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No. That was not happening, not now, not ever.
I quickly pulled myself upright, which unfortunately meant that he was suddenly sitting in my lap, and our bodies were way too close for comfort. Even so, I got in his face, my hair brushing against his forehead as I spoke through gritted teeth.
“Yeah? I’d like to see you try. I can and will fight back, and you’ll look and feel a whole lot worse than you do now.Asshole.”
He scrambled off me, wincing as he did so, his hand gingerly clasping his chest. The remorse that I’d pushed away hit me again, along with a vivid flashback of his wrecked car and his face, pale and shaken, no matter how much he’d tried to hide it.
“Huxley. I—”
“Save it,” he hissed, making his way to the door. “Just stay the fuck away from me, and don’t take any more shit from my room.”
The door slammed closed behind him, and I fell back onto my bed with a groan, throwing my arm across my face.
I had the feeling that I’d just made things between us a hundred times worse. How did I fix it? Did I even want to fix it?
* * *
It was no surprise that I hadn’t been able to fall asleep. At two in the morning, I decided to go down to the kitchen and make a hot chocolate, something I vaguely remembered my mum doing for me a few times when I was little and had trouble falling asleep.
I flipped on the cooker hood light rather than blinding myself with the overhead lights and screamed at a pitch I hadn’t achieved since my balls had dropped.
Huxley burst out laughing as I collapsed back against the oven, my heart beating out of my chest at the sudden shock of seeing him standing there. I could only stare at him. I’d never even seen him smile, let alone laugh. It transformed his entire face. With the animosity temporarily gone, he looked… He looked like someone I’d—No.
“Why the fuck were you standing there in the dark? I’m too young to die of a heart attack.”
He didn’t answer, his laughter dying away as he appeared to realise that all I was wearing was a pair of tight black boxer briefs. His gaze tracked across my body as he shifted on his feet, and there was something in his eyes that made my breath catch in my throat.Fuck. I cast around for something that would get his eyes off me. As my gaze lowered, I noticed two things. Firstly, he was also in a similar state of undress. That would have been epically bad, for various dick-related reasons, but the second thing I noticed put everything else out of my mind. He was holding a bag of ice to his chest, and above the top of the bag, I could see the bruising, so dark against his pale skin.
I’d hurt him there, when he’d already been hurt. I’d made it worse.
“Huxley. I’m sorry.” My voice was scratchy and loud in the silence. “I didn’t mean—”
“Forget about it,” he snapped. “I did just as much to you. And I’m not gonna apologise for it.”
“Yeah, but you were already—”
“I said, forget it.” His jaw clenched. Turning around, he opened the freezer and placed the ice back inside. I didn’t miss his wince.
Ireallyhated feeling bad. Even though he’d been a complete and utter wanker, I shouldn’t have done what I did. “Uh.” Rubbing the back of my neck, I directed my gaze at the floor. “I’m making a hot chocolate. Want one?”
There was a long pause. His head was still buried in the freezer, but finally, I heard his quietly muttered reply.
“Okay.”
Okay? To be honest, I hadn’t actually expected him to agree. But he had, and now I…now I needed to get my fucking feet to unfreeze from the kitchen floor so I could get to the coffee machine to use the milk frother.
“Can’t sleep either?” Why were words still coming out of my mouth?
He grunted in reply as he closed the freezer door. It was then that I noticed the glass of water and his painkillers on the kitchen island in front of him, along with a tube of bruise relief cream. His pointed glare warned me not to offer to help him with the cream, so instead, I got my legs to unstick from the floor and headed over to the coffee machine to make a start on our hot chocolates. I pulled two slightly chipped blue-and-white-striped mugs from the cupboard, both of which belonged to my mum and had come from our flat, and then got to work.
While I’d been occupied making the hot chocolates, Huxley had disappeared. Carefully carrying the mugs, I padded down the hallway to find him, heading for the lounge. The games room door was open, and there was a sliver of light spilling into the hallway, so I changed direction.
According to David, when he’d shown me around, the games room had once been Huxley’s playroom when he was a kid. As he grew older, they’d adapted it, and now the small room contained a huge TV and two games consoles, along with a large squashy black leather sofa and a bookcase full of a combination of books and PlayStation and Nintendo games. The walls had posters of bands and concerts, and a guitar stand was placed in one corner, along with a stool, microphone, and small amp.
When I entered, I saw Huxley curled up on the sofa with the TV remote in his hand, illuminated by a tiny lamp on top of the bookcase. He didn’t look up, but I knew that he knew I was there because his shoulders tensed.
“Here’s your hot chocolate,” I said, stating the obvious as I carefully placed his mug on the small coffee table in front of the sofa. When I straightened up to leave, he cleared his throat.
“I’m gonna watch something. You…you can stay…if you want.”
