He stops the blender when I run in, stopping myself with the door frame, breathing way too heavy for someone who just woke up. “Are you okay?”
“Um,” he pauses, taking in my current state with a confused squint. “Yes? Are you?”
“You— that guy—” I step closer, going right up to him, my concern outweighing any sort of proper protocol for how to handle this situation. “Did he hurt you?”
He purses his lips, looking up at me with the same eyes that looked at me last night, while another man had his hand wrapped around his dick.
“Why would he hurt me?”
“Because he was a stranger and you let him—” I pause, remembering our confrontation from last week.
Are you trying to imply that I’m a slut?
“What? Fuck me?” He says plainly, finishing my sentence for me. I expect him to be mad again, to storm off, but that would be okay, as long as he’s okay.
But he laughs.
Out loud, full body, perfect smile, laughs.
“Were you really worried about me?” He asks, unable to get control of his laughter, even though I’m not sure what’s so funny. “You came down here all freaked out because you thought I let some rando fuck me, and you were worried about me?”
“Well, yeah, I was worried,” I tell him, completely serious.
“Alex,” he says, hopping up onto the counter, without a single wince. “Am I giving bottom vibes to you?”
“Uh…” I notice for the first time this morning, now that I’m seeing that he really is okay, that he doesn’t have on a shirt again. My eyes stop somewhere around the tattoos I wouldn’t mind tracing with my tongue. What was I saying? “Um… you’re… you know—”
He raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t call me out for the way I’ve been staring at his surprisingly toned torso since he sat on the counter. “I’m what?”
“Isn’t the smaller one the bottom?” I ask genuinely, forcing my eyes away from him. That makes him laugh again, and I still don’t know what’s funny.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, roomie,” he says, hopping off the counter and going back to the blender, turning it on before I can say anything else.
I turn that over in my head all morning.
You’ve got a lot to learn, roomie.
What does that mean?
It takes me until I’m sitting at my desk, procrastinating doing my homework for stats, to remember that we didn’t even talk about last night.
The song, the way he looked at me, the way he had to have seen what it was doing to me. He didn’t feel like we had to talk. He wasn’t even mad.
It all starts to make sense.
He knows.
On some level, he must know how I feel.
Chapter 8
“I think we should get a place.”
“Okay,” Ryan agrees over the phone.
I’ve been hiding since our talk this morning. I don’t have class today since it’s Sunday, and it’s my day off, so there is no escape.
Only my locked door between me andhim.
