All there.
See? I don’t need to move. Everything is fine here. My roommate’s a quiet guy who keeps to himself, and I’ve beenbuilding a conspiracy out of nothing because that’s what my brain does. I need to relax.
I grab my laundry basket off the floor, determined to get something done today, and I’m almost out the door when I notice something is wrong.
Shirt, jeans, socks, sweats, more socks. I go through it, and then I go through it again because I know what I’m looking for.
What’s missing.
My Spider-Man boxers are gone.
Nate got them for me for Christmas, a whole pack of superhero boxers. And I acted mad, even though we both know I secretly loved them.I put them in the dirty clothes after the gym. I know I did.
And they’re not there.
I sit on the edge of my bed, and I stare at the wall. He took myunderwear. That’s not a pencil. That’s not picking up the wrong notebook. That’s going through my dirty laundry and taking something that touched mybody.
Lying back, I stare up at the ceiling, trying to breathe the way my therapist showed me, the one Nate made me see for an entire year after what happened.
It doesn’t work this time.
I pick up my phone, the screen blurry from the steady stream of tears that have been falling since I sat down, and open Mike’s text thread.
Alex: I’ll take the room.
Three seconds after I set my phone down on my chest, it buzzes.
Mike: Yay!
That makes me laugh, even with everything going on. Just once, a short, surprised bubble of laughter than I don’t expect.
Eventually, I manage to fall asleep, my phone cradled tight against my chest.
Chapter 3
Before
“Hey, Wesley!” A voice calls from behind me, where I’m waiting against Nate’s truck. I don’t turn my head, assuming it’s one of the members of the football team calling for my brother.
I don’t acknowledge the voice until he’s right in front of me.
Up close, number seventeen,Jason,isn’t that much bigger than me, even though he seems like he is on the field. He’s maybe an inch taller, but muscular enough to be intimidating.
He’s been watching me.
I’ve been to three practices in a row, mostly to confirm my suspicions. That I hadn’t made it up in my head, some weird attempt at finding someone like me in this town.
But no matter how I try to spin it, Jason Barnett, the captain of the Rosehill Rams, has been watchingme.
“Um. Hi.”
Now
I recruited Nate to help me move in, so naturally, Iris is helping too. Which means I spend the drive over feeling significantly less looming dread, and more disgusted by how in love they are.
But it helps. Even though I act like they drive me crazy, being around them makes me feelsafe. I know they won’t let anything happen to me.
We’ve got the truck loaded up with the boxes I packed this morning and the new mattress we picked up. I’ve been trying not to think too hard about what I’m doing. I’m not moving in with the hottest person that ever lived, who may or may not also sleep with men.
