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“Dude, she wanted to help. She’s like an inside line, so we learn about everything they dig up.”
“Godamnit, Ethan.” He rubs his face roughly. “There’s nothing to dig up. I know how desperate you are to prove I’m a good person, to tell yourself you were the one that saw through the mask.” He kicks the toe of my sneaker with his. “News flash: I’m still not a good person, no matter how many times you ask. No matter who you pay to fabricate shit that will make me look that way.”
“I didn’tpayher for anything. All I’m trying to do is help you.”
His face hardens. “You want me to be honest with you when you lie like that? Don’t pretend you did it for anyone but yourself and your savior complex. Am I your next mom? You couldn’t help her, so now you’re obsessed with me?”
It’s not even the worst thing he’s ever said, but it stings the deepest. I stand, so he has to lean back to look up at me. “I told you once that you’ve never given me a single reason to trust you. You say so much shit to me that sounds so good, like we really have something, but that’s the one thing you still haven’t done. Not once.”
He shakes his head slowly, a hard smirk twisting his mouth as he gets to his feet. “You’re the one who thought there was something to trust in the first place.”
As he pushes past me and disappears, it sinks in that those could have been our last words to each other. It’s only a matter of time before stupid promises and pointless games can't hold us together in the face of this.
The depression my anxiety spawned yesterday gets heavier and heavier as I waste the rest of the day. I call Mom, hiding the edge in my voice, and get a slow start on packing my things.
After that, I lie on my back for a long time, dozing in and out of a sulky, aching sleep, wishing I had the energy to at least go sightseeing. And with every minute that passes, I get angrier at this whole mess, bitterness climbing up my throat to choke me until I want to start hitting walls and pretending they’re that prick’s face.
I finally get my energy back just as it’s starting to get dark. Even though my feet are still killing me, my body is begging for something physical, any way to vent frustration. Since I don’t have anything better to do, I put in earbuds and change into running shorts before making my way outside and stretching on the quiet front steps in the twilight.
As I settle into a jog, most of my attention is focused on remembering the landmarks I pass, so I don’t get lost on the way back. Between my concentration and the earbuds, it takes me almost thirty minutes to realize there’s another runner fifty feet or so behind me. If they were a serial killer, I’d be bloody chunks in the trunk of their car by now.
I slow a little, glancing over my shoulder, and recognize the flash of pink and the shock of light, curly hair. The fucker can’t leave me in peace.
In a burst of energy, I pick up my pace. Before I can think about it, I start making abrupt turns, one after another, half-trying to lose him and mostly succeeding in losing myself. Sometimes he’s closer and sometimes he’s further away, but he’s always somewhere behind me.
I’m so focused on looking for twisty streets where I can shake him off that I don’t notice it’s completely dark now. I take out my earbuds and listen to the rubber slap of my sneakers on pavement, the rush of my breath, trying to hear his footsteps.
There’s a new edge to the night, the excitement of a chase burning through my blood, igniting my anger into something heady. When I emerge from a tangle of alleys, he’s no longer behind me and I slow to a walk, gasping.
I stop, hold my breath. Nothing.
Just as I turn up a narrow, dark street, hoping it will lead me back the way I came, a body flies out of the shadows and slams into me, throwing me against the nearest wall hard enough to send pain shooting through my shoulder.
Victor circles me, trying to catch his breath, eyes bright on me as I drop into a defensive crouch. I realize a second too late that he’s cornered me in a dead end and I’ve backed right into it. We stare at each other, panting, bodies tense and buzzing
I feint to his right, then dodge to the left at the last minute, trying to throw him off balance. My foot slips on the damp cobbles and he goes for my legs, like he’s going to wipe me out. I have to jump to get clear, stumbling away. “You don’t want to fuck with me tonight,” I growl.
He charges, his shoulder barreling into my chest as he slams me into the wall. His body’s all over mine, rough, sweaty, searching for my mouth, shoving me every time I move.
“Tonight we’re doing it like we fucking hate each other. Like it used to be.” He groans when I grab his junk through his shorts. “Tell me how you want to hurt me. Tell me how I make you feel like shit.”
I grab his shoulders and spin him around, face-first to the dirty concrete with all my weight against his back. “That’s right,” he hisses as I yank down the back of his shorts.
Anger and helplessness and desire melt together into a white-hot, burning chaos that has no name. “Why does it have to be this way, Victor? Why do you fucking do this to me? Why am I not fucking good enough?” I push my face roughly into his neck, working at his hole with a dry finger, rubbing my erection against his ass.
He tips his head back, exposing his neck to my teeth, and forces a hand into my boxers, squeezing my swollen cock, stroking it raw and desperate. “Because I don’t need your help. I want you to leave me the fuck alone and never come back.”
We fuck silently and viciously in the dark, scraping against the wall, all hard heat and struggle. Then we run back to the hotel without speaking, go upstairs, and do it again.
I give him exactly what he wants, sucking him off and then pushing his face down into the bed, pounding him, making him wait so long to come that he’s frantic but too angry to beg which makes me blow so hard my balls ache like hell. I throw him onto his back and make him fuck my fist until he comes all over himself with a hoarse sob.
We fall asleep on opposite edges of the bed with a wall of pillows between us to stop our treacherous bodies from seeking out the comfort neither of us deserve. But when I wake up in the morning, he’s asleep with his arm sticking through the pillows, holding on to my shirt. And I don’t know if he did it in his sleep or when he was awake.
One more night. One more way to pretend. One more game that doesn’t feel like a fucking game anymore.
