Page 29 of Take You

“Okay thanks. See you around.” The total lack of conviction in her voice when she said those words didn’t surprise me, given everything else that had just gone down.

“Sure.”

A few moments later when the cab arrived, I watched as she went out of the door, and as soon as it clicked behind her, I stormed to Fox’s room. The door was shut, but I didn’t bother knocking. I barged it open almost as forcefully as he’d slammed it closed.

“What in the ever-loving fuck was that?” I needed to rein in my fury, but it was hard, given just how pissed off I was a at Fox.

“What?” He was on the floor doing sit-ups. A sure sign that something was wrong. Even more so, because he was still naked, with a raging hard-on.

“Dude. Don’t fucking push me. I’m this close to epically losing my shit.” I pinched the air.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I fucking mean it.” I lunged toward him, and bent to grab him from the floor. He scrambled to his feet, looking as angry as I felt.

“Get your fucking hands off me.” He shoved me, but I had him by the shoulders and I wasn’t about to let go. I pushed him so that he slammed against the wall, then I shoved my forearm against his windpipe.

“Not until you tell me what you were playing at in there before. Scrap that. What the fuck were you playing at the whole goddamned night?”

“Get off me, before I punch your lights out. Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We had a plan. I stuck to it. Tomorrow we work the next phase, the next day the next, and so on, until ‘Rose’ is stripped of her thorns.” I wasn’t sure if he really believed the words he was saying, but even if he did, I sure as shit didn’t.

“I’m not letting go until you explain yourself. In your head that might have been what you were doing, but over here in the real world, you were acting like a first-class basket case.”

“No I wasn’t.” He brought his knee up startlingly quickly and jammed it into my junk. As I bent over to catch my breath he stepped sideways out of my grasp. “Sorry man, but you were warned.”

“Fuck you, and the horse your rode in on. Seriously, have you lost your fucking mind? Because your vibe tonight was straight up nuts. I know you’re not drunk, so if I didn’t know better I’d say you were high. But I know even weed wouldn’t make you act that crazy unless it was laced with PCP, or something. So what’s your deal?”

“My deal is, now you’ve mentioned weed, I really fucking want a blunt. So much more satisfying than sit-ups.” He walked around his bed to the nightstand where he kept his weed, papers, and rolling tray. “Oh, and if you want to fuck, just ask, no need to throw me against the wall, under the pretext of being pissed off. Or was that a little rough play to get things going?” Until that point, I hadn’t even registered the fact that we were both still buck naked. My boner hadn’t subsided yet—even after Fox kneed me—and a quick look down confirmed that his hadn’t either.

“Fox.”

He sighed and sat on the end of his bed to roll up, resting the tray on his knees.

“I guess the plan was, and is all good in theory, but in practice, she’s a real person, and I didn’t take that into account, that’s all. More to the point, I didn’t realize how much I’d want her, after all these fucking years, or how much of an asshole that would make me feel. After everything that happened, everything she did, knowing all that, I still really fucking wanted her. What kind of person does that make me? Maybe I’m the one we should be teaching a lesson, not her.”

“I know the same things about her as you know, and I wanted her too. Want her. Despite the history there, if she walked through the door right now, I’d fuck her all over again. What kind of person does that make me, also?”

“It’s not the same. This is my story, not yours.”

“I know that, but you know that after all these years of dealing with the aftermath, I’m pretty fucking invested.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, I get it, but to cut us both some slack, we’re supposed to be hot for her. Or at least give the pretense, and having met her, though she doesn’t seem like the person I expected her to be from what I knew about her, she definitely doesn’t come across as someone who would fall for something that wasn’t the real deal.”

“But it’s not the real deal, and she fell for it, hook, line and sinker.”

“Our motivations aren’t what she thinks, but we weren’t faking the attraction is what I mean. And I wouldn’t be too sure that she did fall for it, in actual fact. You didn’t see the way she turned tail and ran when you stormed out of here like a deranged psycho. I’m guessing we’re going to need to change up the rest of the plan to accommodate the fact that she probably hates us.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll deal with that if and when we come to it. In the meantime, I’m going to smoke this and pass the fuck out. Tomorrow’s another day.”

It sure was, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it had in store.

Chapter 17

Fox

I knocked on Xavier’s door, half hoping he wouldn’t answer but knowing he would, unless something awful had happened. He did, and ushered me inside. He indicated that I should sit down, but I remained standing. No doubt that would piss him off, but that was his problem.

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