Page 42 of Rent: Paid in Full
It occurs to me later that I no longer know which mug I consider a victory.
Pink or blue.
Dicks or boobs.
Who the fuck knows?
15
Miller
Ryan is wearing agunmetal-gray T-shirt with long sleeves that he’s pushed to his elbows. His forearms look fucking hot. The sun hits them and reflects off the dark hair scattered there. A thick vein tracks down his arm and meanders to the back of his hand. We’re walking to class mostly in silence. Well, he’s silent. I’m talking. Now and again, he rewards me with a bored-sounding, “Hm.”
For some reason, that bored-soundinghmmeans more coming from him than all the lavish attention I get from other people rolled into one. I turn to him and watch as he bats his hair out of his face. Wavy and dark. Unruly like him. My eyes land on his lips, and I find myself unable to look away. I can’t stop thinking about our kiss. I’ve tried and tried. I can’t. I know what they feel like, those lips on mine. That tongue rubbing against mine. They feel good, and more than that, they feel right.
“You know what, bud—”
He cuts me off. “Don’t call me bud.”
“Can I call you baby instead?”
“Definitely not.” It gives me the same good-bad feeling I always get when he rejects me.
My insides spark and start quivering.
I love it.
His face is hard and serious. A horizontal line for a mouth and two tiny vertical ones between his eyebrows. I decide to up the ante. I fall into step with him, taking a quick breath before saying what I’m thinking. No pause, no hesitation. I just spit it out. “I think I have a thing for you.”
He doesn’t skip a beat. “No, you don’t. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yeah, I do. I have a huge thing for you. I think it might be serious.”
“You wouldn’t know a thing for someone other than yourself if it hit you in the face.”
I’m not surprised by his reaction. Far from it. Anything else would have surprised me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting a little. As always with Ryan, it’s the kind of little sting that warms up once it’s landed, sinking into me and twisting something inside me that makes me want more.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I agree in a way that I hope sounds good-natured and reasonable. I’m quiet for a while, leaving him to settle and collect himself, lulling him into a false sense of security. Then I hit him with, “Hey, Ryan, if I don’t have a thing for you, why can’t I stop thinking of you? ‘Cause I can’t. I’ve tried. I think about you all the time.”
He doesn’t answer. I can tell he thinks I’m talking complete shit. Or at least, I can tell that’s what he’s trying to tell himself. Under the thick, knitted brows and all his bullshit, beneath the sharp twitch of his head and the slight huff that accompanied it, I see it. It’s tiny. Microscopic. A slight intake of breath and a slow exhale as he tries not to smile.
Trip and Dean spot us as we cross the quad and come over. Dean greets me with his usual exuberance, and Trip is quick tooffer me some Cheetos. I decline, but Ryan takes a handful and shovels them into his mouth, dropping a few on the grass where he stands. He sees me watching him, squirming in discomfort, when he realizes he’s just been caught doing something nice for someone else.
As he gets ready to head off to his lecture, I swing my arm back and land a little tap on his ass. And by tap, I mean a loud, juicy slap that reverberates through the quad and makes his ass cheek jiggle in the palm of my hand. The rush it gives me to think of his smooth olive skin turning pink in his pants is hard to describe.
Is it wrong of me?
Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s not right for me.
His head flies back, and he spins around. Eyes flashing in indignance and accusation. Indignance, accusation, and something else. I see it. Buried deeply in black holes and wild green and gold striations. It’s there. It’s unmistakable. A sullen glare. A subtle snarl. And a quick, dark flash of heat.
I’ve been waiting for him for what feels like hours. I’m lying on my bed now, but I laid on his bed for a while, turning my face into his pillow and sniffing deeply as I stroked my dick through my jeans. I didn’t stay there for long because I kept thinking I could hear the sound of his shoes on the tile in the hallway. I was sure to straighten the covers thoroughly when I got up. It’s one thing soliciting someone for sexual favors and stalking them mildly—or following them intently, depending on how you choose to look at these kinds of things—but it’s quite another to get to the point where you’re smelling their bedding.
Even I know that’s taking it too far.
It’s just that I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve wanted people in the past, sure. I’ve wanted them, and I’ve gotten them, but I’ve never wanted them like this. This is with me all the time, under my skin, simmering, heating me from the inside, burning when he’s close. And lately, since the kiss, it burns even worse when he isn’t.
I hear the key in the lock at last, and as much as I want to jump up and open the door for him, I take the time to pose myself as a person who still has an ounce of their shit together. I cross my legs at the feet and put my hands behind my head. As soon as I do it, I hate it, so I roll over and jump up. The door is open and he’s inside before I have time to lean my hand casually against my desk, leaving me standing awkwardly, with one foot on the floor and the other still on the bed. I quickly correct my stance, but it doesn’t seem to matter. His chin is drawn down to his chest and he’s looking up at me through dark lashes. His lips are parted slightly, and he flicks his gaze to the cash on my desk. He swallows and takes a deep breath, then walks toward me.