The few other guys training in the gym all stare at me.
Fenrir lets go of me. “Well. I’m guessing you didn’trandomlyask me to spar, huh.”
I let out an ugly laugh. “No.”
The last thing I want to do is talk about Pandora or the way she’s fucking with my head. I pull my gloves off, staring down at my hands.
I shouldn’t have lost my temper.
I shouldn’t have acted likehim.
It hadn’t even felt good to throw a punch, not like it usually does when I’m on the mat and my opponent is ready to give as good as he gets.
Fenrir hands me my water bottle. “I think we’re done for today,” he says. “Let’s hit the showers.”
He sounds so calm, especially against the heat that’s clawing at me and demanding that I lash out at him for holding me back from doling out more blows. It doesn’t matter that the asshole I’d punched hadn’t deserved it.
It only matters that I need an outlet for the violence before I really do turn it on the wrong person.
“I wasn’t done yet,” I mutter, but I let him lead me in the direction of the showers anyway. I pass the guy I’d punched on the way. He gives me a dark look, but I ignore him as I grab my bag from my locker.
I notice I have several texts, and I let out an irritated sigh.
Asch
Did Blaze get someone to deliver the groceries, or do I need to pick them up?
I’ve got a separate text thread going with Blaze, and that one pops up with a new message too.
Blaze
Tell Asch he has mail. If he doesn’t remove it from the kitchen by tonight I’m tossing it.
I keep thinking they’ll get over their stupid argument, but it’s been going on for several days already and shows no sign of letting up. Asch keeps asking me things he’d ordinarily ask Blaze about, and Blaze keeps getting me to play messenger pigeon.
I’m tired of it, but I don’t want to piss Blaze off right now.
Just like Asch, I don’t buy for a second that the basement had anything innocuous in it. There’s some big secret, and I need to know what it is. If Blaze thinks I’m more trustworthy, more capable of handling the truth, it’s possible that he’ll let me in on it.
It’s a long shot that it has anything to do with Rachel; he and Asch had seemed genuinely confused when I’d asked them about her what seems to be a lifetime ago. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s important.
I fight back the urge to tell Asch to ask Blaze himself anyway, instead dutifully texting both of them with their respective messages before shoving my phone back into my duffel bag.
I head into the showers, choosing the stall the farthest away from the locker room, and I exhale heavily. Fuck. Why did everything have to get so complicated?
The water pounds heavily onto my shoulders, and the heat of it feels good. I soap up my body, lingering when I reach my cock. That’s one thing that could relieve some of the tension, and I stroke myself into hardness.
Of course the first thing that pops into my mind is Pandora.
She’d been weirdly… sweet at the funeral.
Strange.
But not angry, not crying, not broken.
I imagine Pandora sliding into the shower stall. It would be just like her, to sneak into the men’s locker room to terrorize me. And she’d probably get on her knees on the hard tile and tease me.
Torment me.
