Page 84 of Devoted

Having already eaten, Zeke and I were sitting at the giant kitchen table. Although the focus was no longer on me, I couldn’t help but notice the furtive, curious glances being thrown at the two of us.

“I take it you don’t bring men home often?” I whispered to Zeke. Our chairs were so close together I may as well have been on his lap. I felt no shame in it though—his leg pressed to mine and his arm around my shoulders were all that was keeping me sane amongst this…chaos. Fortunately, the chair he’d led me to had been in the perfect place—back to the wall and far from both the doors and the windows.

Zeke’s lips twitched in an almost smirk. “You’re the first.”

I bit back my smile. “Wow. You really do hate your housemates. All the men you could’ve brought home and you chose me. The broken one. I see your plan now, you’re going to let me drive them all crazy for you.”

Zeke met my gaze solemnly. “If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it properly.”

We stared at each other, waiting for the other to break. Naturally, I went first. My laughter unleashed Zeke’s, and then we were both giggling like a pair of naughty children.

“I love that you match my weird,” I said to Zeke when I got myself under control.

He snorted. “Is it matching it when I’ve always been this weird?”

“It’s match your freak.” One of the twins, I wasn’t sure which, sat in a chair to my left. I jolted at the reminder that we had an audience. “Not match your weird. I think I’m missing the joke though—how will you be driving us crazy?”

My good mood vanished in a blink as I became aware it wasn’t only his attention we held, but everyone in the kitchen. I opened my mouth to tell them about my OCD, but with all of them staring at me, I couldn’t speak.

‘If you tell them, they’ll make you leave straight away. Zeke won’t want anything to do with you anymore either. He won’t choose you over his friends.’

My mouth snapped shut. I had to tell them. I knew that. I didn’t hide my OCD, especially not from people I spent time with.

But I couldn’t. Not right now.

Zeke’s hand found its way onto my thigh. “It’s an inside joke, Nate. You’d know what that was if you had friends outside of this group.”

Nate’s face flushed as several around the kitchen crowed and applauded. It itched at my skin as I fought the urge to cover my ears. I really should’ve brought my Loops from my house. They were discreet ear plugs that allowed me to hear conversation but blocked out louder noises.

When the noise died down, Benji piped up. “You don’t need to worry about driving anybody crazy, Sam. On the scale of weird shit happening in this house, I promise you won’t even be categorised as a one.”

He said that now, but that was because he didn’t know the truth. Summoning my courage, I fixed my face into a smile. “It can’t be too weird. I don’t imagine a bunch of professors get up to anything too wild.”

There was a pregnant pause around the table as all eyes flicked to Zeke.

“Okay, I’m going to show Sam around,” Zeke said, getting to his feet and offering me his hand. “Nate, can we meet in your office in about thirty minutes? Sam’s laptop needs to be looked at.”

“Only if you have time,” I added hastily. “I don’t want to be an imposition.”

Nate waved me off. “Nah, it’s fine. I’ve got plenty of time before I need to go do some…professoring.”

Zeke tugged me out of the kitchen before I could wonder about Nate’s unusual turn of phrase. Surely, as a professor, he had to know that wasn’t a verb, right? And hadn’t Zeke said it was reading week?

I shook my head. I was reading too much into things like always. Nate probably meant he had marking or planning to do.

Zeke turned to me with an apologetic smile. “Sorry to rush you out of there.”

“It’s okay. I was reaching my noise limit anyway.”

He tilted his head inquisitively. “Noise limit?”

“Just another idiosyncrasy,” I said, giving him a tight smile. “This one is thanks to sensory processing disorder. Sometimes, if I’m overstimulated, it feels like the noise is physically pulling at me. Like it’s under my skin, burrowing away. Same with bright lights or certain textures. Sometimes I can tolerate them, other times it’s impossible. It all depends on my mood and mental state at the time.”

“Huh. So the noise level in there was okay for a bit, but not towards the end?”

I nodded. “The longer I spend in a room I’m uncomfortable in, the faster I become overstimulated.”

Zeke’s eyes grew round. “You were uncomfortable?”

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