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I turn to walk away but he grabs my arm again.
“I know you have something going with him. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, like he’s trying to commit you to memory. Like he’d kill me if I touched you when you’re not even his.”
Maybe I am.
My feelings flare to life as I think of the way Rhys looks at me. Like he’s trying to engrave me in his brain with all the intensity and focus of a man possessed. I’m not surprised it didn’t escape Carter’s notice.
The man isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to me.
But, finally, he doesn’t have to be.
I pull my arm out of Carter’s hold once more and put my hands in my coat pockets.
“That’s no longer any of your concern, just like I’m no longer any of your concern. Get your stuff out of my apartment by the end of the day, I don’t want to see you again. You got yourself here, I trust you can get yourself home.” I say, and start walking off.
I pause a few steps away and turn back towards him. He’s still standing in front of the bench, watching me leave, a frown on his face.
This isn’t how I wanted it to end.
I’d wanted closure for the both of us, to be able to move on as friends. Maybe that’s not meant to be, but I don’t want to leave him with any anger or bitterness in my heart.
“Take care of yourself, Carter. Good luck with everything, I really mean that.” I say with a small smile.
I turn back towards the path and walk, feeling a weight lifted off my shoulders from having decisively closed that chapter of my life.
???
I walk into Rhys’ house alone.
Leaving Bellamy at home to go to her ex-boyfriend’s house was a dick move, but I’d needed to come.
Rhys never answered my text canceling practice and didn’t acknowledge the subsequent one I’d sent him asking what he was up to.
I’m pretty sure he’s angry with me for ‘choosing’ to take Carter home with me last night and if he would just answer me, I could explain that he misconstrued this whole thing.
But since he won’t, I’m forced to go to him.
And unaccompanied at that, since the girls are staying with Bellamy to try to cheer her up.
There’s easily hundreds of students here from RCA and other schools, all people desperate to attend one of these legendary parties.
The throng of people makes it impossible to move easily, let alone find him. I make my way through the crowd towards the kitchen when I hear several voices yell his name.
”Let’s go, Rhys!”
It’s coming from outside. I push through the people to a pair of glass doors in the kitchen and out through to the back of the house.
People are crowded tightly around the pool, glasses and beer bottles strewn everywhere as the party rages on.
They’re all looking at something above them.
I follow their line of sight up towards the house and my breath catches in my throat when I see Rhys standing on the railing of a second floor balcony, shirtless and his arms outstretched like a God as he urges people to cheer him on.
His head is bent backwards so I can’t make out his facial expression, but the muscles of his stomach ripple in the moonlight.
He looks superhuman.
Before I can process another thought, he does a jumping flip off the balcony, landing in a cannonball in the pool below him.
