Page 75 of Covenant

It takes my brain a moment to catch up, to realize he’s thrown me over his shoulder. That he’s running with me through the storm.

Taking me to safety.

I know we’ve stepped under cover when the incessant rain turns to a steady drip. He lowers me to the floor, and I sink down, rough stone scratching against my back. My knees pull up, face dropping into my hands.

“Breathe, Wy,” Matt clasps my knees. “You’re safe, baby. Just breathe for me.”

18

MATTHIAS

AGE SEVENTEEN

Wy and I are closer than ever.

But not in the way I’d like. Not in the way that has me waking up in the middle of the night panting and needing to change my sheets before the housekeeper gets to them.

How I look at Wy now is different.

Very. Very. Different.

Before, I’d rush from my house every morning before the sun was even up, just to spend time with my friend. To escape the shithole I call home.

Now though, I run for a very different reason. Well, the above still applies, but it’s not what has me tripping over my own feet. These days, it’s my obsession with Wyatt driving me. My best friend. The one I desperately want to call my boyfriend.

And he has no idea.

I spend hours watching him, trying to pretend that he’s mine—to capture enough moments with him to analyze over and over again at night.Did his hand linger on mine on purpose? Has he noticed I’m as tall as him now? Does he suspect I have feelings for him? Does he have feelings for me?

Those last two, I know the answers to. I wish I fucking didn’t, but I do.

Wy is completely oblivious to my feelings.

And as straight as a fucking arrow.

It’s obvious to me, and yet sometimes I pretend I don’t know. I pretend that he wants me just as much as I want him.

It’s late summer and we’re in the woods I like to think of as ours. It’s funny, most kids our age spend all their time indoors on game consoles. Not me and Wy. If it’s summer, that means one thing.

Spending time together. Outside. Under the canopy of trees. No one else can find us here. It’s just us.

Seeing as we can’t go to each other’s houses, we instead roam the woods, swim in the lake, and occasionally go into town for milkshakes and burgers. But only if Wy has managed to scrape together some money to pay for himself.

He never lets me pay. Ever.

I don’t need your charity, Matt.

So I never push it. I just let him be. And he does the same for me. Neither of us talks about our home life, but he knows about my brothers, knows my family is rich, the same as I know that his isn’t.

I’m not sure if he knowshowrich we are. It’s disgusting, really. It’s not like we’ve earned it, not my father anyway. He’s living off the hard work of his ancestors, and lording it over everyone else like he’s done something miraculous to deserve it.

Wy knows how little I care about any of it—the money, the luxuries, the status. I’m embarrassed by all of it. I hate it. I’d give it all to Wy in a heartbeat if I thought he’d take it.

But he won’t. I know that. He won’t even let me buy him new sneakers, despite the fact that his sock is showing through the toe again. The few times I’ve mentioned it, he stonewalls me, goes completely fucking silent until I let it drop.

There’s nothing I hate more than that. I’ll take a beating from my father every day over the silence from Wyatt. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand not talking to him, having him shut me out.

It rips me apart.

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