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Chapter 18
April
IT WAS finals week again, but this time everything was different.
This time, I knew to load up empty containers with D-Hall food at breakfast so I’d have snacks all day. This time, I knew to make a schedule so I spaced out everything that was due to make it more manageable. This time, I knew to take the week off from Mug Shots so I didn’t lose my mind with stress and explode my heart with caffeine.
And this time I was studying at Will’s in the evenings because I spent most evenings there anyway.
“Okay,” I said, dropping my backpack on the couch and throwing myself over Will’s lap exhaustedly, needing just a little bit of a cuddle before starting in on the last push of writing and studying before this year was over.
Will ran his hand through my hair, and I nuzzled his hip.
“Hmm?”
“We’ve figured it out. Milton and Charles are getting a place, and probably Thomas, if he can convince his brother to stay in the city, which he thinks he can. And if I go in on it with them, then my rent’ll be affordable. Ish. I can get a bunch of hours at Mug Shots after my physics lab hours, and it’ll be totally fine. I won’t have to go back to Holiday.”
I said this last mostly to myself, since I didn’t think I’d even mentioned the possibility of it to Will.
Will’s hand had stilled in my hair, resting along the curve of my scalp, and I pressed into his palm, hoping he’d start rubbing my head again.
“Isn’t Thomas the one who’s in love with you?” Will asked.
I started to explain that, no, it had just been a crush and I was sure he was past it now. But instead I pitched my voice softly near his ear. “Jealous?” Then I kissed him on the cheek before he could answer, and eased away to do my work.
THE NEXT evening, I was working on my Cultural Foundations II paper, but I was hopelessly distracted. Everything in the apartment seemed more interesting than Dante, especially Will, working at the drafting table next to me. I could smell him every now and then when he’d reach his arms up to stretch his shoulders or recross his legs. The sinews of his forearm tensed as he drew, and his hair seemed perfectly arranged to torment me with the shadow it cast beneath his cheekbone.
“Eyes on your own paper, young Leo,” he said without looking up, and I realized I was staring at the curve of his biceps that his white T-shirt revealed. I looked down at my work with a little shiver; Will’s half-amused, half-scolding voice just did things to me.
A few minutes later, Will pressed his hand to my thigh, just above my knee, and I became aware that I’d been bouncing it.
“You’re shaking the whole floor, babe.” He rapped my thigh with the pencil he still held and turned back to his work.
“Sorry,” I muttered. I leaned back in my chair, the front two legs coming off the ground, and closed my eyes for just a minute, letting the sounds from outside—traffic and birds and a song in Spanish—filter in.
Hands on my shoulders pushed the chair back onto all four legs, and Will said, “Would you do your damn work? I can feel how distracted you are from two feet away.” I made a pathetic groaning complaint and tried to rest my head back on his chest for some sympathy, but he just tapped the desk in front of me with that damn pencil, his breath ghosting the back of my neck. I shifted in my chair.
“Ummm, this should probably not turn me on, but I love it when you’re so fucking bossy,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“Is that right?” Will drawled, his voice taking on an edge. “What do you love about it?”
“Uh….” Was he serious?
I craned my neck to look behind me. He let go of my shoulders and sat down, looking at me.
“Tell me why it turns you on when I’m bossy, Leo.”
My face and neck got hot. I wasn’t sure why exactly, only that it somehow felt like when Will made decisions for me that he was exerting some kind of ownership over me. Like by deciding that I was his to order around, he was decided that I was just… his.
Then there was the way his eyes burned when I told him no. How he liked to push my buttons, liked to see how far he could go before I’d stop him. How much I would give him. But my mouth didn’t currently seem to be connected to my brain, so when I opened it all that came out was an inarticulate noise from the back of my throat.
“Do you like when people tell you what to do, Leo?” His voice was filthy. “You got a little hot-for-teacher action going on?”
