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When Danny searches for the button on my waistband, Rory says sharply, “No. Keep the skirt.” It isn’t the first time he’s made such a request. He catches my intrigued look and says, without shame, “I like you in it.” And of course he would — a strip of purple-blue tartan wound around me, branding me his, the colors belonging to his castle, his ancestors, his heather-filled land.
Obeying, Danny’s palms force my knees to level with the desk. He crouches until all I see is Rory leaning against the chalkboard, watching Danny and me with mild interest. Danny slowly unlaces my black shoes, undoing the silver buckles, before slipping them off my feet. He rises, blocking Rory from view, and I find I can breathe again, if somewhat raggedly. Danny inches along my thighs, fingers stretching underneath my skirt to tug down at my tights. I raise myself from the desk, watching as he pulls softly on the delicate fabric to prevent it from ripping. As Danny rolls the fabric down my legs, the cool wintry air of the classroom hits me instantly and I blow out a steeling breath.
“Cold?” Rory asks nonchalantly, and I find I’m gripping the vibrating toy to keep myself from outright shivering. “Get used to it. You’re only going to get colder when you’re rid of all those clothes.”
I will myself to ignore him. Danny pulls my tights free from my toes, then plants a soft kiss on each of my dangling feet. It’s a brief bud of warmth, lighting me up from inside like a beam hitting a prism at the perfect, rainbow-emitting angle. Danny slowly rises to his feet, glancing over his shoulder at Rory,
“Bra, too?”
“Yep.”
I shake my head at Rory’s blasé tone. Being condescending and showing no sympathy… He’s doing it just to rile me, to get me hot and bothered in ways I wish it wouldn’t — and it always, always works.
Danny moves behind me so that once again I’m facing Rory.
“You wound me with that expression, Weir,” he says mockingly. “Keep glaring. I’m sure it’ll pierce my heart one day.”
“You know, I never quite get what you two are up to,” Danny mutters as he struggles with the hooks on my bra. “Both of you always seem to be on another planet.”
“Shhh,” I say under my breath, wanting the fantasy to continue guilt-free. At the same time, Rory snaps, “D-boy, shut the fuck up.”
“Oh — okay, I get it. Is it some kind of dominant bully fantasy? Because not gonna lie, that one line just gave me a whole lot of flashbacks to a time when you used to say that to me for real.”
“I’m saying it to you for real now,” Rory growls, but Danny brings his mouth to my shoulder and I feel the gentle smile playing across his lips.
Danny humors him with a gentle, “Of course you are,” and Rory’s eyes narrow.
He picks the moment Rory opens his mouth to unclasp my bra instead, letting the straps fall free to the crooks of my elbow, my breasts exposed in class. Rory’s mouth slams shut, his retort dying on his lips, as he admires me, the rules of our game of pretend rapidly evaporating.
As I drop my bra onto the desk, I give Rory a pointed cough.
“Nice tits, Weir,” Rory murmurs, but his words are soft and there’s no brutal punch to them. It sounds like a genuine compliment.
“Yeah, I know you are but what am I?” I retort acidly, trying to compensate and keep this charade going, but this seems to be too much for Rory, whose lips suddenly twitch with bitten-back laughter that makes him break character.
“I’m sorry.” Rory’s gray eyes shine with unshed tears as he tries to control his flickering mouth. He brings his hand to his lips and presses down hard. “I don’t think I can continue like this,” he confesses quietly, shoulders quaking from his hidden laughter, his face boyish and open and perfect. “I’d much rather love you instead.”
Despite it all, my heart melts at his words.
“It’s funny,” Rory says, eyes dancing. “When I first met you, I was all angry and hard and vicious. And you were soft and sweet and… strangely strong. And now I can’t even pretend to be as cruel as I was back then, but you can. At some point, you’ve developed an important skill, little saint.”
At a loss, I ask, “What, being horrible?”
“No. Faking it till you make it,” Rory says. “If you can pretend to be some hard-nosed ball-breaker, then you can be that whenever it’s necessary. You can switch yourself up when needed. I wouldn’t have said that about you even last year.”
Perhaps. Too many betrayals and too much hurt have hardened me in ways I could never have expected. My mother, my school, my new country, Benji. And this — this is how we deal with it, by unshackling all our armor and being vulnerable with a select few. Dopamine, euphoria, arousal, endorphins. It’s all just chemicals in the bloodstream, a way to re-balance the rough, merciless hand we’ve each been dealt.
Danny’s neatly folding my clothes into a small pile on the desk beside me, tucking the edges to make an even square. The egg still buzzes in my enclosed fist, but its sound has changed, this time one long streaming whir, as if Luke and Finlay are trying their utmost to pleasure me from afar, as if persistent dots and dashes may not be the most comfortable way to orgasm.
I gaze up at Rory, suddenly nervous now that it’s just us, with no characters or masks to hide behind. “Should I…?” I raise the egg.
“No.” His voice is firm but not cold.
“But we don’t know how long it’ll keep going.”
“It’ll last,” Rory says, and then adds, “Get on your hands and knees.”
“What?”
