Page 100 of Unspoken Truths

“Nah, I can’t. Just go shower,” Ignacio says. “You watched Jared shower. This shouldn’t be weird."

“We have the same name now, so this is very weird,” I tell him, shaking my head as I turn and walk quickly to the bathroom.

“Your fucking ass is a work of art,” he groans.

As I turn on the water in the shower, I glance over to find him biting his fist as he leans in the doorway.

“Ignacio,” I sigh. “What do you want?”

“I told you, I don’t remember,” he says. “Get in the water, and I’m going to stand here like a good boy. I won’t follow.”

“I didn’t think that was an option,” I tell him, eyes wide as I walk into the shower stall. I wish there was a damn curtain, but it’s clear glass.

“As far as having my name, I don’t care,” Ignacio says. “I mean, it’ll protect you to an extent, but I’m going to continue to be attracted to you,nena.”

I swear, I think he uses these pet names because he doesn’t think I understand him. I’m taking a damn Spanish class next year.

“It didn’t do much to help me today,” I sigh, pumping some shampoo into my hand to wash my hair. “My grades are still wrecked.”

“I called Jared about this, and he admitted to being the cause. He said you did something to piss him off, so he asked Theo to ruin your grades.”

“The competition was too fierce,” I reply. “This whole ranking system is the reason, along with his butler being angry at Jared’s response to the photos. It’s true, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s done.”

Scrubbing the hell out of my scalp, I tip my head back into the water to rinse it.

“Do you have to stand like that?” Ignacio asks, sounding as if he’s in pain.

I’m not really sure what he means. He’s inside of my bathroom, if my shower is bothering him, then he can leave.

“Go away, Ignacio,” I murmur, blindly reaching for the conditioner.

“You’re never going to find it that way,” he says. “You’re a menace when you’re showering.”

Blinking away the water clinging to my eyelashes, I find my conditioner to run through my ends.

“Stop micromanaging my shower,” I snark, stepping out of the spray. “Ignacio.”

“I’m on the edge right now,” he growls.

Glancing at him, I see that he’s holding onto the counter as if it’s the only thing keeping him from joining me. I don’t think I’d know how to react if he did.

“Go jerk off somewhere else,” I sigh.

“It’s even sexy when you say that. It isn’t fucking fair,” he says. “Okay. Focus. Damn. The Kings have been planning to ramp things up, we have just been really busy. This wasn’t something we discussed.”

“You wouldn’t have warned me if it was,” I say absently, running my fingers through my hair. “Please don’t pretend to be nice to me right now. I just packed away everything in a neat little box and buried it. I can’t change it, nothing I do next week will alter it. I’m done trying, Ignacio.”

Twisting my body, I rinse the conditioner out of my hair.

“You can just pack it up and be done?” he asks. “I’ve watched you have a meltdown, this isn’t what this looks like.”

“Mmhmm. It’s not worth the effort,” I say.

Washing my body, I scrub a little harder with my exfoliating mitten. The tinge of pain is helping to stay in the present. I’m not going to dwell on the wasted hours of work, the exams I aced. It’s just been sucked into the void.

I’ll have a better junior year. That's all I can promise myself for now.

“You’re clean,” Ignacio says, yanking open the shower door. “Get the fuck out before you rub yourself raw. You can lie to yourself and pretend everything is perfect, but I’m not fucking blind.”

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