Page 9 of Obsessed with my Temptation

She was trying to baby me, when I didn’t think I needed to be babied.

I needed a bucket of ice-cold water to make me face the truth.

A hookup had clearly not been the panacea to my problems. One would say that trying once and giving up was stupid, but I didn’t feel like it was going to go well a second time.

And my attraction to Travis—it wasn’t going away.

It was real, solid, and strong enough to keep me awake at night.

But I wasn’t going to do anything about it. It wasn’t who I was nor who I was supposed to be.

And what he said didn’t need to be true, did it? I might feel hollow sometimes, but pretending to be perfect all the time could be exhausting. It was still the only thing I knew—and what I wanted to stick to.

I would just have to approach it in a different way.

So, in a weird turn of events, I decided to take Antony’s—and my parents’—advice.

I was going to shoot for celibacy.

I was going to get my shit together, become again who I had always been, shake myself off this funk by filling my time with something new that would leave no space for electrifying staring games, and would leave me tired enough that I could collapse in my dorm bed at night and sleep like a log.

Sweet, dreamless sleep.

“I’ll ask around,” I said with a tiny spark of hope inside my chest.

Maybe I wasn’t doomed after all.

* * *

Or maybe I was.

There was no other reason why I would find, sitting right in front of me, an equally unhappy Travis Ashford in the charity meeting I’d gone to.

I’d found a flier around the dorm that said ‘Cupcakes for Charity’. The proceeds of the sales were going to an organization that helped kids with special needs, and that was a good cause if I ever heard of one.

Selling cupcakes? Fine. I could do that.

I was all about small interactions with random people, putting on smiles, and brightening up someone’s day.

You could say I was extroverted. Sometimes. I did like talking to people, but I preferred it if there was some distance between us. I liked my social life to be well encapsulated, with a specific ending time, and then I liked to recuperate by myself or with Eliot and Antony.

I never felt like I had to pretend when I was with them. I might not tell themeverything, but I felt at home. Comfortable and safe.

So ‘Cupcakes for Charity’ had sounded golden.

Right until I stepped into Masy’s, a cafe on our college campus, to meet with the organizer, Layla, and found her sitting beside myarch-enemy.

Maybe the title would be real now.

“Scott, hey! I’m Layla, nice to meet you.” She extended her hand and I shook it.

“You too,” I said, smiling tightly before sitting down.

I’d sent her an e-mail as soon as I’d seen the flyer, and she’d told me to meet her on Monday afternoon, right here.

“This is Travis, I think you might know him?” she asked innocently, dark eyebrows raised.

Travis didn’t say anything.

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