Page 42 of The Devil Takes

Percy

I got my stuff moved in

Tommy

Dude! Wtf

Percy

?

Tommy

I was supposed to help you

Percy

Didn’t need help

Tommy

I hate you sometimes ??

I snorted at my phone, a smile pulling at my lips as I flopped onto my mattress and watched Tommy’s speech bubble blink in and out for several minutes. He’d offered to help cart my shit across campus when he was out of work, but I hadn’t wanted to wait.

Waiting would mean delaying the inevitable, and I wasn’t ready for that.

Tommy

Are you coming to my room tonight, or am I coming to yours?

I chewed on my lip. As much as I thought Brett was a pretty cool dude after the whole rescuing me from my dad thing—I couldn’t forget the way he’d fucked with me to get Tommy’s number. I didn’t really know what would happen if Tommy decided to come over to the house—worried he’d start calling everyone dick-o-nauts, or force me to let him paint my toes again—so I figured it was better to keep those two sides of my life separate, even though I felt kinda shitty doing that to him.

Cut the woe-is-me bullshit, I chastised myself. Except talking to myself only made me feel more pathetic.

I felt pretty pathetic in general, actually, especially because I missed Tommy, even though I’d seen him literally two hours ago. He’d petted my head and fed me donuts, and I wasn’t sure when the next time we’d get to do that would be. I wasn’t sure I was worth the effort, even for the short trek across campus. When he showed up at my new house a few hours later carting a giant pizza box and a two-liter of Mountain Dew, huffing about having to walk all the way over, I knew we’d be alright.

Moving made me nervous, which I hadn’t expected. I didn’t do well with change, which became even more apparent as the months blurred together, winter becoming spring, becoming summer.

Living at my new house was normal enough. The guys steered clear of me for the most part like they always had. Not because they knew about me—Brett had sworn to me he wouldn’t tell—but because I was a bit of a basket case nowadays. That itching feeling beneath my skin had only grown worse the more time had passed. That paired with my Dad’s radio silence and the fact that my brother, Marv, had texted me at the beginning of the new semester and told me not to come home for a while till Dad cooled off, was enough to make me sick to my stomach pretty much all the freaking time.

At least Tommy and I were still solid, even though lately he’d been annoying me.

I’d worried about that, especially during those first weeks with us living on opposite sides of campus. Worried we’d drift apart like two logs floating down a stream. The more off-kilter I felt, the more I realized I still needed his sunshine in my life. It was really the only sunshine I had, other than my plants.

Work at the greenhouse was steady enough. Spring and summer were the busy months and I worked overtime with Mr. Becker most weekends. Sometimes Mrs. Becker would even pop by and feed us pizza, and that was kinda the highlight of my entire fucking life. Even if she did insist I use napkins, and brought like a gallon of hand sanitizer with her.

I liked the plants the most, but the Beckers were cool too.

Even though usually things were pretty good between us, even Tommy stressed me out sometimes. As much as his presence soothed me, he always had to throw in these random comments about the guys from the frat. He seemed to think Brett especially was hiding something, which I reassured him, more than once, couldn’t be the case. Brett was a good dude. He hadn’t batted an eye when I’d told him I was an omega. Hadn’t treated me any different, other than to help me with my dad. I’d lived with him for months now and I’d never seen so much as a red flag outside of that thing last winter with Tommy’s number.

It hadn’t taken long for me to forgive that either, since Brett had apologized two weeks later. No one ever said sorry to me, so I’d been a bit blindsided, though appreciative.

Tommy was convinced he was lying, though, and it made it real fucking awkward sometimes. I didn’t know what to do when he got all heated about it, so I just shut down and shut off. Let him talk his fill and tuned him out as I watched The Office reruns on his laptop, both of us cramped on his tiny bed, while I waited for him to stop.

On nights like those I’d head home, crawl beneath my blankets, and when I’d close my eyes, I’d wake up beside Haden.

Sometimes it felt like the twisted up feelings inside me were the reason I searched for him in my dreams. The more I visited him, the easier it became to do so again, my soul sifting through shadow till I caught the string of whatever bond bound us together and followed its path through the dark toward him.