“Let’sgo, Oliver. Beast mode. One more,” Hunter says, clapping once as I finish the deadlift.
My heart rate is up and I pull in a few even, slow breaths. “Can’t. Can’t possibly.Holy fuck.”
Hunter’s been coming to the gym with me more often lately and he always pushes it to the max.
“One more deadlift.”
I groan as I get into position one more time, dipping low and gripping the bar. I pull it off the ground, straightening my legs and back, lifting an alarming amount of weight.
“God fuckingdamn it,” I call out as I bring the bar back down onto the floor, letting it drop as Hunter claps again.
“Told you. You had it in you the whole time, Ollie.”
I use the back of my arm to wipe my forehead.
“I’m fucking cooked,” I tell him. “You going to go for more?”
“Doing one more set of pull-ups. Be right back. We can walk home together.”
I nod at him, moving to the edge of the mat to do some post-workout stretches. I’ve been on edge for far too long. This afternoon, for the first time in nearly two weeks, I feel like my head is clear.
It’s now been two weeks since Niko got to campus.
And my life has become a complete blur.
The way he looked at me in that car like he fuckingknew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was hiding something from him… that look has been haunting me like a ghost for two weeks.
I should tell him I’m a virgin.
I’mgoingto.
With each passing day, I’ve wavered between having second thoughts about the whole fake boyfriend idea to begin with, then questioning myself for having regrets at all.
In life, I’ve always seenotherpeople taking the plunge, doing crazy shit, and acting confident intaking what they want.
When I made the power play and asked Niko to fake it with me, I channeled that brash confidence so convincingly that Niko Berlant even bought into it himself.
Now the doubt is creeping under my skin day by day.
I had assumed he would be following me around all day like he did the first day he got here, but…
Ever since he took me on that drive in the Mustang, I swear it seems like he’s been trying to avoid me.
Edge me.
I feel crazy for thinking it.
Ever since his accelerated classes began, he’s been busy. I keep expecting him to show up beside me and drape his arm around me like before, or try to wedge his way in close to me.
Or come into my room and force his cock into my mouth again.
No dice.
Our main form of communication for two weeks has been the texts he keeps sending me.
I scroll through our message history now, increasingly angry with each text from the past week that I re-read.
The ones from yesterday were the most aggravating.
