“I swear the moment my legs are healed I’m going to fuck someone new every goddamn night. Not having sex has been the worst part.”
“Worse thannot being able to walk?”
“Yes. Much worse.”
“Nothing’s stopping you from having someone come sit on your dick in bed, is there?”
He gestures around the room at the disarray. “I think the only thing preventing that is my own lifestyle. It’s not as if I’ve been feeling very proud of bringing anyone in here.”
“I’m sorry. It blows.”
He hums. “I might not be able to play hockey anymore, but I’m becoming a human encyclopedia.”
He nods over at his desk, which is covered in books, most of them sports biographies or books about classic cars.
“Christ. You have more books than Oliver does.”
“Who is Oliver?”
I wave a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re already dick deep in some poor, innocent Crimson guy and you’ve been here for a day and a half.”
Well, technically, yes.
I walk by the window again, and the sun has finally set completely. The clouds are rolling in fast, and I see afew tiny snowflakes beginning to hit the panes of the window.
“Oliver Ashford,” I tell Sevan. “He’s a member of Onyx, and he’s… interesting.”
“That’s how you describe every guy you hook up with.”
“Remember how I used to bitch to you about the hockey rival I had in high school?”
Sevan lifts his eyebrows. “The one who drugged you?”
“Yes.”
He blinks at me. “You’re living in the same house as that prick who drugged you?”
“Chill. It turns out he didn’t do that.”
Sevan is a year older than me, and we went to different schools growing up. He never knew Oliver, but clearly I complained about him enough to leave an impression.
“And now he’s an Onyx brother,” Sevan says, squinting out toward the clouds. “Naturally.”
“If you see me with him, don’t think anything of it. He wants me to pretend to be his boyfriend for the winter parties.”
I know I’m not supposed to tell a soul about my arrangement with Oliver.
Oliver would wring my neck if he knew I was telling Sevan.
But there’s not a chance in hell I’m lying to my cousin, so I’ll have to havethatlittle secret from Oliver. He doesn’t need to know I’m telling Sev.
“Of course you’d get into a situation like that,” Sevan says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re always in… interesting predicaments with your love life.”
