Page 53 of Striking Range

There is movement on the other line, as if he himself is moving into another room, seeking privacy. I can hear the anxiety in my own voice.

“You’re at Skylar Parish’s?” he asks, and I make an affirmative sound in response. “Good, that’s good. Well, stop messing around. We need you to come home for dinner. The Johnstons are coming over, and they’ve been asking about you. Come early so you can dress appropriately for the occasion.”

“Sure.”

He is silent for a moment before he says, emotionlessly, “See you then.”

And the line goes dead.

Well, that went better than I had anticipated. Mr. Johnston works at the firm with Ash—he’s influential, and the type of man Ash feels the need to impress. The very family the Carmichaels spend so much time and money trying to convince of their worth.

I am to be polite, impressive but not too flashy, and quiet unless prompted. That is my role at a Carmichael dinner party. A trophy son.

I have been conditioned to play the part well.

I find my way back to the common area of Skylar’s apartment, spotting him where he sits next to my half-empty plate, eating his own breakfast. As I approach the bar, he eyes me curiously.

“I have dinner tonight. I need to leave in a few hours,” I tell him, and he shrugs.

“Want to hit the gym first?”

An unknown amount of time spent watching Skylar lie on a bench press, sweaty and red, or grunting under a dumbbell?

“Definitely,” I reply, no hesitation involved.

I guess we are not going to acknowledge what happened between us last night. He probably doesn’t want to rehash the details of him pleading with me to stave off his orgasm, or how he demanded I give him my pleasure. It’s probably for the best.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it—the reality of the situation. What enjoying it so much says about me and what it means for the future I have carved out for myself.

If this mold I have so carefully been shaped into cracks and breaks apart, I don’t think I’ll be able to get up so easily.

And plus, if I start recalling what he felt like, what he sounded like sitting on that bed as he came in my mouth, I don’t know if I’d be able to leave his apartment.

Skylar turns to look at me, those pouty lips tilting up into a smirk as if he lives inside of my head and can hear every little dirty thought I’m having about him.

“Great,” he remarks. “Let’s finish eating and get ready, then.”

I take my seat next to him, but I’ve lost my appetite. Between the memories of last night, the anxiety of going home, and the desire I feel just looking at Skylar, my body feels like a switchboard lit up—I’m on high alert.

And just to torture me, to make matters worse, he keeps pressing the side of his thigh into mine. Ever since his twenty-second birthday, he’s grown quite nicely into his sexuality. I wonder if it was that kiss, that moment with Kelly, that really ignited something in him and made him so insatiable.

Because now he wants to try new things, expand his horizons, and experience new pleasures. And at the end of the day—it doesn’t have to be with me, does it? Skylar is horny and repressed. That is why he wanted me to touch him. Not because he likes me.

And I’ll keep telling myself this, even as it crushes and dismantles me to think about it, to feel it.

Something hot burns inside of me; something ugly that is becoming so uncomfortably familiar with every passing day. That alter ego of mine is screaming to be set free. It’s disgusting.

Skylar is not mine—I’m not allowed to want him—yet I feel the need to burn the world down around him just to prevent the passing breeze from grazing his skin.

I’m pathetic.

I swallow this realization down and reply, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Chapter Twelve

Everett Young

I can already tell that dinner with the Johnstons is going to be a long, draining affair.