I don’t need the hassle that lies in wait if I hold to my current path. If I’m patient, if I can last the distance here, I’m hopeful I can wring the information I want from Esme without throwing away my future.
Given the increasing value of what I might lose, it’s time to press pause.
But there’s one last thing I wouldn’t mind trying to wrangle from my dying leverage.
A withdrawal from the bank of Esme Black.
CHAPTERTEN
ESME
I feellike the world’s biggest chicken as I walk away from Joseph without telling him a goddamn thing. I was set to, my throat was clicking and my hands kept clenching into fists until my nails dug hard into my palms, but I was going to.
Then one of his attendant groupies asked him if he was free to date, and he shook his head, catching my eye, and said he hadn’t scrubbed the filth from the last slut off his dick yet, give a guy a chance.
Scrubbed.
Like I was a fucking stain.
I’d have felt more indignant except, given the news I was about to reveal, the description hit a little too close to home. Instead of calmly telling the stupid shit he shouldn’t let his useless dick near anyone until he got tested, I turned and scurried away.
He probably thinks I was there to make up with him. He had that weird sort of vibe flowing from his pores. The opposite of big dick energy. Small penis syndrome, maybe, though size wasn’t his issue. It was knowledge of what to do with it that fell short.
Now, I have another task on my to-do list for tomorrow—maybe the day after if I’m still feeling cowardly—and if he has sex with another girl in the meantime, I’ll have her reproductive health on my conscience as well.
What I’m least in the mood for is another encounter with Seb but as I walk along the corridor, I see him standing right outside my door.
“Hey, FU. Got a minute?”
“For you? Never.” I wave my hand for him to move aside but he doesn’t, and it’s not like I can physically force him, he’s a giant in comparison. “Fine. What d’you want?”
He steals the keys from my hand and unlocks the door while I try not to grind my teeth to stubs. I settle on a glare instead, not moving a muscle.
“You can talk to me out here or I’m going straight back to student housing and requesting a transfer.”
“Wow. Where was this fighting spirit last night?” He shifts closer, bending down and stroking my shoulder with his hand until I wrench it away. “You were so much more welcoming after a few glasses of wine.”
He turns and leans against the wall, his lanky frame drawing an appreciative glance from a passing trio of girls. “Afternoon, ladies.” He rubs his hand up across his abdomen, lifting his shirt. The top of my jaw, just in behind my ear, gives a large twinge then starts to ache.
“Don’t let me keep you,” I say, folding my arms.
One girl cuts a glance back at us, startled, then says something to her friends so they all burst into giggles.
“Don’t be like that.” Seb puts his hand on my door and pushes it open, walking inside, then reaching back to drag me in behind him. “Got a proposition for you. Something I’m sure will be to your liking.”
“Pretty sure it won’t.”
I shift from foot to foot in the doorway but already know from experience he won’t leave until he puts whatever his latest horror is into words. Better to get it over and done with, then go flirt with whoever’s in the student housing office tonight. See if I can’t get myself sorted.
Or him. I don’t want to lose my proximity to Rowena. Maybe I can get them to move him.
The idea pleases me enough to bring a smile. “Tell me, then. What’s this great proposal?”
He leans past me to slam the door shut, walking me a step backwards so he can turn the key. A pulse ticks in my throat but I try not to let him see how much it bothers me. An instant failure if his expanding smirk is anything to go by.
“Saw you near your ex earlier. How’d that go?”
“Fine. Why? Did you want to join in the next time we have a session?”
