“Fine. You’re right. I fucked up royally. Happy now?”
He made another one of those sounds that made you think he understood fucking English, but I ignored this one. Hawk bounded into the truck when I opened the door, then he jumped the console to take his spot in the passenger seat. I climbed in after him and headed home.
I had a house to unpack. I could worry about my boy while I got shit done.
FOURTEEN
AIDEN
A knock on the window forced me to pull my head up. I groaned as the face of my roommate greeted me. I hoped the sound I made didn’t resonate through the glass. But Trey Malachek finding me wallowing in… whatever this slurry of emotions was… had to be the very last thing I wanted to happen.
I opened the door and got out of the Jeep.
“Hey, Trey.”
He laughed, smacking my back as we headed toward the dorm. “Hung over?”
If sex and poor decisions counted, then yes, but I didn’t…couldn’t… say that, so I just nodded.
“Must’ve been a wild night. You disappeared yesterday and rolled in this afternoon looking rode hard and put up wet.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I hooked up with someone.”
He grinned. “Ahh, you finally took advantage of the offer from the housing puck bunny, huh?”
Confusion pinched my brow. “What?” I asked as Trey swiped his student ID card, and the locks on the exterior door whirled and clicked as it unlocked.
He pulled open the door and ushered me inside. Our apartment, which you couldn’t call a dorm as it was the furthest thing from any dorm I’d ever seen, was on the top floor. I turned for the stairwell because, while we had elevators, I never did like the things and only took them when I had to.
“The guy from move-in that works the front desk, that smiles and waves and flirts with you every time he sees you, and asks me about you whenever we bump into each other and you’re not with me…”
When I registered who he meant, my brain checked out, and without thinking, I said, “Oh, no. He’s not my type.”
“Sorry, I guess I just proved the saying about assuming.”
Everything the guy said was some weird riddle or was so vague you couldn’t figure out what he was going on about. “What do you mean?”
He motioned toward my face and said, “With the liner and lip gloss, I assumed you were gay.”
“Good assumption. I am. Charlie isn’t my type.”
“Charlie?”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “The housing puck bunny, as you called him.”
“Oh right, right.” He laughed. “Yeah, I don’t tend to learn their names. Shallow of me, maybe, but I’m bi and there’s too much fun to be had to limit my choices”
I nodded as if I understood his viewpoint. I didn’t. I wanted stability in my life after growing up with so little of it. And nothing screamed instability to me like sliding in and out of random people’s beds. Or them sliding in and out of mine.
“So, what’s your type? If it’s not cute as fuck guys ready to drop to their knees and worship your cock?”
Again, my mouth shot off without my brain weighing in. “He’s about ten years too young to be my type.”
“Gotcha. You like the Daddy vibe. I have no desire to be bossed around. My dad does that enough.”
I wanted to correct him, but decided my mouth had run off with itself too much already, so I bit my tongue.
Trey grabbed my arm, keeping me from heading up the stairs when we got inside the stairwell, “C’mon, it’s tradition.”
