Page 12 of Brushed and Buried
The room was silent. Trevor’s laugh cut short, George and Lance equally frozen and dazed. No one said a word; they didn’t have to. Their faces told me everything, that it was so hot even I couldn’t resist, and that I had finally given in.
I should’ve pulled back the second I felt him clench around me. Everything in me screamed to retreat, to let go before it went any further. But I didn’t. I stayed there a beat too long, caught in the heat of him and in the sound he made; low and broken, almost a cry. The room was filled with his grunts and gasps.
Trevor gave a strangled laugh, not real amusement, more like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Lance muttered a sharp, “Holy shit.” All of it was background noise. None of it mattered.
What mattered was that I couldn’t get myself out fast enough, that my hand didn’t want to obey when I told it to move.
I forced myself to pull free. I locked my face down hard, stone, like I’ve trained it to be, with no expression, no weakness.
But Adrian was trying to look at me, dazed, his lips parted. His brown eyes shimmered, glossy and unfocused, yet locked on me as if he couldn’t believe it either. It was like it had only ever been me in the room.
That broke me. I couldn’t stand it.
I left before anyone had the chance to speak.
The hallway outside is too quiet and sterile. Air-conditioning hums overhead, cold and recycled, carrying the faint tang of chlorine from the pool downstairs. A cleaning cart sits abandoned by the ice machine, the smell of lemon polish cutting sharply in my nose. Somewhere down the corridor, an elevator bell chimes, too polite and normal, like the world has not just caved in on me. My teeth grind so hard my head rings with it, the pressure shooting straight into my temples. My chest feels raw and scraped open, every breath dragging glass through it. I keep moving fast, because if I stop, the whole thing will crush me flat. I almost do not breathe until I swipe my keycard, hear the click of the lock, and shove myself inside my room.
Everything in here is neat. The bed is made tight. My bag is tucked by the dresser, clothes folded and lined. Nothing is out of place or messy, just the way I like it, the way it has to be.
Except me.
I shut the door and stand there, chest rising as if I’ve run ten miles. My shirt is gone before I realize I pulled it off, my shoes shoved under the desk with a sharp push. I sit on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees, palms grinding hard into my thighs like I could crush the burn out of them.
“What the fuck was that?” My voice cracks in the quiet.
I do not lose control, not on the field and not since that one time I had to punch a teammate because of Adrian. But tonight I lost control, and I cannot take it back.
Adrian.
Goddamn Adrian.
He has not changed, not one bit. He is still the same free-floating firework he was back then, lighting up the whole damn place, making people laugh and like him without even trying. I saw it in the faces of my friends tonight. He had barely walked into the room before they leaned toward him, eating out of his hand, their eyes on him as if they had known him forever.
That’s always been Adrian’s gift. Everyone always gravitates toward him. Back then, it was teachers laughing at his smart-ass answers instead of writing him up, girls hanging off his every word like he was the lead in the play instead of just the guy hammering theater sets. Even the guys wanted to be near him; he’s so easy to like, so damn easy to need. He never had to try. People just tilted toward him, like he had his own gravity. And me? I was no better. I pretended I wasn’t looking, that I didn’t care, but I was orbiting him just the same.
And I hate him for it.
I hate the way he still flushes pink when he’s worked up. I hate that stupid half-smile that sneaks in when he knows people are watching. I hate how easy it is for him, how everyone just lets him in. I hate that he hasn’t grown up, that he can still float through life like it’s all a joke.
I hate how easily I fold like the rest of them, how his laugh still cuts straight through my guard, and how I can’t stop tracking him even when I swear I won’t. He doesn’t even have to try. He justis, and the whole world bends toward him. And me, the idiot who should know better, I bend right along with it.
I can’t fucking stand it, that after all these years, one touch and my whole body remembered.
The memory slams into me before I can stop it. Not tonight’s. Older. Buried.
Backstage. The smell of sawdust and paint. The heavy heat of stage lights warming plywood flats. We were building props, screwing together frames for a fake damn castle or something. Adrian had been everywhere at once, sketchbook under his arm, brush behind his ear, hair falling in his face. Smudges of blue paint streaked across his jaw, another down his wrist. He laughed too loudly at nothing, his voice bouncing in the empty auditorium.
He’d been tall already, lanky as hell, all limbs and no care in the world. His cheeks went pink when he argued with the art teacher about colors, or when he worked too fast and messedup. That flush used to kill me. I’d look away, bury it, pretend it meant nothing.
Until the day I didn’t.
The memories don’t come clean. They bleed in crooked, out of order, snatches of afternoons that had nothing to do with now and everything to do with him.
The way he always stood too close, shoulders brushing mine like it was nothing. I’d been taller, sure, but not enough to matter, not when he carried that careless heat that filled up every inch of air until I couldn’t breathe.
I remember pulling back before the world caught fire. Convincing myself that if I stepped away fast enough, no one would see it and no one would know. I pushed it so far down I nearly believed it never happened. Almost. I pretended I’d imagined it, acted like he wasn’t still in my head.
But he was. He always is, and tonight proved it.
