Page 52 of Up In Flames
Liam. Hal. Will.
Three people. They’d never fill the space of the two I’d lost, but life was better with them around.
I waited at the bus stop and shot out a text to Will.
Movie night soon?
It was hours before Will got a chance to return my text, but it came with a bunch of happy face emojis.
Hell yes.Your place or mine?
I thought about it for three point two seconds.
My place.
I wanted the pleasure of having Will in my space. On my couch and in my bed. Plus, my shower was a little bigger.
I’ll bring snacks.
Of course Will would bring the snacks.
Before I could stop myself I sentYou are the snack.
In return I got a string of eggplant emojis.
Life was definitely better with Will in it.
CHAPTER 24
Will
“Not drinking tonight, Dorsey?” It was just Briggs and me and a couple other guys from the station at the pub. We’d been killing ourselves in training this week, and Briggs suggested we deserved a night out to unwind. I’d rather have been home with Oren, but I couldn’t ignore my friends forever.
Not being around Oren made me realize how obsessed with him I was. How deeply I felt for him. This wasn’t a passing fling. At least not for me. I doubted it was for Oren either. When I wasn’t with him, I was thinking about him. I tried not to think about what that meant.
One thing that was often on my mind was the fact Oren had come out. Maybe not for me, but definitely because of me, and I couldn’t get that out of my head. Especially when he wasn’t even around me, and it still consumed my thoughts.
“Earth to Dorsey.” Briggs’ voice cut through my daze.
I shook my head and tried to pay attention to the conversation around me. Only there wasn’t one. Briggs looked at me expectantly.
“Sorry.” I raked my hand through my hair. “Guess I’m a bit tired. I didn’t mean to space out.”
“Awww, did Dorsey miss nap time?” Jonas said.
Briggs shot him a dirty look. Well, he tried, but the glimmer of amusement in his eyes gave him away.
“Dorsey’s been busting ass all week. Unlike some other slackers around here. He had the best scores out of all of us.”
Jonas coughed, poorly covering the fact he was calling me a kiss ass. Or maybe it was aimed at Briggs.
“You’re just jealous because you couldn’t keep up if Dorsey had both feet tied together and one hand tied behind his back.”
“I wasn’t that good.” The protest came naturally, but Briggs shook his head.
“Don’t be humble, Dorsey. You kicked ass this week.”
“Dorsey kicks ass all the time,” Jonas said, changing his tune from teasing me about nap time to praising me.
