I want him. I mean, I have all along, but the fact that I’m not lying to myself about it anymore puts everything on a different level. If theyaretogether, and I tell him that she’s cheating, is the moral high road of being his friend explanatory enough to override the idea that I have something to gain by them splitting?
Not that that is where my concern is at all, but it’s what it’ll look like.
But, as much as this may not be my business, I can’t just let this pass. He deserves better than this. Better than being cheated on, and better than anything I’ve given him so far.
Marcus’s eyes flit over to me, and he raises an eyebrow, probably sensing my discomfort. Uncanny sometimes how he can clock my moods without even having to look at me.
I nod my head in the crowd towards where Imani is, but when I look back, the crowd has swallowed her and Derrick out of view. I frown at the missing proof, then look back at Marcus, who is frowning now.
I clear my face and smile. With them missing in action now, there’s no reason to ruin the event. I’ll tell him about it later.
He slowly gravitates towards me until his arm wraps around my waist and his fingers flex back on my hipbone, like he’s grounding me, and I can’t even say his assumption is wrong.
“Everything alright?” he murmurs in my ear.
“Yeah, just a lot of people,” I tell him, smiling to reassure him.
He smiles back, but I know he doesn’t fully believe me because his arm doesn't leave my waist for the rest of the night. Not gonna lie, I could really get used to this.
After the trick-or-treat event, we all vetoed going to any of the later parties. One overcrowded event is enough for one night, regardless of how amazing it was. Marcus and Tristan have an away game they have to get up early for, and Qi is one of the cheerleaders approved to go with them. However, he was granted a special exemption to drive to the game with me rather than ride in the van with the rest of the squad.
Qi and Tristan disappeared as soon as we got home, and I’d wager a guess that they are currently snuggled up tight in their preferred state of existence in the bathtub. Marcus and I have both showered and de-Halloweenized ourselves, and are curled up on the couch watching some movie I haven’t paid enough attention to even know the name of.
I can’t pretend that one of the highlights of the evening was watching Marcus’s eyes pop when I came down in my wrap-around shirt and matching shorts pajamas just as hard as they’d popped when they saw my costume. I don’t even have to dress up for him to appreciate my aesthetic.
And he isn’t exactly hiding how often his eyes stray to my bare legs, slowly traveling the length of exposed skin, with a gaze so heated that it’s like a physical touch that burns straight through me. Luckily, I’m curled up in a way that hides the very visceral reaction my body has to his blatant attention.
Overall, the night would have been fun if not for the glaringconundrum of seeing Imani with someone else. I mean, on the one hand, if Marcus finds out, then that’ll make him free again, and maybe this time I could try without making an absolute mess of everything. But the fallout, being Marcus getting hurt in a way that is both cruel and disrespectful, sucks all the joy out of that hope like a popped balloon.
In fact, it makes it so heavy that I feel like a shitty person that the thought of her loss being my gain speaks volumes about how heinous a person I am.Sorry, Grant, not swapping that one out; it’s deserved.
Marcus’s arm drops to the back of the couch behind me, and he leans his head towards mine.
“You know, sometimes I have the most unhinged desire to simply crawl inside your head and ferret out the thoughts that make you purse your mouth like that.”
“I don’t purse my mouth,” I huff in response.
Marcus huffs in amusement and reaches over with his spare hand.
“Then why are there creases around your lips here?” he says, touching the edge of my mouth and sending electricity all the way down to my toes.
“Here,” he continues, touching the bottom of my lip, and making my heart stutter in my chest.
“And–ouch!” he hisses as he drags his finger up, and I bite the tip of it, more to maintain some control over myself than anything else, because really, if he continued, I might have just lost it and jumped him.
“Such a feral little kitten,” he teases while shaking out his finger.
I arch an eyebrow over at him. “Did youseriouslyjust call me a feral kitten?”
Marcus arches a brow back. “Did youseriouslyjust bite me like one?” he asks, matching my inflection.
“Marcus!”I hiss at his infernally irritating ‘pain in the ass’ self.
Marcus just leans back and laughs, his head tipping the same way now as it did earlier when I saw him with Imani.
The turmoil I’ve been running around in circles with all evening comes back around, but I know I have to tell him what I saw. Even ifit hurts him for a little while, he can at least move on and heal from it.
Something tells me he’d probably do better in the whole ‘letting go and moving on’ department than I ever did.
