Page 18 of Obsessed with the Heartbreaker

This was my problem.

Because for almost a year, I’d been spying on Antony here, in this library. After the way our ‘friendship’ ended, I’d wanted nothing to do with him. I’d wanted to forget him and his name at all costs, but it had been useless.

Then I started gathering information about him. Once we were both in college, it made sense for me to use my kingly powers of influence and money to keep up with Antony in the only way I could.

And this obsessive spying thing? This was just the lowest of the low.

It was pathetic.

Really, I would never hear the end of it if anyone found out that theHeartbreakerwas somehow hung up on the most straight-laced, studious, uptight guy in this college.

And yet I was.

I couldn’t help it, even after that horrible afternoon I wished every day I could wipe out of existence.

The day I was stupid enough to kiss Antony.

I’d been nineteen and he eighteen. I’d just come to visit from college, and we were laying down in the grass in my backyard, as we used to do. I’d missed him terribly, because since we weren’t living next door anymore, I barely got to see him. We didn’t have each other’s phone numbers. It was a silent barrier that we kept, just like we didn’t hang out in public even when we went to the same high school. Our meetings were private, semi-secret things, because as much as some people knew about it, our relationship was a secret. And by relationship I meant this abstract, mystical, unknowable thing, one that weighed in my chest the more I didn’t see him, and that made me feel like I’d inhaled helium when Ididsee him again.

In any case, we were laying down, laughing. We were catching up on the things we’d missed, making saccharine comments, and overall I was trying my best not to look too much like the sight of his face was the best thing of my week. My month.

We were closer than ever before, his T-shirt tickling the skin of my arm. The familiar smell of his clothes, paired with the glint in his eyes had me feeling dizzy and happier than I’d ever confess to being.

I was feeling bold with the relief of seeing him again, so that was why, on a whim, I made the mistake of leaning in, reaching for his jaw, and putting my lips against his.

It had barely been a kiss, but it had made me burn all over. Our breaths shuddered between us, Antony suddenly very quiet and very still, but he didn’t even try to move when I went in again for a second one.

One that tugged a small sound I’d never heard before from him. One that went straight to my cock.

And one that ended with the sharp push of Antony’s hand on my shoulder.

I’d been shocked. His eyes had been wide. Antony cleared his throat and sent a look into the house, where there were sounds coming in from the open French doors.

We had company.

The sight of none other than Connell Campbell came to greet us a second later.

Antony left with a murmured excuse.

I was left there, heart harder and colder than stone.

A part of me had wanted to believe he’d only left because he was embarrassed, but then, after a short but poignant fight with my father, his words had hit a nerve.

I still remembered the pity in my father’s voice when he said‘He’s not for you, Henry. He never will be.’

Antony was too good for me.

And I was a spiteful, rebellious, chaotic mess.

It was what made me decide to stop talking to him.

And it was what now reminded me that this silly spying business couldn’t keep going.

I was going to invite Antony into my life with one purpose only: get rid of him. Have him stop plaguing my thoughts by realizing that I’d build him up in my head, that he was just a normal guy like any other, and that my attention would be better off moving on to more interesting things.

I needed to get my shit together.

I needed this crushing longing to stop.

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