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He drops his keycard on his desk and toes off his shoes. I watch him from the corner of my eye.
“You going home today?” he asks.
“No. I’m staying. I have an exemption.”
“Oh.” He stands there staring at me, until I want to squirm. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask. But that’s a friend question.”
“Quinn—”
I don’t look at him.
“Quinn, for fucks sake, look at me.”
Reluctantly, I shift my eyes to his face.
“We were friends. Weren’t we?” he asks. “Until I fucked it all up. I lied before…that night you got drunk…” He clears his throat like there is something stuck in it. “You told me you liked me. You kissed me. So when things—escalated—I let them, because I liked you, too. But I can’t do anything serious right now, and that’s what you deserve. But I never wanted you to pull away because of it. I…shit. Quinn. I miss you. I miss us.”
My eyes burn, and I pray to whatever God that doesn’t exist I don’t cry. Hell, if I don’t cry, maybe I’ll start believing in the mythical guy.
“That’s a lot of words before noon.” I close the notebook. Aligning my pens next to it. “You don’t miss me. You miss the tutoring. You miss having someone to fawn over you. You don’t get to dump this…whatever it is on me because you stayed out all night and feel guilty about it.”
“That’s not—”
“You told me not to have feelings for you. I followed the assignment. Now you’re mad I got an A. I excel at everything.” I throw out my hands.
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re something.” I stand and know it’s a mistake the second I do it. He’s right there, and standing only puts me closer to the one thing I have been trying not to look at. “Friends don’t lie about how they feel and then use the truth like some kind of hall pass when they get lonely.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because it sounds a lot like you want credit for finally being honest.”
He steps in, crowding me until my legs hit the edge of my desk. The wood bites the back of my thighs. He doesn’t touch me yet. He just steals all of the available air between us.
“Tell me you don’t feel anything,” he says. Quiet. Not kind. “Say it like you mean it and I’ll go take a shower and leave you alone for break.”
I should say it. I’ve even practiced them for weeks.
“I feel plenty,” I say instead, my voice coming out vicious and angry. “I feel like some kind of messed up experiment for you. A boy who didn’t know how to feel sexual attraction for anyone. And you were determined to make sure I felt it for you. Do you get some kind of sick satisfaction out of it? I feel like the backside of a joke who sat in your lap and thought it might actually mean something. I feel like an idiot. That’s not the same as missing you. Not even close.”
His eyes drop to my mouth.
“Liar.”
Then his lips are on mine.
Only, it’s nothing like the lessons. There’s no closed mouth first, no breathing-through-my-nose lecture. He takes my face in both hands and kisses me like his life depends on it. It’s desperate and persistent, and my mouth opens beneath him, because my body is a traitor. I make a sound I have grown to hate. His thigh slots between mine and the desk at my ass is the only reason I don’t slide to the floor.
He breaks the kiss and trails kisses down my throat. Nipping and sucking at the skin. My head tips back without permission, and my hands fist in his shirt like I might push him away, and then I don’t.
“Daniel—”
“Tell me to stop.”
I don’t.
