Page 45 of A Totally Platonic Thing
I neededhim. And that made me such an asshole if he was as mixed-up at the moment as I thought he might be.
When I opened the door to the apartment just after five, I found Chris curled up on his bed with a scattered heap of books all around him. He looked like he hadn’t moved much since that morning. My heart sank. He’d had that senior seminar that afternoon—the one he’d fail if he missed any more of them. And not only did it seem like he’d missed it, but I had no idea if he’d gone on Tuesday, either.
He looked up with a tentative little smile, his eyes wary, as if he wasn’t sure of his welcome with me.
And that hurt like a bitch.
Because I’d caused that. With my distance and my mixed fucking messages.
“Hey,” I ventured, my voice a little lower and hoarser than I’d hoped. Casual. I needed casual. Damn it, I couldn’t demand to know if he’d left the apartment for his classes the second I walked in the door. Indirectly, though? “What’ve you been up to today?”
I dropped my bag and kicked off my shoes. Chris sat up a little, shifting some of his books over. “I only got home a little while ago,” he said, looking up at me kind of sadly or hopefully, or something I couldn’t quite define. “I went to my seminar. I went on Tuesday, too. I still might fail. The professor was really vague when I asked him about it after class.”
Relief hit me first, making me feel like slightly less of a complete, utter asshole when disappointment followed right after.
He’d gone to class. I had no excuse to punish him for fucking up.
And how much did I hate myself for that nagging part of me that almost wished he’d skipped his classes? Wished he’d put himself in a position where he wouldn’t even graduate on time, for fuck’s sake?
A lot. I hated myself alot.
“That sucks. Not knowing, I mean. If you put in all the work for the rest of the quarter and he still flunks you.” I winced. That had come out so pessimistic. “That won’t happen, though,” I said, making myself sound more upbeat. “You’ll knock his socks off with the final paper.”
That won me a little grin and a bit of sparkle coming back into those usually bright green eyes. “Knock his socks off? Are you, like, ninety?”
“Shut up,” I groused, heading for the bathroom. “So my grandmother used to say that. Whatever.”
I started washing my hands and face, getting off some of the dust of the day. No matter how much soap I used, I wouldn’t be able to wash off being a bastard.
“Are you hungry?” Now Chris sounded pitifully hopeful. My heart gave a squeeze. I really had been keeping my distance, and here he’d been putting in all this work trying to turn things around at school. Clearly his future meant more to him than giving me a reason to strip him naked. Like it clearly fucking ought to.
Okay, I needed to shut that part of my brain the fuck down.
“Pizza?” I called back. “I’m starving. You pick. My turn to buy.”
After a second, he said, “Okay,” and I heard him start rustling around, probably looking for his phone.
I eyed the shower. Did I have time to jerk off before dinner?
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I said, and shut the bathroom door.
I’d never make it through an evening with Chris without it.
Chris
Even though I felt pathetically grateful that Lucas had come home at a normal hour, that he wanted to eat dinner with me, that he wasn’t completely ignoring me, the cold, heavy ball of tension in my stomach didn’t go away. I could only eat a couple of slices even though I’d gotten my favorite veggie deluxe from our favorite pizza place.
Lucas paused in the middle of his fifth and eyed me. He’d perched on his bed with his plate, positioning himself in a way that would’ve made it super awkward for me to sit with him, so I’d settled cross-legged on my own bed. I could take a hint.
“You okay?” he asked me, kind of gruffly.
I had no idea how to take that. I mean, at face value, he was asking me if I was okay. But it seemed like a loaded question after the past few days of…nothing. Which had felt awful after what we’d done.
Lucas obviously regretted it. Right? And I couldn’t exactly blame him. I’d been giving him space while he freaked out, although I’d been starting to think that had been the wrong move.
I settled on, “Yeah. Fine. Just not as hungry as I thought.”
Lucas frowned, but then he went right back to his pizza.
