Page 77 of A Tragic Melody

“Fuck!” he yells, lifting his arm to his face. “Are you serious?”

“Talk shit about her again and I won’t stop at punching you in the face.”

“Wow. You’re soft for her.” He laughs, still rubbing his face. “Pathetic.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I turn, tugging Tuesday to her feet again.

“You punched him,” she mutters, leaning against me. “For me.”

“Yeah.” I sigh. My hand stings, but I flex the fingers for a moment before I move to scooping Tuesday up.

“I’m so tired,” she whispers, resting her head against me.

I carry her out the building, knowing I’m not helping myself by punching Michael for her. Carrying her to the bus is only going to make things worse, but I can’t help it.

It doesn’t matter, anyways. I’m done after this. Might as well try to convince her she is worth more.

I take her to her bunk. She’s barely conscious at this point. I reach down, sliding off her heels and she murmurs something before trying to take off her skirt.

“Just sleep.”

She shakes her head slightly, her own fingers attempting to push down her skirt.

I bat her hand away and she moans a protest until I take to tugging her skirt down. She tries to lift her head up, but can’t.

“Hot,” she mumbles.

Sighing again, I lift her back up, holding it with one hand as I reach down and carefully tug her shirt up over her head. I gently set her back down on the bed. My eyes gaze over her body, bare except for a thong and bra.

My cock aches in my pants at the sight in front of me, and that’s not good. She is fucked up, and I shouldn’t be finding her attractive right now. Not when she is like this.

“Stay?” she mutters, eyes blinking open just slightly before closing again.

“No.” I lean down, brushing some hair from her face. “Sleep, Tues. I’ll see you in the morning.” I gently roll her on her side before walking away.

I grab a cold can of soda from the fridge before plopping down on the couch. Examining my hand, I notice a few tiny cracks in the skin. The knuckles ache a little, a mixture of all the playing I’ve been doing and the punch, but still.

I shouldn’t have swung at Michael. It was too great a risk.

I lean back, holding the can over my knuckles.

I know the rumor is I’m sleeping with her. It doesn’t help my future, but I’m already doomed, so I don’t care. I find myself wishing it was true more often these days, but I’m not sure what would happen if we let things get to that point.

So far, Hendricks hasn’t said anything about the rumors. So either he doesn’t know, or he knows they aren’t true. If we actually did have sex, I’m not sure we’d be able to hide it well enough to avoid him showing up to end me.

Plus, I know if I fuck her when she is high, I will lose myself in it. It would be far too easy for me to give into temptation. I’d want to be on her level, I’d break. I’d use again, and my life would truly be over.

Still, it took all my effort to not crawl into that bunk with her and hold her. I definitely wouldn’t have fucked her, but holding her again would lead us there. She’d wake up in the morning, and I wouldn’t be able to stop her once she started touching me.

“Hey,” Quinn says, walking onto the bus. “Did you get Tuesday to sleep okay?”

“Yeah.” I nod.

“Fingers hurt?” He nods to the can on my hand.

“I punched Michael.” I shrug. “So yeah.”

“You punched Michael?” He laughs. “Why?”