Page 63 of Every Broken Thing

Tipping my cup back, I chugged my beer in one go, swallowing the cheap, bitter liquid until my cup ran dry. I smashed it down on the kitchen island behind Ben, grabbed one of the shot glasses Jordan had filled, and held it out to him. His eyebrows had risen, eyes wide and somewhat alarmed as I shoved his knees apart to stand between them. He swallowed with an audible click, but he still took the shot, holding it for me until I was ready for it.

I nodded at the lime. “Well, come on then.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to back down, but then something flared in his eyes, and he fit the lime back between his teeth. He angled his head to the side, baring his throat and his collarbone where Kim had christened him. The salt had mostly fallen away, but enough granules stuck to the tequila slicked skin.

We were close enough now that I could see the flecks of gold around his pupils, and all I could smell was spearmint and spring soap. He arched one, perfect brow in a final question. Or maybe it was one final challenge.

Yanking my beanie down to settle it more securely on my head, I glared down at Ben as everyone in the room seemed to collectively hold their breath. The chant of my name had died, and though the music was still pulsing through the house, I felt like every sound had faded into dull, crackling static.

I breathed in.

Ben blinked.

I breathed out.

Ben’s hand shifted the minutest amount, his thumb brushing my thigh.

I breathed in again, then I lowered my head and hovered over the strip of salt. Ben’s Adam’s apple bobbed in my peripheral, and I swore his hand cupped my thigh completely, fingerspressing.

Flattening my tongue against his collarbone, I followed the sting of salt and tequila. But beneath their sharp bite, I tasted Ben’s skin. I clamped down on the moan trying to make its way up and out of my mouth. This was a game, after all, and I was going to win, Goddammit.

His collarbone ended, but I didn’t stop there. I steadied my balance with a hand on his chest, my fingers digging into the skin revealed by his open shirt. I traced the column of his throat with my tongue, not pulling back until I felt the involuntary shiver that wracked through him.

The buzzing in my ears faded with Ben’s nearly imperceptible gasp, and I smiled against his jaw. Straightening, I licked my lips, never breaking eye contact as I took the shot glass from his grasp and tipped the contents into my mouth. It was harsh and bitter, and it burned all the way down.

Blindly, I set the glass on the counter and crowded further into Ben’s space. His eyes were wide, the waves thrashing with wild abandon as I touched the tip of his nose with mine. He didn’t look away, and neither did I as I cocked my head and leaned in to sink my teeth into the lime. Our lips brushed, the barest of touches that couldn’t even count as a touch. But my body knew it was real.

Every muscle was taut with tension, and I was hard. Oh shit, I was hard!

That more than anything shattered the moment, and I ripped the lime out of Ben’s mouth, sucking the juice down as I finallybroke away from his ocean eyes. I spit the lime out of my mouth and tossed the husk onto the counter. It landed with an anticlimacticsplat.

Ben’s tongue snaked out to gather the lime juice puddling on his bottom lip, and I almost surged back in to kiss him. Hard. So he would feel it. So he would never forget it.

But then someone said, “That was so hot,” and I remembered that we weren’t alone. We were in the middle of a high school party with strangers gawking at us. Sound rushed back in, and my knees almost buckled under the onslaught. The bass pounded through the bones of the house, and voices raised in a cacophony of unintelligible noise.

“Game over,” I muttered, and Ben blinked, like he was coming out of a daze.

Before he could say anything—or maybe punch me for publicly molesting him—I turned on my heels and fled the room.

Somehow, I made my way to the bathroom and locked myself in. Gripping the edge of the sink, I hung my head and panted. I was still hard, my skin was practically vibrating, and my blood roared through my veins, setting my entire body aflame.

“You’re so stupid,” I said aloud. “So fucking stupid.”

I stayed in the bathroom, mentally berating myself until my erection deflated and I was in control again. Glaring at my reflection, I told myself to get over it. Ben wasn’t into me, and I had no right to even be mad about it. It wasn’t his fault, the same way it wasn’t mine. It was just the reality.

He shivered,my brain reminded me.

He had, hadn’t he? My tongue was on him, and he’d shivered.

“Stop, Silas,” I growled at the mirror. “Stop making it something it’s not.”

Because, regardless of my ill-advised feelings for him, he was important to me. In the few short months I’d known him, he’d become one of my closest friends, and I didn’t want to lose that.So I needed to swallow my pride, ignore the bone-deep yearning, and get over myself.

Straightening my beanie, I scrubbed a hand down my face and left the bathroom. I’d find Ben and make sure he wasn’t mad at me for licking him like I was a horse at a salt block. And if I was lucky, we could pretend like it had never happened.

I opened the bathroom door and stepped past the people waiting in line to use the toilet, wondering how I was going to find Ben in this crowd. Except Ben was right there, leaning against the wall like he’d been waiting for me. That traitorous hope bloomed anew in my chest, until I spotted the real reason that he was pressed against the wall.

Alice. Fucking Alice.

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