Page 59 of Obsessed with my Temptation

That had been directed to Antony, who had been writing something before he froze completely.

“Was he?” His nonchalance didn’t match the tension in his shoulders at all. Antony read—or pretended to read—something in front of him as he asked, “Did he hit on you?”

My heart gave a lurch.

“No.Why would he?” I tried to answer as normally as possible. After all, he definitelyhadn’tflirted with me, but Mark’s offer of a threesome with him and Henry came back to mind when Antony said it.

Antony shrugged. “He does that with everyone.”

Eliot was watching our exchange closely. “Why are you like this about Henry? You used to be friends, didn’t you?”

“Neighbors,” Antony corrected, finally putting his pen down and giving up on pretending to read.

“Closeneighbors, if anything,” Eliot added. “You were good friends as I remember—not bestbroslike we are, stuck to each other’s hips ’till the end of time, but still.”

Antony pressed his lips together, looking out the window. “It was a long time ago.”

Eliot and I exchanged a look, knowing there was something there he was still not telling us—we never got to know why they stopped hanging out, but clearly, Antony wouldn’t feel too happy to share today either.

Pushing his notebook away and calling for a break—which we were having anyway—Eliot got up from the chair and stretched.

Something seemed to come over me right then. I suddenly couldn’t stand the lies I was holding in anymore, all the bottled-up anguish boiling inside me.

So I blurted, “Mrs. Kent called on me today. She basically wanted to call me out for getting aBon an essay, and then proceeded to rant about how she and other professors were concerned about me because I’d been hanging out with Travis.”

Both my friends watched me, open-mouthed.

“Wait, what? For aB?” Antony asked.

Eliot shook his head. “Okay, okay,rewind. Tell us everything.”

So I did. I retold them everything Mrs. Kent had said. I didn’t usually tell them about this sort of stuff. As I said, it evoked a sense of shame in me I didn’t like to voice too often. It made me feel stupid and ungrateful, but these were my friends, right? And keeping them at arm’s length about this wasn’t helping.

I needed to talk about it, even if I couldn’t talk about how my growing feelings about Travis were making me feel, because otherwise, I would explode.

“And what did you tell her?”

“Well…I sort of blew up at her. Told her to mind her own business.”

My friends’ expressions were shocked, as I might have expected, but when I was starting to feel a curl of guilt in my chest, they started laughing.

“Why are you laughing? Shouldn’t you be horrified?”

“Horrified?” Eliot asked. “More like delighted!”

“It was high time you stood up to someone, Scott. You’ve always had a hard time with that.”

I stared at them.Of course they knew. “Am I that much of a doormat?”

“You’re not a doormat, Scott, but you’ve always taken things hard, which makes sense with how harsh professors and the like can often be with you. It has always surprised me, actually.” Eliot brought his chair beside me and after sitting in it, put his arm around my shoulders. “Standing up for yourself is a good thing, though. Jon has taught me that.”

It was true that Eliot had come a long way since getting together with his now boyfriend. Eliot used to be the opposite of Antony and me, more rebellious and not caring too much to be on top of his class—until we realized how deep his insecurities about his abilities ran.

“Maybe you should start imitating your not-boyfriend a little, you know?” Antony said with a growing grin. “Channel your inner Travis Ashford, stop caring so much about what people think.”

Maybe they were right.

Maybe this wasn’t bad after all.

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