with my forearm on the door, right above her head, while she pulls back slowly, her teeth gliding against my thumb, and I imagine her mouth lower, right where I want it to be. I unzip my slacks, shove a hand down there, and start easing the pressure she caused. Her eyes trail from my pumping hand, up my torso, so fucking slow, it’s torturous. And when her eyes lock on mine, I realize that ever since she kissed me last year, I’ve compared every girl I’ve been with to her. And whenever I sleep with them, I close my eyes, and I pretend it’s Mia, because it’s the only way I can get off. I tell her all of this—it’s part of the game. And when her eyes widen, fill with something other than lust, I’m quick to realize I’m about to be annihilated.
“You said you haven’t dated in a year,’ she says, pushing me away.
I run both hands through my hair, frustrated. I was so close. To what? I don’t fucking know. “I haven’t dated.”
“So, you just sleep around?” There’s accusation in her tone, and she has no right.
I keep my narrowed eyes on hers. “You’re not allowed to be pissed about that.”
“I’m allowed to feel however I want to feel.”
“Mia, your boyfriend is right outside this fucking door!” I whisper-yell, pointing to the kitchen, and I don’t know why I’m keeping my voice down. Why the fuck am I protecting her?
She’s shaking her head, looking down at the floor. “Lucky I didn’t break up with him when you told me to,” she says, her voice cracking as she looks up at me, eyes filled with unshed tears. “Maybe I’d be just another one of those girls you sleep with who means nothing.”
“You know that’s not what you are to me, Mia. You’re being pathetic right now.”
She scoffs. “I’m pathetic? No, Leo. What would’ve been pathetic is if I did break up with him, and you and I—” she air quotes “—dated.” She pushes off the door and past me, trying to get distance. “I’d be in New York, and you’d be here, and who knows what you’d get up to while I wasn’t around.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re so full of shit. You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I can’t trust what you would or wouldn’t do for me!” she snaps. “Hasn’t that been proven?”
“That’s not fair, Mia,” I mumble, change the subject because it hurts too much to go back there. “You don’t worry about him messing around on you while you’re away for the summer?”
“No,” she’s quick to answer. “I don’t.”
I scoff. “Maybe because he’s a giant fucking nerd who wears sweater vests.”
Everything stops in that moment.
Mia stops moving.
My heart stops beating.
Her tears stop falling.
My breaths stop coming.
Then her lips part, her exhale the only sound in the room. She starts to speak, and then stops, and then lets it all out—though I wish she didn’t. “You sound just like your brothers, Leo.” She smiles, but it’s sad. “And I don’t like it.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Mia
Drake and I have dated for almost a year.
Dated.
As in, we go on dates, and that’s basically as far as it goes. We don’t spend entire days together, or nights, for that matter, and so the fact that he’s here and we have zero plans of what to do is… weird. And intimidating. And he keeps looking at me sideways as if he’s waiting for something, and I don’t know what it is. An admission of my guilt?
Drake lives in student housing with three roommates, so we don’t spend a lot of time alone. And he’s into tech. We don’t even have a flat-screen TV. Or Wi-Fi.
I can’t even drive us into town because Leo took the keys to my grandpa’s truck when he left with Holden right after our little… whatever that was. For the entire day, Drake and I have done nothing but sit. Side by side. On the couch. Holding hands. For hours.
We went through Papa’s DVD collection and finally settled on Rocky. Then we watched Rocky II. Now we’re on to Shawshank Redemption, one of Papa’s favorites. I’m not really watching, though, and I doubt Drake is either.
He runs his thumb along the inside of my wrist, his thumb catching on the clasp of the pale-yellow bracelet. He lifts my hand to get a closer look. “What’s this?”
“It’s… nothing,” I say, covering it with my other hand.
“It’s, like, not what you normally wear. Where’s your real jewelry?”