Page 28 of Say It Slowly

Roman

A few ofthe guys from the circle arrive at Rush House. “Where do you want this stuff?” one of them asks.

“Thanks for your help,” I say, passing him a couple hundred dollar bills. “Just put everything up in my room. Second floor, first door on the right.”

“Got it,” he says, turning to wave the other guys in.

“Did you change the locks like I asked?”

“Yup. We had Facilities do it. They were a bit anxious about it at first, but when we mentioned your name, they handled it,” he says, uncaring as to why I asked them to remove someone else’s shit and change the locks. That’s the great thing about being a campus king. No one asks you about shit.

Except for Lux. She not only asks questions, but she also demands answers.

I head into the living room, where Christian and Jackson are hanging out. There’s a home football game tonight, and nearly everyone on campus is going, so we’re alone at Rush House tonight, which is a rare occurrence.

“Who was at the door?” Christian asks. He’s lifting a couple of weights he brought up from the gym in the basement.

“The guys moving Lux’s shit,” I answer, sinking into one of the leather armchairs.

Christian drops the weights, breath heaving. “You sure you want to do this? Lux is going to bepissedwhen she finds out what you have planned.”

Yeah, I don’t give a fuck how pissed she’s going to be. When Jackson told me he saw Lux and Ash at the campus coffee shop together, it lit me up like few things ever have. Theone-fucking-personshe chose have coffee with justhappenedto be Ash? Nah. That was deliberate.

It was then that I knew what I had to do.

Yesterday, I saw a side of Lux that blew my fucking mind. When she’d walked into the shower and refused to leave, I’d decided right then and there that I’d teach her a lesson about pushing me, give her a taste of the monster inside me.

And I had. I’d given her a glimpse of the darkest, most shameful parts of myself, expecting her to recoil—but, in the end, she didn’t. She looked me in the eyes, saw the ugliness inside me, and didn’t flinch away.

And that fucked me up.

My first instinct was to turn away. Out of shame, I don’t know. I just know I couldn’t fucking handle the very real emotions that gripped me in that moment, after we fucked, and she looked up at me with those doe-eyes.

Fuck,just remembering that moment makes my chest constrict.

And I can’t allow that. I can’t allow her to seep into the pores of my rock-hard heart, and take control.

But this shit isn’t over, so I can’t walk away either.

I’m fucked. That’s what it boils down to, and I have to figure out how I can keep her close, but not so close that she pulls me under her fucking spell.

Jackson is digging into a bowl of ramen when he stops mid-bite to scoff at Christian. “Romanhasto do this. And you wouldn’t even be asking that question if you saw Lux sitting there with that douche. Like, damn. They were cozy as fuck, laughing and everything.”

My jaw clenches at the thought of her hanging out with Ash. I know she only did it to piss me off. It’s always a power play with her. She’s always doing the fuckingoppositeof what I want her to do. It’s infuriating. So, yeah, in response, I took shit into my own hands.

“I know she’ll be pissed,” I say. “That’s the fucking point.”

“Butfuck, dude,” Chrisitan says. “Having a chick living here is going to suck balls. All girls do is whine about shit.”

“One month,” I push out, already bored with this conversation. I didn’t consult the guys before doing what I did, but I didn’t really have a choice. Lux made her move, and I had to make mine. Timing is everything. “You can put up with it for a few we–”

My sentence is abruptly cut off when Lux comes flying through the living room door. The solid oak door bounces off the wall as she steamrolls through the living room, heading straight for me. Her face is flushed red, and it shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. I love seeing her angry.

She’s wearing a little sun dress, exposing her thick thighs, and her hair is damp. I can’t help but wonder why that is. Jackson saw Lux leave somewhere with Ash. Where did they go? If I know Ash, he probably took her to the beach.

“Hey, Little Rabbit,” I say with a smile.

“Where’s all of my shit?” she yells, hands on her hips. She looks ready to strangle me. That might be fun.

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