Page 35 of Dare to be Different

He nods but doesn’t say anything else as he scrolls through his iPad and blatantly ignores me.

“More bi-threesomes?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood because, damn, something’s gotta give at some point here.

“Weather,” he mutters through a full mouth.

Fuck, we need to hash this shit out or have a blow-up or something. I’m not sure which it’s going to be. “Any sign of it letting up?”

He chews, ignoring me until he swallows. I watch the motion of his cheek muscles and track the movement of his blue eyes while he studies the radar. “Maybe the day after tomorrow.”

His blond hair is jutting up and falling over his forehead at the same time, and the hood from his hoodie is pushed halfway back his head, letting it all peek out to taunt me. I don’t know if I’m just horny or something, but my fingers want to weave through his hair, smoothing it out only to fuck it up even more.

Potentially two more days stuck here together with no signs of our tension snapping. I’ve never looked at him like I’m looking at him now, and maybe that’s half the reason we’re taut and pent up. My mind is overthinking the night—the whole weekend, really—at Cara and Cody’s again, wondering what he was doing while I was being tormented and strung up. I want to know if he got off on my pleasure. I’m desperate to know how and where he touched me. I’m itching to know who pleasured him and what they did to get him off, and I’m mostly ignoring the part of my mind that’s tempting me into believing I was the one who got him off simply by being there, bound and blindfolded and naked.

Remy has rooted himself as the epicenter of all my wild imaginings. Like before, I associated sex with him, but somewhere along the way, I started to associate sex with him as a possibility. Maybe not actual penetration, but touching and teasing, and flirty seductions that allure me so much more than thinking it was Cody or Cara who gave me that blowjob.

Which he still won’t spill the tea on. Is it making him uncomfortable, or am I just annoying the shit out of him by asking so many times?

We finish eating in silence, and since the tension in here is more than I can handle, I grab our dishes and take them to the kitchen for a reprieve. While I wash everything up, I clear my mind and settle down. It’s Remy! Me and Remy! We’re better than this, capable of brushing things off, and not in that type of friendship that thrives on tension. We just need to staunch it, and the shitty bottle of whiskey I find in the pantry gives me the right way to do it.

Returning, I set the bottle and two plastic cups down on the small dresser between our beds. “Come on, asshole. Let’s get drunk and happy and forget we hate each other right now.”

He ignores me, choosing to stay focused on the weather.

“Remy! Drink and loosen the fuck up before we kill each other.” I thrust a cup against his chest and glare at him, but in a teasing way.

He locks his tablet and tosses it aside, wrapping his fingers around the cup instead. “You think getting drunk is going to make us get along?”

“Well, sitting in awkward silence isn’t doing it, so this is the next trick in my bag.” I plop down on my very uncomfortable bed, the beige, bland walls and the wind whistling through the window our only ambiance.

He shakes his head at me.

“You gotta drink every time you do that,” I tell him, taking a sip and almost choking at the burn of it.

“Do what?” He shakes his head at me again.

“That. Shake your head at me like I’m an idiot.” I tilt my cup at him.

“Pass me the whole fucking bottle then.” He finally cracks a grin. “You’re the biggest idiot I know, so I’ll be drunk in no time, and we’ll run out of whiskey in ten.” Because he likes to follow through on his fake threats, he actually grabs the whiskey and fills his cup to the brim.

I laugh because it feels good to finally joke around again. “You saying you need more than one bottle? I’m that big of an idiot?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Well, lucky for you, there are four bottles in the pantry.” I smile. “That be enough?”

He makes a cute thinking face, and I throw the bottle cap at him.

“Fuck you, Rem. You’re the bigger idiot for being my best friend.”

He leans back against the cold wall, his hoodie-covered head thumping against the thin structure. “Fuck, bud. What was I thinking?”

I shrug. “We were kids. You can ditch me now if you want.”

“I’ve invested way too much time in your fuckery to give up now,” he says, using my word. “Think I’m addicted to your bullshit by now.”

Those. Fucking. Words.

I’m taking an entirely different meaning from them than what he actually means, but I can’t help where my head goes. Either way, they just wiped the tension from the room, settled us into familiar roles, and put my heart at ease.

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