I purse my lips and finally just say it because holding back is not my style. “You guys are driving me fucking crazy. The way you both keep touching me.” I set the book down next to Seb’s leg and look between them. “I’m so horny I could scream. Are you guystryingto edge me?”
Seb pushes himself up to sit next to me. B doesn’t say a word. He’s busy playing with a fidget spinner that makes a soft whirring noise.
“Can you please stop playing with that fucking thing?” Seb demands.
B looks up in surprise. “Sorry, I forget that I’m doing it.”
“Can’t you ever sit still?”
“Undiagnosed ADHD, remember? So nope.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Seb mutters, and B sticks out his tongue.
“Look,” I cut in, nerves kicking up the acid in my stomach, “the chemistry between us is just unbearable, no matter what we seem to do. So can we just talk? Please? Get everything out in the open?”
The guys avoid my gaze.
“This whole sharing thing was Michaels’s idea, so make him go first,” Seb says petulantly, picking at a loose thread on his jeans.
B narrows his eyes. “I only suggested it becauseyoufreaked out this morning.”
Seb leans across my lap, putting himself practically nose tonose with Brantley. “We pretty much had a threesome. Did you expect me to just act like everything is normal?” He air quotes the wordnormal. “Because it’s not, okay? Nothing about us is normal.”
“You, of all people, should get it,” B snarls.
“Why? Because of my stepsister? Lincoln and Trey are best friends. It makes sense for them. You and I? We’re not even close.”
B flinches, hurt registering on his face.
“Jesus, guys, get a room,” I growl, and they turn to look at me in confusion, clearly oblivious to the sexual tension radiating between them. Or maybe it’s just me. I press my hands to their chests, forcing them apart. Then, I give Sebastian a pointed look. “Sebastian, that was too mean.” Seb looks the other way with a childish huff. “B, you want this to work; I know you do.” Seb stiffens next to me. “So please try not to take Seb so seriously. He gets defensive when he’s uncomfortable.”
There’s a break in the music, and all I hear is the the old grandfather wall clock ticking purposefully until B finally clears his throat. “I…I don’t know where to start.” He scoots back so that he can face us, then pulls his legs to his chest.
A chill sweeps through my body.
He looks like he did the night we broke up: eyes dark and swimming with guilt and indecision. And not for the first time, I wonder if I should have let him back in so easily. But did I? This isn’t a relationship, right? Giving each other pleasure for comfort is hardly forgiveness.
My mouth thins as I watch him expectantly.
“I told you,” B says. “My dad controlled everything. He has since I was a kid, and I didn’t know how to stand up to him. I was terrified of letting him down, and I let it ruin everything.” He drops the fidget spinner as his hands start to shake. “Around him, I felt like this helpless little kid. I don’t know how to explain it, but he had so much power over me. It was like I wasbrainwashed, and I just—” B’s voice cracks, and Seb shifts uncomfortably at my side. “I just wanted him to love me.”
I shake my head. “You could have told me, Brantley.” My heart stutters with that familiar ache. The same ache I’ve tried to suppress for years. “We could have helped each other. It’s not like I don’t know what it’s like to have a manipulative parent.” My voice comes out a pleading whisper, and Brantley hangs his head, his shoulders slumping forward.
“You think I didn’t want to? I struggled to keep everything separate because what we had—you—changed my perspective oneverything.”
There’s a roaring in my ears, and I look away because all I can feel is my heart shattering all over again, splintering and breaking apart as I relive that moment.
Three years ago, Whitmore University
I walkinto B’s dorm building, waving at a few hockey guys I recognize lounging in the common area as I approach the elevator. Being that all the athletes are housed here, the faint smell of sports gear and sweat always lingers in the air, and I wrinkle my nose as I enter the elevator and ride it up to the fifth floor.
I walk down the hallway, stepping around beer cans and empty liquor bottles. It isn’t always like this, but it’s the end of the year, and this school is full of rich kids who love to do whatever the fuck they want. Case in point, I pass a dorm room with the door wide open. Inside are two guys railing each other while a pair of girls watch.
I shake my head and continue to B’s suite at the end of the hall.
I knock softly as I open the door but don’t get a response. I walk into the room, looking around at the mostly empty space. It’s dark, the only illumination coming from the dusky light filtering through awindow. It smells like beer and cardboard, and I eye the stack of boxes to the right of the door labeled “kitchen shit” and “clothes and stuff” in black Sharpie. I frown when I don’t see B right away, but then I notice his legs sticking out from the other side of the kitchen island.
“B?” I walk around the island. “You got a lot of packing done, and this place is so clean…”
