Page 35 of Puppy on a Leash

Or Mónica’s cats. Now that I thought about it, Sergio had been crushed when he met the pair, and he couldn’t pet one of them once.

“There’s not a lot to spill.” I took another sip.

The sugary milk tea did help. It soothed the need to scratch my skin, too.

“And I’m supposed to buy that?”

“Whatever.”

I needed more yummy tapioca pearls in my system before I could talk, but I gave a good enough summary of the events surrounding the day before. Didn’t leave anything out, either, even if talking about how I’d brought him up several times made me cringe.

The thing about telling Sergio anything? He was stupidly expressive. It made for a great audience when I was ranting about something that happened in class or when I needed someone to validate my—admittedly petty and scarce—fights with Cece. The downside of it? When the story involved him, he was just as equally expressive. I should’ve brought him more boba teas. I had filled my fridge with Indian takeout after all. I could afford a few more of the overpriced drinks.

I was pretty sure they did delivery. I could set it up so he got a surprise boba tea for the next… week? Yeah, I could handle the next week. I’d come up with something less expensive later if I needed to grovel some more.

“So. Are you hooking up again?”

I blinked. The tone was wrong. It had to be. Anyone else, they would’ve made the question sound poignant, the kind that was only expecting one answer—in the negative.

The asshole—yes, Sergio was an asshole now—only sounded curious. Not full-on curious, either. Just casual. Eerily so.

I’d clocked the confusion, and the hurt, and even the tiniest bit of anger etched in his face as I went through the events involving Tony. There was no way he didn’t have some big thoughts, opinions, and whatever else about it. I had no idea who he thought he was fooling, but it wasn’t me.

The problem? I didn’t know how to call him out on it.

Or how to answer the question.

“Um. I don’t know?” Squeaking was probably not the way. I cleared my throat. Discomfort settled in. I didn’t like when I went that high pitched. It sent the bad shivers down my body. “He hasn’t texted or anything.”

Granted, neither had I, but I also didn’t have his number. The only way I had to reach out was through the club’s app. Or I could use his official university email address, but that felt very icky. He’d reminded me I had to send him the drafted email thing before I left, though. I would’ve been panicking about it, so it was a good thing that he mentioned it.

Sergio scrunched up his nose. “He’s never seemed like the kind of Dom who’d text first.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Later, I’d wonder why the fuck Sergio was hypothesizing over the kind of Dom Tony was, and why he wasn’t calling me out for not using my brain the second I got horny.

“Like, he has that wholeOooh, I’m a big bad scary Dom, and subs have to chase after me and beg if they want my attentionvibe.”

He lowered his voice to a deep level I didn’t even know he could reach up until today. It was comical in a situation that should be everything but.

It still made me chuckle. For a second. I sobered up right away.

“Can we be serious now?”

Sergio stared at me in that owlish way he did when he was genuinely confused. “I don’t know what you want me to say, dude.”

I huffed. “You can say I’m the shittiest friend to have ever been shitty. Or something.”

“You… aren’t?” He dropped the cup of tea on the coffee table. Oh, fuck. That meant he was ready to lunge himself at me, didn’t it? “Stop looking at me like that!”

“Looking at you how?”

“I don’t know!” he complained. “Like I’m about to maul you or something. In the cannibalistic way. Not the fun way.”

“Fuck me sideways,” I muttered.

“Not sure if that’s possible?” Sergio pursed his lips as if he was trying to figure out the logistics of it. “And we already covered I’m not a good top. So. Moving on.”

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