But I do what I always do and try to ignore the feelings bubbling in my chest. “I have three pages left. And the intro took me forty minutes, so.”
In the middle of my sentence, he must get bored, because he starts to kiss me again, trailing up to my ear, nibbling on my earlobe.
And I didn’t realize my ears were sensitive, but they definitely are. “Stop,” I say, going for forceful, but it comes out helpless. “I’m trying to concentrate, man.”
He does it again, his breath puffing against me in a way that makes me squirm, and I know he notices, because I can feel him smile.
That’s it.
I reach back and shove him away hard enough that he stumbles back with a laugh, catching himself on my bed. “You suck.”
“You know it.” He counters, standing up to lean against my desk, arms crossed, grinning down at me with thatfacethat has caused me nothing but trouble since September. “Come to my show. Please.”
I look down at my essay. Three pages due in five hours. And I already have plans to go out tonight. Ryan won’t be happy if I cancel on him again.
“I really can’t come, Mike. I already have plans with Ryan.” His nose scrunches up, the way it always does when Ryan comes up.
“He can come,I suppose.”
“Fine. I guess I can stop by for a little while,” I relent because there was no chance of me getting out of this to begin with.
“Yay,” he exclaims with a little clap that Ido notfind adorable. “You’re not allowed to run out in the middle of the set this time either,” he adds, pointing at me.
Oh.
I forgot about that.
He raises his eyebrows, and I realize in that moment thatheremembers everything.
“I had a reason,” I mutter, looking down at my lap.
“What reason?”
I don’t respond. I’m not going to.
“Alex.” He steps forward, running his hand through my hair, pulling enough to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “What reason?”
“I was hard.”
“You were hard,” he repeats, making my cheeks heat up even more.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Watching me on stage made you hard.”
“Yes. Can we move on?”
He nods, but he’s still smiling in a way that makes all of me light up inside when he lets my hair go. “We leave at nine. Finish your essay.”
He’s almost out the door when I call after him. “It better be a good song.”
“It’s the best song I’ve ever written.”
“I still don’t get why we have to go to this,” Ryan complains for the tenth time tonight.
“He’s my roommate. And he’s letting me rent the room for basically nothing. The least I can do is go to one of his gigs if heasks.” It’s not the full truth, but it sounds better thanhe wrote me a song.
The bar they’re playing at tonight is packed. And I’m regretting not coming with Mike the way he wanted, because now it’s five minutes until ten and we can barely see the stage through all of the bodies in front of us.
