

Caleb looked unimpressed. “You don’t or you don’t want to?”

“I… don’t,” I said, uncertain. I mean, I was certain I didn’t bottom. I had a thing for twinks usually and they expected certain things when they went jock fishing. Worked for me. And if I hooked up with other guys on the team where we were more evenly matched, I had enough skin in the game to want to dominate every time.

Technically I guess I didn’t have anything against it. I liked being fingered if a guy knew how to do it right. I’d maybe been known to stick two or three up there myself when I got the late-night urge. Not saying I didn’t think about getting roughed up and plowed now and then if I ran into some good porn. But taking dick just wasn’t something I did.

Of course, I’d never let a guy spank me before either, and maybe I was feeling a little more open minded because I’d sure as hell been missing out there. Not quite ready to go thinking about it too hard yet, but maybe my ass was craving some more attention now that he mentioned it.

“Yeah, I think you’ll bottom for me,” Caleb said, all fucking arrogant and shit, hissing through his teeth as he tucked his dick back into his shorts and sat up. “Don’t worry, I’ll talk you through it. How about you get up on your knees and put your face in the pillows so I can make a meal out of that hot pink ass of yours.”

I stayed there until I realized he wasn’t making a joke and then sat up on the bed. My dick was already uncomfortably hard, and that image didn’t help.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. I don’t know a better way to loosen you up.” He tilted his head. “Tell me you don’t top all these guys without prepping them nicely first.”

“I’m not a dick,” I grouched. “I prep. With lube. And fingers.”

“And what about you?”

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, not sure what he meant.

“What about me? I told you I don’t bottom.”

“But you’ve been… fingered.”

“Sure.”

“And eaten out.”

I chewed my lip, wondering if I should lie.

“No?” he asked, not giving me a chance to decide. He seemed shocked.

“When the hell am I gonna have time for that? I fuck. I get head. Simple transactions, not love letters.”

“Wow. Okay.” He was quiet and I could see that whirring behind his eyes again, his brain going at it, reshuffling the deck. “Well, you’re about to get the love letter of your life,” he told me, and honestly, this guy was maybe the most arrogant motherfucker I’d ever met and that was a tough title to get. I was low-key into it, too. He moved over to the edge of the mattress and patted the bed beside him. “Face down, ass up.”

“Really?” I stared at my pillow, chewing my lip some more. It was gonna start bleeding if I didn’t stop, but ass up was like… really naked.

“Are you stalling because you don’t want to?” he asked me gently. “Because you can say that. I’m not trying to harass you. I just wanna make you feel good.”

“No, I…” I swallowed and glanced up at him. I couldn’t believe I was fucking nervous. “I mean I guess you can. But you don’t… have to do it like that. I have lube if you wanna fuck.”

He stared at me with those eyes again, the gray and blue mixing together all moody and soft. Just stared, all calm. It made me blink a lot, that staring, like my eyes were trying to block him from seeing inside me.

“Good,” he finally said, reaching out and brushing his fingertips over my arm. “I’ll use it. When I’m ready to fuck you. First I wanna drive you fucking crazy with my tongue in your ass. Really want to. You okay with that?”

Seriously felt like someone else had taken over his mouth. Never would have guessed he even knew words like that, but he sure was casual about saying some filthy shit. Sure was good at making my face turn hot. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“Good. Now ass up. I won’t tell you again, I’ll just start spanking.”

I shivered. Now that the sting from the spanking had started to wear off, the suggestion of it was making my dick throb again like he hadn’t just made me cry like a baby.

This day was fucking crazy.

I crawled up onto the bed and lowered my face into the pillow, sticking my bare ass up in the air for him to stare at. It felt warm and swollen, especially underneath, achy and raw right where my thighs started, and I wondered if I looked as hot as I felt. I wasn’t really an exhibitionist, except for the whole always fucking around in public part, but maybe I could get into it.

He cupped his hand on one cheek, not even squeezing, just letting the heat build up underneath it all cozy until it edged into annoying. Right as I was thinking about shaking him off, he let go and got up off the bed, came around behind me, dipping the mattress low. I wondered for a second if the ancient, rusty bed frame would hold up to some extra-large fucking, and then I realized I didn’t really care. Let it break. What difference did it make if I was sleeping an extra six inches off the floor or not.

It was hot having him back there, so close to all those spots no one else really touched. I’d always wondered about rimming. What kind of guys were into it. If a tongue felt like fingers or like dick or like something else. Seemed like I was going to find out because out of nowhere his mouth landed on my cheek, right where his hand had been, dropping a bunch of little kisses like coins in a video game.

His lips were really soft, and it felt nice, him covering my ass with them, maybe more intense and embarrassing than if he’d just gone straight for the goods and shoved his tongue in. His hands messed around at the small of my back, resting on my hips, sliding down the sides of my thighs like he was searching for just the right place to hold on. They all felt good to me.

“Your skin’s so warm,” he told me, and I jumped a little at his voice, deeper than I remembered. “So pink. Your ass is beautiful. You know that, don’t you.”

It didn’t really feel like a question. More like an accusation, maybe. Or maybe even appreciation. Like I had good taste. Which I did. My ass was slamming. Yeah, I fucking knew it. I couldn’t answer anyway as it turned out. When I opened my mouth all that came out was a grunty little sigh as he switched from kissing to licking and ran his tongue full length up the curve of my ass.

“Mmmm. So nice,” he said softly, and his breath was cool on the spot he’d just licked over. “Now be a good boy and reach back and spread your cheeks for me.”

“What?” The word came out strangled. He had to be fucking with me.

“I want a clear view of that hole, baby boy. Embarrass yourself for me.”

Not fucking with me, then. Just fucking filthy.

I turned my head to the side, so I didn’t smother myself, and reached back, grabbing a cheek in each hand. It hurt more than I expected, my skin burning and sore under my sweaty palms, all tender when my fingertips dug in. But I spread them nice and wide, until my face was as hot as my ass.

“Damn, that’s pretty. You’re all tight, aren’t you? So shy for me. Don’t worry, I’ll get you all wet and sloppy and stretched out. Make plenty of room for my dick. I’ll fuck you nice and slow first. But soon you’re gonna be begging me to tear you up. Slam in balls deep over and over until you can’t feel your legs. I’m gonna own you, Logan. You understand me?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Yeah. Hell yeah.” My dick was dripping hard into the sheets, and I was pretty sure I’d never make it past the rimming before I came all over myself. I wasn’t a fucking bottom, I kept telling myself. I’d never really cared about getting a dick in me. Except how true was that now?

He stroked his hand down my back, all soft and light, and it was so nice to be touched. Nice to be petted a little while he looked me over so hard I could feel his eyes on me. I was usually the one who did the once-overs, appreciating smooth skin and cut muscles and tight asses for a second or two before I went to work.

I liked hot bodies, yeah, but I was more results oriented, was into everybody getting off more than I was into making guys feel pretty. With the shoe on the other foot though, turned out I liked being appreciated. Like the soft humming sounds Caleb made when he took my hands in his and lowered them back down to the bed, replacing them with his own. Digging his fingers into my ass and spreading my cheeks wide, bouncing them hard in his hands until I could feel the jiggle through my whole body.

“I bet you look off the charts in a jock,” he muttered, which was so unexpected I laughed out loud.

“Fuck yeah, I do.”

“You’re gonna have to wear one for me one day. You’re gonna have to let me peel that uniform off you piece by piece. Fuck you in it. Right after a game when you’re still all sweaty and amped up.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want.”

“You don’t think I’ll do it.”

“What the fuck do I know what you’ll do? So far you’re a lotta talk.”

He laughed, the nice one, with a little twist, a little tease. “Well, let’s fix that.”

And then his face was down between my cheeks, I could feel a little stubble scraping along my skin where it was pink and raw, and his warm, wet tongue pressed against my hole.

I gasped, knowing it was coming, knowing what it would probably feel like, and still not prepared at all. That was kind of my life in a nutshell, always trying to be ready and then not even being close. But for once, the surprise left me stunned in a good way, not shell shocked, as he lapped at my hole a little more. Short soft licks across and then teasing plunges with the tip of his tongue. Dipping inside me, all firm and wet, until my eyes rolled back in my head and I pushed back against him, literally crying, so desperate for more my eyes were watering.

“Like that, huh?”

He pulled away and started to tease across my ass, kissing and licking and biting my cheeks top to bottom. He sucked the back of my balls, traced his tongue up and down the sides of my crack before he came back to my hole, rubbing and stretching with his thumbs, giving me more attention than I’d ever had in my life before he plunged back in, worming his tongue deeper inside me, fucking me with it over and over until all I could do was press a screaming whine out through my teeth. It was good on a painful level— impossible, is-this-really-my-life good.

“More.”

So, not only was I a bottom, I was a pushy bottom.

I wasn’t normally what you’d call greedy. I didn’t fucking know how to be. How do you learn to demand shit when there’s nothing to demand? But I guess I was a natural, working my hips and riding his tongue, whining for more even when I could barely take what he was giving me.

I gripped my sheets tight, tangling them around my fingers until I was cutting off my circulation, steering my mind toward the dull throb in my knuckles instead of the heavy ache in my dick so I didn’t come. Yeah, so maybe I’d had this whole no muss, no fuss, efficiency-fucking, no-bottoming thing wrong. A tongue in my ass was pretty much the best feeling ever.

He wasn’t stingy with it either. He clamped his hands down on my cheeks and munched like lunch, sloppy and hungry and nasty like he wanted his whole face inside me.

Plenty of guys were into me, screamed nice when I plowed them, shoved their hand down my pants in the locker room, sent me late-night texts saying I was the best dick they ever had, but nobody ever made me feel wanted this way. How hard did you have to be into a guy to go after his asshole like you were starving to death? Hard, I’d say.

When my hands and knees started to shake so bad I could barely stay upright and my brain was quivering in my skull, it took me a second to realize I needed to tap out. That I was going to come from the slow buildup of good feelings and some tongue, instead of the hot, tight friction on my dick, and it was a different kind of sensation altogether. At least I wanted to say that was the difference. If the difference was the guy and not what the guy was doing with his mouth, that was trouble, wasn’t it?

“I’m gonna come,” I warned him. Wasn’t sure I’d ever said that before. Typically not much reason to— I did what I liked, and guys knew what they were signing up for if they had my dick in their mouth. When guys said it to me, I used it as a reason to fuck harder, to wrap my hand around the head of their dick if we were somewhere we didn’t want to leave a lot of splattering evidence behind, catching it in my palm and then wiping it on them or feeding it to them, depending on how well I liked them.

I wasn’t sure what I expected from him— not that— but not a flat out rejection, either.

“Don’t do it. I’m just getting started.” He twirled his tongue around my rim like he was proving some kind of point, but it was just going to backfire because fuck that felt good. I was so goddamn sensitive everywhere.

“Fuck you, I’m gonna come.”

“I’ll spank you if you do.”

I groaned. “Not helping.”

Swear to god I could hear him grin as he stroked a finger over my hole. “That turn you on? Me turning your ass even redder if you can’t control yourself? Punishing you for coming without permission?”

I turned my face into the pillow so I could scream, squeezing my eyes shut. “Dude, I mean it,” I told him, finally lifting my head back up. "Yeah, it’s hot. But I’m not kidding. I’m not good at stopping.”

It wasn’t the kind of confession I usually made, and I guess I expected him to laugh. Or tease me. Or just spank me anyway. But he ran his hand down the side of my leg, nice and firm, squeezing my thigh hard. “Okay, we’ll take a break, then.”

I felt him get up off the bed, and I rolled over onto my side, breathing hard, watching him finally kick off his shoes and slide out of his jeans and tug his shirt off, and just like that he was standing there in my bedroom in just his underwear. Dude had some nice muscles— nothing like a jock, but sweet lines, tight abs, thick thighs, and a bulge that was gonna put me right back in the danger zone.

I inched myself to the very far edge of the mattress to make room for him on the bed, and he gave me the same look he’d given me that day in the library when I’d ripped his color coded note cards in half. At the time I’d thought it was disgust, but it seemed like maybe I was wrong.

“What?”

He sat down on the bed, leaning back on my pillow with his hands behind his head. His legs stretched all the way to the end of the mattress and climbing on top of him would have made this whole situation a lot less cramped, but then I wouldn’t have been able to look him over.

He was all kinds of unexpected under those clothes. Honestly, even with my well documented cravings for twinks and thicc boys, he gave me the shivers like no one ever had. Caleb Heath was a goddamn ten-foot-tall god. Now that I saw it I didn’t understand how I’d missed it.

“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” he told me, echoing my thoughts. “Not a lot. But a little.”

That could have been an insult, I pretty much snap-judged everything everyone said as an insult, but I didn’t think it was.

“Different how?” I shifted on the bed, trying not to roll off or roll on top of him, just get a little more comfortable next to him without my dick doing things it wasn’t supposed to. He tolerated just being casually rock hard a lot better than I did. “Why are you thinking about me?”

He looked a little annoyed. “We’ve been hanging out every day for the last week. You haven’t been thinking about me at all?” I guess my surprised face was a little too surprised, because he laughed. “Wow, so you haven’t, then?”

“I mean, yeah, a little, I guess. Not obsessing or anything. Look, I have bigger issues.”

“Clearly.”

“Whatever. We’ve been studying, not hanging out,” I muttered, although that wasn’t really true. We’d been doing both, but it wasn’t the studying I thought about, it was his giant hands touching me.

“You’re cuter than I thought,” he told me, reaching down to fuck with my hair. I scowled and my shoulders shot up to my ears, my body going automatically into fuck off mode, while my brain was all tell me more.

“Yeah, cuter, how?”

His hand worked its way around to the back of my neck, then my shoulder, and he pulled me closer until I was pinned against his chest with his arm around me. “You have a sweet smile when you use it,” he said, stroking my shoulder with his long fingers. “And a pretty pout when you don’t. And you like being taken care of. You turn into a whole different person when you get just a little of what you deserve. You’re not nearly as mean as you think you are.”

Well, that wasn’t an embarrassing takedown or anything. “If you say so.”

“You’re gonna tell me that’s not accurate?”

“If it is, somehow you’re the only one in the world who sees it like that.”

“Yeah, so? Doesn’t mean it’s not true. Just means nobody else sees you.”

Christ. Who talked like that? All serious in bed, all deep like he knew me? The intimacy was making me sick to my stomach, making me realize I’d shown him more of me before we’d even come back to my room than I’d shown anyone… ever. I hadn’t even meant to. He didn’t have any business seeing me.

“Fuck, man, I don’t know what this is, but it’s not…”

“Yes it is,” he said. His voice was firm and soft, and I didn’t even know what he was talking about, but maybe I did. He slipped his hand under my chin and tilted my head up, leaning down to kiss me, and I was so taken over by him I didn’t pull away until the last second, pressing my hands against his chest, putting inches between us.

“Fuck no. You just had your tongue in my ass.”

He paused and then laughed. “And you just sucked my dick. I don’t care.”

“My. Ass,” I repeated. “Have you never heard of germs?”

He tipped me that condescending smile, like sure, he’d indulge me in my germaphobia, but whatever. “Alright. Give me a toothbrush then. Because I’m gonna need to keep kissing you.” I rolled my eyes, and he grabbed me by the hips, pulled me close enough to shake me. “I’m not kidding. Where’s the bathroom?”

I chewed my lip and weighed the pros and cons of letting him borrow my toothbrush. Pro, I got to keep kissing him. Con, he got ass germs all over my toothbrush. Ironic with the state of my… everything, but germs really did skeeve me out. But I could soak it in mouthwash overnight and grab a new one at the gas station across from school on Monday. Probably worth it.

“Okay, come on.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I got out of bed and snatched my shorts off the floor, because no way was I walking dick-out through this shithole. Probably should have put on shoes to be honest, no guarantee we wouldn’t catch athlete’s foot in the bathroom, but life’s a gamble. He seemed up to travel in just his briefs, so I led him to the little bathroom down the opposite hall.

You don’t think about shit much when you live around it every day. I mean, I guess you do, I still felt different jabs of shame and disgust when I took a shower and the water swirled up around my ankles because the drain was always clogged, when I looked in the mirror and never knew exactly what I looked like because the glass was warped and dotted with rust spots that never washed off.

Shit was broken and it wasn’t clean, and my mom’s massive lineup of perfume bottles was spread out all over the one little countertop so there wasn’t any space for anything else. It filled your nose so much you could taste it, bitter and soapy, all those sticky sweet scents mixing in the back of your throat, smelling like fuck you.

Caleb seeing all this shit, I guess I cared. I guess I was embarrassed. When he looked around with his eyes wide at the filthy hoarder bathroom that was just one more thing I was used to, it didn’t feel great. But he didn’t say anything. And I guess maybe I really liked that about him. The way he didn’t always talk.

I snagged my toothbrush out of the jar and rolled the toothpaste up from the end, squeezing out the dregs at the bottom. Classy. Turning on the sink, I started brushing first, not about to miss my last chance to use a clean toothbrush. Yeah, I was a little anal. Just not that kind of anal.

“Hand me the mouthwash,” I said through a mouthful of foam, pointing at the set of metal cabinets that hung on the wall over the toilet. When I raised my head up, I accidentally caught sight of myself in the mirror, my face all flushed and my eyes all glassy and red and my shirt glued to my chest with sweat, looking like somebody else, and I looked away fast. A bottom. I looked like a fucking bottom. And I felt like… I wasn’t even going there.

Caleb pulled one cabinet door open, and it creaked and the whole thing shook like it might come down. Apparently he was a little too big to be fucking around in my fragile house. He stood there staring at the shelves and I wondered if Mike had finished it off.

I leaned down and spit, then tried to wash the glob of toothpaste down the sink before he noticed it, like that was going to be the thing that grossed him out about this bathroom. “It should be at the bottom, I think.”

I turned and looked at him, and he was standing there with mouthwash in one hand and a huge ziplock bag of prescription bottles in the other. For a minute I just went blank.

“Shit.” It’s not like I didn’t know what was up, people stopping by for two minutes at a time late at night, creeping around banging on windows, but seeing it always made me feel sick. Like I was the one doing it. I’d walked in on my mom divvying up a brick of weed when I was in grade school and that wasn’t even all that bad, but I still had a stomachache from it. “Just put it back,” I told him.

“Logan—“

“Put it the fuck back. What do you want me to do?”

“What’s going on in your house, dude?”

“You’re a smart guy, what the fuck do you think is going on?”

“You take this stuff?” he asked me after a minute, squinting at what I figured was Oxy and Adderall and maybe some harder tranqs. It figured Mike was a pill guy. That’s where the money was. It was always what the biggest creeps were into.

But those hadn’t been there this morning, I was almost positive, which meant… shit. I didn’t know what that meant, but it seemed bad maybe. That he was hiding it from someone? Holding it for someone? That somebody might be coming to look for it, somebody ballsy enough to break in this time? Or it meant nothing, I just hadn’t noticed them earlier, I was just being paranoid.

Except I was too paranoid to ever believe I was just being paranoid.

Finally my brain stopped running in circles and looped back around to what Caleb had just asked me. My eyes opened wide. “Are you fucking kidding me? Ever hear of random drug tests? I’d lose my scholarship for sure, I don’t even smoke weed during the season.”

“So what happens if someone calls the cops? Raids this place and finds drugs?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You gonna call the cops, Beast?”

He glared at me so hard I shuddered. “Don’t be an ass. But you’re nineteen. And that guy is clearly a fucking psycho. What if he tried to say they were yours?”

“I…” I’d been so worked up over a million other things that that thought had somehow not actually occurred to me. “I don’t know. I guess… I’d probably be fucked.” I shook my head. “I told you, I just need to get him out of here. Can you just… put it back? Please?”

It made me feel twitchy seeing him stand there with thousands of dollars of pills in his hand, probably thinking about flushing it, like that would make everything better. I expected him to ignore me, or argue, but he just stuck them back in wherever he’d pulled them from and then handed me the mouthwash and sat down on the edge of the bathtub.

I was so not into trauma recovery as a replacement for boning, but it felt like that was what was going to happen, like he was going to give me the number of some family crisis hotline and bolt. Fuck this. Fuck all of this.

Instead, he looked up at me and said, “I remember that time your mom came to the library.”

Jesus.

Now there was a surefire way to make your dick retreat. Start talking about the time your mom showed up to school blasted on Book Fair Day.

She’d come from work, was still dressed like it too, except with a skirt on top. Kids in second grade didn’t know the difference between a costume and a stripper costume, they just saw glitter and fairy wings.

The girls went all feral they were so excited and begged her to read some fairy book out loud, and she did— loud and worked up, all the voices getting more manic and high pitched until kids started bawling without really knowing why. And then her nose started bleeding, like gushing blood down the front, and they were crying and screaming, while I just sat off to the side realizing for the millionth time by the time I was eight that this was not how the other moms acted. Until I finally pulled her into the hall and begged her to go home and that went about as well as you’d think.

I couldn’t pull Caleb up out of my memory banks, but I guess he’d been there.

“Yeah, everybody remembers that time,” I told him.

“She still like that?”

I squinted at him. “You serious right now? This is what you wanna talk about.”

“Just curious what you’re dealing with. Besides everything I’m already seeing.”

I felt like I’d heard that before. Like he was overly curious about what I was dealing with and fuck him, if he was so goddamn nosy, he could hear it.

“No. She’s not like that anymore. Those were the good old days when there was still fun mom time and laundry day and Christmas. Now she’s so strung out most of the time she’s fucking homicidal. Except for the times some douchebag schemer like Mike comes along and yanks her back from the edge to keep her from falling over on stage. Then she gets all born again sober for a few weeks before it all starts all over, and before you know it she’s passed out in the bathroom again and I have to piss in the backyard. That satisfy your curiosity?”

He looked at me, but his eyes were just a big dull blank, like he just flat out wasn’t gonna show me what was going on in there. “For the moment.”

“Great. As long as you’re happy, then.”

“It shouldn’t be like this for you. That’s all I’m saying. You deserve better.”

“Since when?”

“Since always.”

I didn’t even feel like making the effort to roll my eyes. “Yeah, okay, whatever. I thought you were all horny for my split lips and sad eyes and worn out shoes. This is where it comes from. You should be spraying down the walls— you know how many times I’ve had to get ready for school in here while my mom’s hunched over the toilet gagging like she’s getting her stomach pumped? Doesn’t that turn you the fuck on?”

“Jesus, Logan.”

Fuck, was I the asshole? Probably.

“Do you think that’s what I was saying?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “Wasn’t it?”

He frowned, looking down at the filthy tile, and then back up at me, his eyes burning and intense. “Yeah. Maybe a little. You’re fucking damaged as hell and it makes my heart hurt. I wanna fix things and make you happy. Make you mine. I wanna fuck you so good and treat you so sweet you fall in love with me.”

It wasn’t like I asked my dick to get hard. But holy shit, that was some kind of fucked up honesty, and it was so raw and nasty and all about me that I didn’t care if it was messed up. I was messed up. There was no way to undo that, no way to make it not true, and there was never going to be anyone who told the truth when they said they looked past it. You couldn’t look past it if you were going to look at me.

And here he was looking right at the ugliest parts of me and saying they made him want me. I didn’t know how to fucking handle that. So I handed him my toothbrush.

“Sweet talk me all you want but I’m still not kissing you until you brush your teeth.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Fucked up shit made me horny.

It wasn’t really a revelation, I was pretty consistent about it. All you had to do was look at the last couple hours if you wanted proof. Hell, I guess my entire sexual history was probably looking pretty unhealthy, but oh well.

My life was going bad to worse fast, every day a bigger fuck you from the universe, and it seemed like the exits were starting to go dark. I was desperate to hold onto something, and Caleb was a big, heavy, solid thing to hold onto. He did see me a way nobody else did. He saw the absolute trash heap of shit that surrounded me and acted like he believed it was temporary. Told me I deserved better.

I wanted him to make me believe that too, even if it was just for a little while. Wanted him to fill me up, make me whole, fuck me so hard I fell in love with him just like he said, no matter how stupid and messed up that sounded.

And true story, my ass was hungry for his dick.

I’d never ached with this kind of emptiness before, fucking overwhelmed with anger because I wanted him inside me and he wasn’t there. I figured it was because I liked his tongue so much, but whatever it was, my no bottoming days were over.

When I bounced down on my bed and pulled him along with me, on top of me, I wrapped my legs around his waist and held him close, rubbing and thrusting up against him and trying to make it clear what I wanted. I couldn’t get over how heavy he was, crushing me down in the mattress like we were going to leave a permanent crater there.

I rarely had guys on top of me and when I did, it didn’t feel like this, like he could actually break me and I might like it. I was always the strongest guy in the room even if I wasn’t the biggest. I had to be. But he had something over me. Not just physically, but something mental. Something that made me want to let him overpower me. I just wanted him to take over. Everything. Having him handle me felt so fucking good.

When he grabbed my wrists, my body still wanted to fight him, surged with that fuck you, I’m going to kill you desperation that was rooted so deep I guess it was part of my personality. But it tamped down so fucking fast when he pinned my arms to my pillow on both sides of my head, holding me down to kiss me hard, burn my lips with fucking mouthwash as he held me still.

My legs were bulk as hell from squats and deadlifts and from walking basically everywhere all the time, and I squeezed them around him tight so he couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t do anything but rut up against me just like I wanted him to. I was a fan of heavy breathing and grunting and growling, it was like some ASMR shit that paired real well with him grinding hard and rough on top of me, testing the bed out. It knocked me into a daze almost, until he made a rough, unhappy noise and pulled back, let go of my wrists and half shoved off me.

“What’s wrong?” I didn’t think I’d done anything, but he looked startled like I’d bitten him or something.

He pulled his hand up, squinting at his palm. “Nothing, I guess. I thought I…” He reached for the pillow and like a fucking idiot I realized what had happened right before he lifted it up and pulled out the steak knife. “What the fuck.”

“Sorry. I forgot. Just throw it on the floor.”

He stared at me like I’d lost my mind and I was pretty sure I might have. There had to be a limit to him nodding along with my crazy shit, and this was probably it.

“You forgot what? That you were going to murder me?”

I rolled my eyes. “Not everything’s about you.”

He snorted a disbelieving laugh. “Logan—“

“Can you just… not? It’s for protection. I forgot it was there. Can you please just put it down and go back to what you were doing? Remember, I’m hot, you wanna bone me? Go.”

“Protection from what?” he asked, ignoring me, staring at his hand.

“From… whatever. Shit gets sketch sometimes. I like to be prepared.” I sighed, guilt catching up to me spinning my wheels. “Did you get cut?”

“No, it’s…” He leaned over and put the knife on the ground. “It just poked me. I’m fine.”

“So how about you poke me?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I mean it. You wanna treat me good? Fuck me. Fuck me up. That’s what I need. Blow my mind.”

He just stared at me, and it was so goddamn quiet, and then thunder clapped loud and hard filling all the empty space like it was right in the room with us. It was sudden and shocking and made the low light flicker, and it should have made both of us jump, should have made us move somehow, but it seemed like we were frozen. I think I was already amped so high I just couldn’t register another spike in my pulse. I don’t know what his excuse was.

My legs were still wrapped around him, not as tight, but still holding him, and I let go. Gave him the out if he wanted to take it. If this was too much, if I was too much. I wanted him, but I wasn’t going to beg. My mood would be worse than the weather if he dipped, but I didn’t make people stay. Wasn’t a thing I did. Probably wasn’t a thing I was capable of, to be honest, or my life might have been different.

He didn’t move anything but his mouth, the tip of his tongue popping out to work the top of his lip. And then his eyes, breaking contact with mine, looking down at more of me. And then his head. Nodding.

“Okay. You have… stuff?”

“In my backpack,” I told him, looking across the room where my bag was hunched over next to the dresser. “Front pocket.”

He didn’t make any comment about my on-the-go stash, but I didn’t expect him to. He wasn’t a shame guy, not when it came to real life, anyway. Slapping my ass around, telling me I was naughty, I could handle that. I liked that, even the part where it made me feel kind of bad, made me cry. Maybe especially that part.

Guys acting like I was trash because I came prepared, kept my whole damn life in that backpack, that I didn’t like. But all he did was get up and go across the room, bend over so I could admire his tight ass in those tight shorts, and grab my bag.

He brought it back over and sat on the edge of the bed, letting it dangle there off the end of his fingers. “So, all this time you’ve been carrying this bag around…”

“Yup. I was good to go. You could have had me right there in the library.”

He smirked. “Could I.”

“Yeah, sure. I got nothing against going public.”

“So why don’t I ever see you do it? You hook up with all these guys, how come I never see you holding hands with any of them in the hall?”

I snorted. He was teasing I thought, but he was quiet like he was waiting for an answer.

“I’ve never held hands with anyone in my life.”

“That’s fucking hot. You’re a hand virgin.”

“Fuck off.”

“And kinda sad.”

“Fuck off,” I said again and frowned. “What’s so sad about it?”

“You know, just… seems like you could benefit from some affection is all. Little soft touch between classes would probably fill you up better than fucking in the library.”

The way I still thought about his hands on my face that day in the bathroom, like that was porn instead of, you know, actual porn, told me he was probably right. Not like he needed to know that.

“If you say so.”

“I do.” He zipped open the front pocket of my bag and fished out a handful of condoms and lube packets. “You know what’s gonna happen now?’ he asked, sorting through them like they were Halloween candy and I swear I could see him light up a little when he got his hands on something he could organize.

“You asking if I took sex ed?”

“Pretty sure they didn’t cover anal in sex ed.”

“Yeah. Kinda fucked up. But all the guys figured it out anyway.”

“All of them, huh?”

“All the ones I know. Not exactly rocket science. Or chemistry.”

He smiled a little. “Maybe not. Still. I like to take things slow. Check my work.”

“No shit. I could have fucked five guys in the time you’ve been sitting here talking about health class and hand holding. And my work is impeccable, by the way. Ask anyone. Slow isn’t always better.”

“Didn’t say it was,” he said, finally dropping the bag and coming up between my legs. “Just talking about me, not you. Don’t get defensive. Now take your shirt off.”

I finally tugged it off, smug since I knew how good I looked underneath. Not just high school athlete good, but guy who killed a lot of hours in the weight room because there wasn’t anywhere else to go good. Caleb was stacked for a guy who didn’t do sports. But he didn’t have an eight-pack. Maybe Ellis had a physique as nice as mine. But nobody else.

The way Caleb stared, no way in hell would he rather be looking at Ellis. Or anybody. I could feel it. And that made me cocky, made my dick rock hard again, yeah, but there was more to it. There was something else there. His attention was so fucking strong it made me feel like he didn’t care about anyone else at all.

Sure, that was a fucked up thing to be hot for I guess, but being so unimportant for so long, never anything but an inconvenience and an afterthought, suddenly feeling like I mattered, like I was the only thing that mattered was a turn on I didn’t know existed. Felt like jumping realities so hard it made me dizzy.

“Damn, you’re fucking beautiful,” he said, reaching out to stroke his hand from my throat down to the top of my shorts.

“And I’m only half unwrapped,” I pointed out, lifting my hips a little, encouraging his fingers.

He shook his head, pushing me back down gently, but leaving his hand where it was, all warm and teasing, half on my shorts, half on bare skin. “You’re just as beautiful fully wrapped. You know that?”

For fucks sake. Like I needed romanced when I was all kinds of ready to give it up. “Whatever, man.”

His lips twisted to the side like he was laughing at me, but he didn’t laugh. He moved his hand down to cover my dick instead, squeeze me through my shorts. “I think you like being called beautiful.”

I swallowed. Dude knew how to make my mouth dry and make me drool at the same time. “Think I like you grabbing my dick.”

He pressed down, got some heavy rubbing going with his palm, and I could hardly keep my eyes open, just wanted to lay back and enjoy it. I didn’t know I could get like this, all relaxed instead of agro when I fooled around. I would have thought I’d hate it, but it was so chill, like being high without the stress.

“I’m gonna make you feel so fucking good,” he told me.

“Talk, talk, talk.”

He did laugh then. “You’re cute when you whine.”

“Who’s whining? Just facts.”

“You want facts? Fact is I’m about to make you come all over yourself, brat.”

I exhaled fast and violent, like I was retching up oxygen, my chest rippling when his words hit me hard. I couldn’t even deal with his dirty talk, and I swear it was like he wasn’t even trying.

He gripped my shorts and yanked them down, and my cock jumped out, ready for action but probably a little unclear on what its job was this time. We had that in common I guess.

I might have already come to the conclusion I wanted him to rail me, but it was like throwing with my left hand, here. I knew exactly how it worked in theory, but all my experience was backwards. Plus this whole fucking on the bed with kinky foreplay thing leveled up my wtf until it felt like Caleb had way more experience than me which couldn’t possibly be the case.

He dragged my shorts down off my legs and tossed them back on the ground and I sure as hell hoped we were past any more interruptions because my body for real couldn’t take it. There was only so much stop and start I could do and full disclosure, I’d already done more than I’d assumed I was capable of. There was a decent chance that I really would come all over myself way sooner than I meant to.

“You ready to feel good?” he asked me, and I swallowed hard and nodded. I was maybe more curious than anything. The guy was so fucking sure of himself it made me wonder if I even knew what feeling good was.

He shoved my thighs apart, making more room for himself to kneel in between them, and reached back for where he’d tossed the lube and condoms. He grabbed two single serves and ripped them both open, and I struggled to sit up, doing math in my head, trying to remember how many were left.

“Dude, what are you doing? One. One is plenty.”

Instead of answering, he bent and slid his arm under my legs and lifted them up off the bed. He braced the length of his arm against the back of my thighs, holding me there, exposing my whole ass and slapping both cheeks while my face burned and I tried to catch my breath.

“I’ll use as much lube on you as I fucking want,” he told me, his voice low but calm like he wasn’t spanking the shit out of me. “You know why? Because you’re not using these anymore. The only ass getting lubed up from now on is yours, so you can just let me take care of it since the only guy you’re fucking is me.”

“Yeah, says who?” I could have dreamed up a better response maybe, but not really, and it got me some more hard smacks on the raw bottoms of my cheeks and up my tender thighs, so maybe there wasn’t a better response because damn. I needed that so bad.

“You tell me,” he said, stroking my ass where it was sizzling, dragging with his fingers, scraping with his nails. “Who’s in charge of you? Who makes the rules?”

I couldn’t believe there was almost no part of me left that wanted to tell him to fuck off. Not zero part, but Jesus, I was falling all over myself to answer, like that would make it real, like I could claim him by being fast enough.

“You.”

“That’s right.” He acted like I’d answered the hardest question in class instead of the easiest. Who else could I possibly want to belong to? Who else could make me feel like this? Who else would I ever let make me feel like this? Fucking nobody. Why? No idea. But it was a no-brainer.

He eased my legs back down and arranged me, knees bent, feet flat on the mattress, so we both got a good clean look at how much my dick enjoyed all that. “Good boy. Now hold out your hand.”

I reached out my palm and he squeezed a huge glob of lube into it, emptying one of the packets, maybe both. “And?” I asked, expecting instructions.

“And show me how you like it. Jerk off a little.”

I raised my eyebrows, but he just kept waiting and watching, so I reached down and wrapped my hand around myself. It was fucked up using lube just to jerk off. Nice, sure, but expensive, not to mention excessive since my dick wasn’t going anywhere. Still, it was better than a raw hand, warm and slick, probably too good, especially with him staring.

I gave a tight squeeze around the base, hard, barely moving, then some loose, quick strokes along the length. Massaged my thumb around the head, across the slit, some extra attention to the sensitive bits and then back down to hold tight again, all while keeping my eyes on his. There really wasn’t such a thing as jerk off a little. There was all or there was nothing. And this wasn’t nothing.

After a minute he nodded. “Okay. Hands off. My turn.”

Slow and careful, I peeled my fingers off and moaned quietly when he replaced them with his own, mimicking my movements— slow and tight, fast and loose, way too good across the head, like he could see the invisible spots that made my legs shake.

“Caleb.” His name sounded so thick and strange in my mouth, like maybe I’d never said it before, like I might choke on it.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “Just relax. Is this right? Is this good?” His fist throttled me tight, and my dick pulsed so hard I could feel it behind my eyes when I squeezed them shut.

“Mmm,” I agreed, because yes was too hard, way too far down the alphabet to get at.

“You’re such a good boy. And you’re gonna stay that way,” he told me, pulling his hand away and grabbing more lube, tearing open who knew how many as I opened my eyes to watch. “You’re all mine now, baby.” His voice was warm and slick like the lube as he emptied an obscene amount out onto his fingers. He reached down between my legs, teasing my balls with one hand, stroking around and over my hole with the other, so nice I couldn’t help but hum and shiver. “All of this is mine. No more fucking around for you. If I catch you with anyone else, I’m gonna spank you right in front of them. Hell, maybe I’ll fuck you right in front of them too.”

I groaned hard, and while my body relaxed, he rubbed my hole in a slow circle and then eased the tip of one thick finger inside me, lube dripping thick and sloppy everywhere. Jesus, it felt good, but I still tensed up a little. It was different than fucking myself and it had been awhile since I’d done that anyway.

“Shhh…” He petted the back of my leg, soothing, bringing me back down. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. You’re gonna take so much more, you just relax.” He grabbed my dick and started to stroke while he worked his finger in and out, just a little at first, then a little more, deeper, firmer, as I started to open up. Just a little. Just for him.

I felt so good so many places I was gagging on it. I reached out, groped around until I found his dick, bulging through the front of his shorts, and squeezed until he groaned. It didn’t take long.

“Want that?” he asked.

“Fuck yeah. God, fuck yeah.”

“Think I’ll fit in this tight little hole?” He punctuated his question with a smooth, hard thrust of his long, thick finger, and I wasn’t feeling so tight anymore.

“Fill me up,” I panted, trying to wrestle his dick out, but giving up. Too much work, too awkward an angle, too much energy I didn’t have when he was hypnotizing me with his hands. “Fuck me. Own me.”

“That’s exactly right, baby. Gonna own you. Gonna wear you out. Just me, nobody else.”

“Yeah.”

“Hope the last guy you fucked was good, because that’s all over now. Hope it was the best you ever had because I’m gonna make you forget all about it.”

I closed my eyes and rocked down on his fingers, tipping my head back as he grazed right up against that sweet spot as he squeezed my dick. God the guy was into some fucked up foreplay. And wow it was a turn on. Fucked up shit made me so goddamned horny.

“Yeah, he was fucking amazing. Blew my mind. You’re gonna have to try real—“ I groaned when he pumped in and out of me again. “Fucking hard.”

“Is that right.” His voice was the perfect mix of dark and teasing, exactly what I wanted before I even knew what I wanted. I was pretty sure fucked up shit made him horny too.

“Walker gives great head,” I lied, and then realized what I’d said and winced.

He was quiet a second and then laughed. “You’re fucking kidding me. As in… Chris Walker? Quarterback with all the cheerleader groupies?”

“Don’t say anything, he’s not ready for that.” I could not believe I was laying there getting speared by The Beast, worrying about Walker’s fucking privacy. Shit. We probably were friends.

“Never,” he promised. “That’s… an image, though.” His tongue snuck out and swiped his top lip, and him picturing it turned me on.

“Yeah, you’d have liked that, Beast. Sweaty locker room shit, down and dirty after practice.” Thought maybe I was pressing my luck, teasing the wrong way, but he swallowed hard. Kinky fucker.

“He sucked your dick in the locker room?”

“Damn right he did. A few times.”

He plunged deep with a quick stroke and an extra finger, and I groaned hard. “Well, you listen up. From here on out, you keep your dick to yourself after practice. If I catch you with anybody else, you’re in big trouble. If I catch you with Chris Walker in that locker room, you know what I’ll do?”

I gritted my teeth and shook my head, wanting him to spell it out for me, wanting him to fill my head with filth while he filled my ass with his long, smooth, thick fingers, with his giant fucking cock. “What?”

He locked eyes with me, and his were shiny and excited and so fucking intense. “I’d slap your dick right out of his mouth. Yank him up by the hair and tell him to stay the fuck away from you. I bet he’d be scared. Don’t you think?”

I nodded, working my hips, thrusting up into his fist and then sliding back down onto his fingers. It felt so good now, only enough resistance left to make me want more.

I didn’t think Walker was enough of a freak to be into that kind of thing and I wasn’t sure he had enough hair to get dragged around by, but fuck it was hot to think about anyway. Caleb getting all growly and possessive. I guess maybe someone telling people to stay away from me, that I was hands-off property was a pretty old school kind of fantasy, but shit, it fit so well and felt so good to imagine.

“What else? Then what?” I panted, not really giving a fuck if the inside of my head was offensive to anybody else, just wanting to hear more about his imaginary jealous rage because I was his precious property.

He leaned closer, sucking on my shoulder, stroking long fingers over my slit and curling more fingers inside me, bringing me right up to the edge and making me look over. “Then, baby, I’d make him stand there and watch, and I’d grab you and drag you over to the bench and pull you right over my knee. Your pants already down, your dick all hard and wet, and I’d spank your bottom until it was nice and red, just like it is now. Just like I did today. And we’d all know exactly who you fucking belonged to, wouldn’t we.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, just a blathering, mindless idiot, practically blacked out from all the too good sensations, the too perfect whispers. “Oh, fuck, yeah. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”

“He’d want you so bad after that. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He’d have his hand down his pants, squeezing his dick, wishing he had his face between those hot cheeks of yours. But who does your ass belong to?”

“You,” I breathed out. No hesitation. No question. I didn’t even think about it.

“I’d pull you up on my lap and slide you right down on my dick. Thrust up into you, own you right in front of him, and you’d bounce your jock ass all up and down my cock. Take it deep the way you like it, wouldn’t you? Show everybody exactly how you need it. Hard and greedy until you come everywhere.”

“I’m gonna,” I warned him. “I’m gonna come.”

“No, no, no. Not yet. Not until I’m inside you, baby. You ready for me? You ready for me to fill you up? Gonna let me show you how good it’s gonna be from now on?”

I nodded and whimpered, not at all sure I could hold out, but he pulled his fingers out and had his shorts off and his dick covered in what seemed like half a second, bracing over me, staring into my fucking soul as he reached down and readied himself against me, rubbing the head of his dick across my slick, stretched hole.

“Color?” he asked me, giving me a little smirk, and I rolled my eyes halfway with all the energy I could muster, my lips twitching.

“Green, motherfucker.”

“That’s my boy.”

Then he leaned over me, biting at my lips, distracting me with his tongue as he kissed his way inside my mouth and pressed his way inside my body at the same time.

I moaned into him as he pushed hard and steady, aching and unfamiliar for a second, a flash of heat and then a staggering, needy thrill that went on forever as he filled me up in slow motion until I felt dizzy. For a minute he was still and all I could feel was how inside he was, how connected and fused together we suddenly were in ways that felt alarmingly good.

Then he started to rock into me nice and easy while he relaxed more of his weight down on top of me. Every time he moved my sore ass rubbed against the sheets, my skin burning so hot it was like being spanked all over again, all those sounds of my whimpering and his hand against my bare ass echoing in my head, making me feel even more his.

I wrapped my legs around him again, pulling out all the bossy, demanding moves I could manage, and this time he didn’t make me wait for more. He made his kisses sharper, more targeted, owning me hard while he dicked me down, deliberate and relentless. Teasing and then thrusting hard, over and over, never letting me catch my breath, turning me into a melted mess of barely human.

“You feel so good,” he whispered against my lips. His voice shook a little, and it made me feel better, because I was shaking all over. “Anybody ever tell you how good you feel?”

“No.” That probably wasn’t entirely true, but I knew what he was getting at. No one had ever told me anything about how it felt to be inside me. No one had ever been there. I couldn’t fucking believe I’d given up my cherry to Caleb Goddamn Heath without a second thought when I’d pretty much planned to be a top for life. “Just you.”

“You’re so hot. So tight. I can barely move you’re so tight. Squeezing me like you never want to let go. You like having my dick in you, don’t you? You like being my little bottom boy.”

“Fuck.”

“You still gonna come?” he asked me. “You gonna come on my dick?”

I groaned and nodded.

“Good. Because your tight ass is gonna make me lose it, baby. Can you come with me?”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever done that, never really cared how well things were choreographed, but I wanted to. Wanted to spurt all over myself while he emptied inside me like we were two halves of a whole, evening things out.

“Yeah.”

“What do you need?”

“Hard. Fuck me hard. Say nobody can have me.”

The look on his face when I said that was probably what did it for me before he even started thrusting. He knew how to aim, how to land every stroke, rough and hot and electric. But the dark, intense craving in his eyes touched me deeper.

“No one. Can ever. Touch you. Again,” he told me, slamming the words home. “You’re mine. My boy. My baby boy.”

When I came it was hard and fast, shooting between us onto my stomach as I groaned long and low. He rocked into me a few more times, smooth and rough, grunting and panting and then closing his eyes as he gradually slowed his thrusts to a shiver and pulled out, dropping down beside me.

He flattened his palm on my chest and I felt like I could feel my heart beating in his hand, my unsteady pulse echoing back to me.

“Mine,” he whispered one more time.

I was tempted to put my hand on top of his, see what that was like, but I figured I’d busted through enough virginity for one day. Instead, I just closed my eyes and nodded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I couldn’t do much but lay there in a big disintegrated pile of slump. I clawed around in my head for my energy, but I couldn’t find it, and really, what did it matter. No point in trying to follow this up.

“You okay?” he asked me after a minute, curling his hand on my chest and then flattening it back out. “Need anything?”

I croaked some kind of exhausted laugh. “Like what?”

“Water? Or I could… hold you. Kiss you? You feel… alright?”

“You get that wasn’t my first time having sex, right?”

“Yes. You’ve made that very, very, very clear. You’re a huge fucking stud breeding half the football team. Doesn’t mean… I just want you to be okay.”

“I’m okay. It was good. I’m good. I don’t need a fucking hug.”

The whole euphoric mania thing was fading already, and I wanted to blame him for talking so much and ruining it, but the truth was I didn’t know how to hold onto any kind of good. It just slipped right through my fingers when I tried, like I was some kind of ghost. Winning a game? Great for one second until I realized it didn’t actually matter. Scholarship? Awesome until I realized how doubtful it was I’d make it that far. Caleb Heath owning the fuck out of me, saying the words while he filled me with dick? A real nice game of pretend but I didn’t fall for dirty talk or nice guys, or nice guys who were great at dirty talk.

I kept my eyes closed when he sat up and I couldn’t even scrape together the effort to point him in the direction of the trash can. He was a smart guy. He could figure it out.

I, on the other hand, was not a smart guy, and this was probably going to make the whole tutoring thing hella awkward. Or maybe just make it go away altogether. Mixing business and pleasure was dumb. You’d think of all the lessons I’d learned in my life, that one would have stuck.

He took a little too long crossing the room, was probably poking his nose around some more, and it felt a little worse now, him seeing all this, like maybe before I hadn’t cared so much because my dick had been blocking my defenses. Maybe before I hadn’t cared so much because I didn’t know how twisted my brain could get just from fooling around.

I wondered if he was going to leave or if I wanted him to leave or if I should tell him to leave, but I liked it better when he was here, even when he wasn’t talking. Even if he was just standing there judging me or feeling sorry for me, or whatever the fuck he was doing, it was better than being here in the dark listening to the rain on the windows alone. What a fucking depressing day.

Except for all the kinky sex. That shit was killer.

He finally came back over and stretched out beside me again. Grazed a hand across my chest until he reached my shoulder, giving me a little shake. “This way,” he said softly, trying to coax me up onto my side and whatever, I let him, easing up onto my hip with a little work. When I got there, he slipped his arm around me and pulled me close, up against his chest.

“I told you I didn’t need a hug,” I muttered against his skin. He was warm and glossy, and salt and the specific taste of him clung to my lips when my mouth brushed my words against him. My whole body sighed when I licked it off, like he was some kind of drug.

“Yeah. I know. But that was bullshit, so I guess I’ll worry about what you need from now on.” He held me tighter, and I relaxed even more when he slid his hand slow and heavy all the way down my back, over my ass, stroking at my thighs a minute before coming back up and settling around my waist. Definitely a hug.

I could have fallen asleep right that second. I didn’t have anything left in me to push myself off or try to deny how much I wanted to stay like this, mashed up against him so hard it felt like we were glued together, like neither one of us could get away even if we wanted to. He pressed his lips against the top of my head, and I closed my eyes again.

“You know, all this time I thought you hated me,” I finally said when I found my voice.

“Oh, I did. For a long time. You were a fucking asshole to me in grade school. And junior high. Pretty much up until about five minutes ago.”

“You weren’t so nice to me either,” I muttered instead of apologizing, since I was still, always, and forever a fucking asshole.

“What did I ever do?” he asked, and he sounded so willing to hear an answer that I could barely even make a sentence.

“I don’t know, you were just… smarter than me. Everybody… thought you were nice or whatever.”

“Maybe they thought that because I wasn’t beating people up and breaking their glasses.”

I grunted. “Maybe.”

“I’m not smarter than you, you know. You just learn differently, and the classes here don’t adjust for you. I can help you. A lot of people can help you. College will be better. Donovan offers a lot of alternative learning.”

“If I make it there.” I lifted my head up. “Wait, how do you know where I’m going?”

“It’s where half the class is going. It’s where I’m going. And I… might have asked Coach Travis. When I offered to tutor you.”

He seemed to think that last bit was the interesting part, and it would have been in a different conversation, but what my body lit up hard over was him saying he was going to Donovan too. I imagined him in his stupid soft sweaters, being all college-y around trees and bricks and statues and shit. He’d fit in at college. He was designed for it. And it suddenly made going away to school seem about nine hundred percent less overwhelming, just the thought of him being there.

Him saying he’d asked Coach T where I was headed, that felt nice too, though, in that give-me-all-your-stalkery-attention way I guess I was a slut for.

It was a lot of info to process at once, especially when my brain was sitting on empty. I didn’t know what alternative learning was supposed to mean either. Outdoor classes or something?

I hadn’t exactly read the Donovan brochure cover to cover. Maybe a little afraid if I rocked the boat even the tiniest bit it would be like seeming ungrateful and it would all go away. I just figured they’d tell me what classes to take when I got there, if I got there. Thinking it actually mattered what I did with my life past football seemed presumptuous, I guess.

“Why’d you offer to help me?” I asked him. “For real. No school spirit, I’m a saint bullshit.”

“You ask the same questions over and over,” he said quietly, not an accusation, exactly, but definitely an observation. I knew I did, and I knew it was annoying. I also knew I wasn’t likely to stop.

“Humor me, I have trust issues,” I muttered, and I thought he’d laugh, but he kissed the top of my head again instead, wrapping his arm around me a little tighter.

“Okay.” His body brushed against me when he shrugged gently. “I saw an opportunity, that’s all.”

“To do what? Fuck me?”

“To make sure you got what you deserved for once. Didn’t get lost in the system so close to graduation.”

“You really want me to buy that nice guy trash? I’ve seen your dark side.”

“I don’t have a dark side. But it wasn’t about being nice. It was about being nice to you. I was hanging around practice—“

“Stalking me.”

“Watching you,” he corrected, but just barely. “He went off on you about your grades in front of everybody, and I knew I could figure out how to help you. Maybe I was the only one.”

I snorted. “And it got you all hard and shit. So what, you don’t just like me poor and broken and getting yelled at, you’ve got a moron fetish too?”

He yanked me closer and his hand came down hard on my ass, harder than it had all day, stunning me. “Don’t do that. Don’t twist my words, don’t say that kind of thing about yourself.”

I hissed through my teeth and pouted, my face getting hot and then hotter as I blissed out on the warm aftershocks, and I felt my dick try to chub up again. He squeezed where he’d smacked me, and I snuggled closer. I didn’t even know if he was insulting me or obsessed with me or actually being nice to me, and I guess it didn’t really matter all that much since I liked it, whatever it was.

“Or what?” I asked him, and yeah, I was needy, what about it. Reality was going to lock back in tight any minute and I wanted all the nice filthy scolding I could get before it did.

“I think you know what, little boy.”

I shivered. “Daddy gonna spank me?” I muttered into his chest, trying to mock him while I hid my face, feeling warm and stupid at the same time.

“Among other things,” he told me, squeezing again.

I wanted to ask what other things, I wanted there to be a whole long list, but I wasn’t sure I could stand to hear it. “This isn’t really… this isn’t…”

“What?”

“This is fucked up. Us. Doing this,” I told him, finally getting it out there, pointing out the obvious.

“Why?”

“Come on. Don’t be an asshole, you know why.”

“No. I don’t.”

“I’m a shitty person. I’m a dick to you. I’ve always been a dick to you. And you’re a… stuck up loser and you hate me.”

“Hmm. But here we are naked in your bed holding each other. Your reasoning might be outdated. And I’m not stuck up.”

“You’re always reading.”

“So?”

I growled, annoyed at him for not getting mad, for not admitting this was all fucking crazy. “I don’t go around calling guys Daddy. Nobody does.”

“Lots of guys do,” he corrected me, shaking his head. “But you’re the only one who matters. And you were so into it you fell apart in my hands. There’s nothing fucked up about playing this way. It can be more than just playing. If you want it to be.”

My whole body seemed to blink on and off for a second. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“When’s the last time someone took care of you?” he asked me.

“You mean sex?”

“No. I mean took care of you. Made you dinner. Checked your homework. Put you to bed on time.”

“I’m not five.”

“Did anyone do that when you were five?”

“What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“Is the answer never? You took care of everything all by yourself your whole life?”

“I’m not a fucking charity case if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I know you’re not. You’re a sweet little boy who’s had to live life way too hard. It’s turned you mean and angry and jaded and made you act out in terrible ways, and you never had a chance to be good. You deserve one. You deserve to be taken care of. Have someone tell you what a good job you did when you study hard, when you win games, when you’re a good boy. And you deserve to have someone pull you across his knee and spank your bottom when you do things that are going to get you into trouble.”

“Yeah, well.” I didn’t really know how to respond to that. Sure, some fantasy life where I got all the attention I never had sounded fucking amazing. A little claustrophobic and annoying at this point but yeah, the kind of dream I could jerk off to. But winning the lottery sounded pretty great too. Sometimes fantasy was just too much to take. “I think it’s a little late for that.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I…” I rolled my eyes so hard I cut myself off. "You’re talking about someone else. Why would you even say those things, you know me better than that. I’m not sweet. I’m just mean. I’ll always be mean. And we can’t exactly… I mean, this is like a… we can’t…” I grunted, frustrated that he seemed to want to make me say the obvious. Pretending during sex was fun. Pretending after sex was just painful. And this conversation fucking sucked. “You’ve seen my life. You wanting to feed me soup like an orphan isn’t gonna change anything. It is what it is.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Let me take care of you. For real. Let me get you the fuck out of here. All you need is a little help and a little guidance. I can make sure you start life headed in the right direction.”

“I don’t know what life you’re talking about, but mine started a long ass time ago. Playing Daddy or whatever with you isn’t gonna… make me less of a mess.”

“What if it does?”

“Then…” I didn’t want to finish that thought. Because what if it did. What if it really was that fucking simple like he’d said, and a little help was all I’d ever needed. What if with a little guidance and a little love— things that should have been easy and automatic and free— I really would have been fucking fine. Maybe that just made things worse, and I didn’t want to think about any of it. But Jesus, he wouldn’t stop thinking.

“What if—“

“Why do you ask so many fucking questions?” I snapped.

“To get answers,” he said, like it was obvious. Which, okay, fine, maybe it was obvious. But that wasn’t really how it worked.

“Curiosity fucking kills people,” I told him.

“Cats. It kills cats.”

“Trust me, it kills people too.”

“You’re never curious? About anything? Find that pretty hard to believe.”

“I’m not braindead. I just keep my questions to myself.”

“Ask me whatever you want,” he told me. “You’re honest with me. It’s not one sided.”

I was pretty sure that was the first time anyone had called me honest instead of a liar and it made me want to cry, how’s that for honesty. He said an awful lot of things that made me want to cry, and for some reason I didn’t even hate it.

“Okay, why’d you get held back that year?” I asked him, the question I didn’t realize I’d been wondering for a decade popping out of my mouth. “Your brain’s as big as your body, you’re way too smart for that.”

The pause when he didn’t answer right away was really loud, and then thunder rolled through again like some ominous sound effect. “Seriously?”

“You want me curious, I’m fucking curious.”

I waited for another slap on the ass, but there wasn’t one. Maybe I didn’t put enough dick in my voice or maybe he was a pushover or maybe I just expected people to be too hard on me, tell me shit wasn’t my business even when they said I could ask.

“Alright.” He scratched his nails in the small of my back, and I shivered like my body was purring. I liked being scratched during sex shit. I guess I liked being scratched on my back like a cat even better. “My parents split up. They spent the whole year fighting over who was going to keep me and I got shuffled back and forth and missed so much school I had to repeat.”

“Oh.”

“Were you expecting something more dramatic?”

“I don’t know. I guess. Maybe. I mean that sucks. But at least they were fighting over you. That’s kind of cool.”

“Mmm. Not exactly. They were fighting over who had to keep me, not who got to keep me,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “Not as cool.”

“Oh,” I said again, feeling like an idiot. This was why you didn’t ask questions. Answers sucked. “Yeah. Not as cool.”

“What about you?”

Another sucky answer and I thought about lying, just saying I was dumb or whatever, but he’d told me, so that seemed shitty. “My mom met a guy. Same kind of guy— sleazy, mean, except not the kind that wanted her to clean up. She took off with him one weekend and didn’t come back for… awhile. Pretty long while. I didn’t really feel like going to school and no one was around to tell me I had to, so… It just didn’t really seem like I should have to hit up fifth grade if I was the man of the house, you know?”

“You stayed here alone?”

I didn’t tell people shit like that and his hoarse voice was the reason why. It sounded like somebody staring at me. I should have shut up, but I kept talking.

“Pretty much. Every once in awhile one of her friends from the club would stop by to check in and we’d pretend she’d been home, and they’d leave a twenty or a fifty and tell me to order a pizza and I’d walk to the grocery and stock up on ramen and shit instead. But I was pretty much raised by then, it wasn’t any big deal, staying alone, feeding myself.”

“You’re not pretty much raised when you’re ten,” he argued, like that was ridiculous.

“Aren’t you, though?”

He didn’t answer and it felt like I’d hit a nerve. Which made me feel kind of bad and also kind of turned me on, and damn, I did not know why. I guess I was as fucked up as he was.

“What about bills? What about…” He seemed so genuinely offended on my ten-year-old behalf and I was torn between wanting to let him be and wanting to be tough, assure him it wasn’t all that bad.

I shrugged. “I knew how to pay bills. It’s easy. As long as there’s money in the bank, otherwise...” No sense talking about how I learned what overdrawn meant. “I always stayed alone a lot. It wasn’t that different. She was pretty pissed when she came home and found out I had to repeat and she was stuck with me another year. After awhile I think she just forgot it happened though.”

That was the end of the story, at least as much as my brain was willing to spit out, but the gloomy quiet when I finished talking made me wish there was more.

“Do you love your mom?” he asked me, and that was not the question I expected to break up the silence.

I don’t think anyone had ever asked me that— except her when she was drunk and crying— but I’d thought about it plenty and I goddamn well knew the answer to that one and he was welcome to it.

“No. I hate her. She’s a fucking psycho and she scares the shit out of me. She exhausts me. I can’t wait until she finally ODs and I never have to think about her again.”

“That was… succinct.”

“You asked, there’s your answer. What’d you think? I wouldn’t have an opinion? I’ve dealt with her shit every day of my life. Look what it did to me. You think I like being like this? Think I like knowing it’s not my fault, but I get the blame anyway because you’re a whiny bitch if you blame your parents for anything? I feel like I’m going crazy every second, like I’m never allowed to just hate the person who fucked my life up so bad because she’s a single mom and she’s got a disease, and this and that and poor her and whatever, like I’m the judgmental one. Well, I fucking hate her. I don’t care if she sobered up tomorrow, there’s nothing she could do to fix anything, there’s no one she could turn into that I’d give a shit about. I do not care. And anyone who wants to talk to me about forgiveness or healing or any shit like that can jump off a goddamn bridge.”

That was a lot less succinct, but fuck it felt good to say even if my throat was raw and my brain felt sick

Caleb grabbed my shoulder and pushed me up off his chest, gripping hard with his fingers and holding me in place. I balanced myself, so startled I accidentally looked at him, and Jesus, was he ever looking at me.

“I don’t,” he said, hoarse and rough like he was swearing. “I wouldn’t. I’d never say that shit to you. You don’t have to forgive people who hurt you. You deserve so much more than this.”

I shook my head. “You’re not real. None of this is real.”

“You’re wrong.” He leaned up and kissed me, soft and then harder, pulling me back down again. He kissed so fucking good for a guy who wasn’t real, and there was something about going at it again while we were still naked and recovering— slow and lazy instead of dizzy and desperate— that drove me deep into my own head, like I could just hide out there in the weeds a little longer if I gave in.

I guess I was just going to let him bullshit me as long as he wanted if he kept kissing me. Was that really worse than living in reality and not being kissed?

It took way too long to latch onto the soft, steady tapping sound and even longer for my brain to cut through the fog and wonder what it was. My eyes popped open at the same time Caleb pulled his mouth away.

“I think your roof…”

Fuck. Fuck.

The biggest brown patch on the ceiling was wobbling and sagging, sponging outward as a steady stream of water dripped down onto my dresser. I hadn’t even realized it was raining so hard. He was a hell of a distraction.

I scrambled up out of bed to find the bucket stashed underneath, going from naked guy feeling pretty close to good to naked idiot flapping around in a panic, and that was too many flavors of vulnerable for me, I can’t even get into it.

When I grabbed the bucket and went to slap it in place, I saw why the sound was so soft and muted and hadn’t alerted me right away. The leak wasn’t splattering down on the dresser, it was pouring right down onto the corner of Caleb’s gray hoodie that I’d actually taken the time to fold before I put it there to give back to him.

“No.”

My voice was hollow and weird, and I wasn’t sure I’d really said that out loud before I snatched up the sweatshirt like it was alive and on fire, hugging it to my chest, not giving a fuck that now the water was dumping right down onto my chem notebook, wiping my unreadable notes completely off the map.

His hoodie was soaked, ruined, that soft fuzzy fleece I’d run my fingers over obsessively, shoved my hands into and wrapped my arms around like it was a stuffed animal or something, was just a nasty, clumpy, wet mess and there was no way I could ever get it clean. If I tried washing that thing in the sink it would stay sticky and greasy forever, I could feel it on my skin, and it made me nauseous. It would never dry right, it would always smell musty, it was gone forever.

I wanted what I felt on my face to be rain, dripping down or splashing up, coming from fucking anywhere, it didn’t matter. But it wasn’t. I was cracking the fuck up over a stupid sweatshirt.

I didn’t realize how completely I’d frozen until Caleb was suddenly standing beside me, steering me back toward the bed, grabbing the bucket from me and swapping it out for the notebook, trying to flap the pages dry, like that would matter. The leak hit the bottom of the bucket, loud and obnoxious and echoey as it started to fill up. It never hit the top, it wasn’t that bad, so I guess there was that. Never happened in front of anyone either, so there was that too. What the fuck had happened to all my rules and walls and shit? Did I really want to get off that badly?

I mean, maybe. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I could still feel it, the raw pulse on my skin from getting my ass thoroughly beat. The stretch and the emptiness and just the aftermath of being touched and used in a physical way. And mental, I guess. Getting fucked in the ass was mental. Who knew.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding out his shirt and then pulling it back to me, not wanting to let it go even after I’d ruined it. “I don’t… I can’t…”

“It’s okay.” He came close and bent down in front of me, putting his hand on my knee, staring at me with those eyes that looked bluer now, maybe because everything else looked so gray. “Listen. I need you to get dressed now. We’re gonna go.”

“Go where?”

“Back to my place. I want you to grab whatever you need like you’re not coming back.”

I shook my head. “It’s not a big deal. It’ll stop when the rain stops. We’re gonna get the roof fixed soon.”

That was such a big stupid lie, and I wasn’t even sure why I told it except probably habit. Sure it was one of those lies that got tossed around so often it had that fake repetitive ring of truth to it, but I knew better. No doubt Caleb knew better too.

“It’s not the roof. It’s not just the roof. You can’t stay here. There’s a drug stash in your bathroom and a knife under your pillow and nothing in your fridge and you’re not even freaked out by any of it.”

“So?”

He opened his mouth and then shut it again, staring at me like maybe I was supposed to understand something I clearly didn’t. “So, you’re too desensitized to this situation to understand what kind of danger you’re in. Or you’ve stopped caring. Either way, you can’t stay here.”

“You can’t…” I looked down at the sweatshirt in my lap, afraid to finish the thought, afraid if I said You can’t make me he might say You’re right when the answer I wanted was Yes, I can. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said instead, which was true.

“Am I your boyfriend or not?”

I looked up at him, that word landing funny in my chest, like a plane crash. “What?”

“You told that guy I was your boyfriend.”

“Mike?” I asked, confused. “I mean, yeah. I was lying. You know I was lying.”

“Maybe you were lying before. Does it still feel like a lie?”

I poked around in my brain like I was playing match games with note cards, flipping over the word boyfriend to see if it looked like the right answer.

It did.

Somehow didn’t feel like it had ever been a lie.

“I guess not,” I admitted, so fucking shocked at myself for giving the truth up so easy I didn’t know how to move past it.

“Okay then. I want you to pack your stuff. Whatever you need. Whatever you want to bring. I’m not leaving my boyfriend here. Not in this mess, not with these people. This isn’t where you belong. You’re coming home with me so I can take care of you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure your parents would love that,” I laughed, so tired of this game, but too broken to be mad about it.

“I don’t live with my parents.”

I frowned, realizing what a huge blank space there was around him outside of school, outside of today. “Who do you live with?”

“No one. Myself. I’ve been emancipated since I was sixteen.”

“Wait, what?” I knew the word, but kind of just thought it was something that happened to foster kids and child actors.

He shrugged like it was no big thing. “Yeah. They never actually stopped fighting about who had to take care of me. Turned out it was easier to just rent me an apartment and let me take care of myself. Which I’m pretty good at. And now I’m gonna take care of you.”

“You have your own apartment?” My lips felt numb, like the words were coming from somewhere outside my mouth. My heart slammed in my chest like a panic attack, except backwards. A… relief attack? That didn’t seem like a thing. Except it definitely seemed like a thing. It seemed like it perfectly described the feeling I’d had bent across his lap with his arm tight around me, letting him spank me until I was gasping for breath and throbbing all over. “Where?”

“Millstone. By the high school.”

I knew where it was, knew the apartments, the one with all the hanging plants and flower boxes and fake stone on the outside of the buildings. They weren’t luxury by any stretch but still way out of my price range. Not that I’d looked around and daydreamed a million times.

“And you want to fucking move me into your place.” I would have laughed if I wasn’t in such a daze, if any of this felt real at all.

He squeezed my knee and stood up, grabbing his clothes off the floor and starting to get dressed like it was all already decided. “I’m going to move you into my place. If you need more convincing I can go all Daddy on you with a lecture and a spanking, but you’re coming home with me, Logan. It’s for your own good.”

* * *

Logan and Caleb’s story concludes in Comfort Me, Daddy.

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THANKS FOR READING

Thanks so much for reading Hurt Me, Daddy, the first book in The Brat & The Beast Duet. Logan and Caleb came to me in the spring of 2020. Yup. Those days. At the time I was, well, busy with other things. Real life was intense, and writing took a back burner for a bit while I tried to juggle a lot. Also, I had other books to write. So many other books.

Logan really did not care what I was busy with or what my plans were. He was angry, and he had things to say. Every time there was a little space in my brain, there he was, rattling on and on, until I finally picked up a pen and started writing things down. Later, I told him. There’s too much going on right now. And then, Okay, fine, we can talk about this, but this is a lot, we’re using a new penname. And eventually Wtf have you gotten us into?

I think this story was partly born from the messed up reality a lot of us experienced of being stuck in a situation you didn’t cause, everything around you falling apart just when it was coming together, and just wanting someone to step in and fix things because you were tired. Also, sometimes characters just show up who absolutely will not shut up no matter what you threaten or promise lol. (Looking at you, Alex Fox.)

This was not the story I expected it to be when Logan first started complaining about his tutor, and I didn’t expect to grow to love these characters so much when this seemed like just an angry smutfest. (But don’t they all, lol.) These guys have definitely reached a turning point here, where things are better, but worse, but better, but worse, and I hope they’ve left you mostly satisfied but also excited for the second half of their journey! See you in The Brat & The Beast Book Two, Comfort Me, Daddy!

If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review or a star rating on Amazon, or scream about it to your reader friends! Reviews and word of mouth are the best ways to help other readers find content they love and to make books more visible. It really makes a big difference.

You can find all of my current titles here on Amazon and I also share some of my own favorite kinky MM book recs on my website and on Bookbub, so follow me and check those out! We can never have enough books, right?

Happy Reading!

Misha

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SEXY, SNARKY, SPANKY MM ROMANCE

Misha Horne is an over-caffeinated, antisocial author who loves staying inside, never answering the phone, and forgetting the entire world exists while they write.

Misha writes about kinky, complicated guys who overthink everything, make lots of bad decisions anyway, and fall in love in spite of themselves— because that’s the kind of representation they want to see in romance. (And it’s pretty much the only stuff they know anything about lol.)

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