“Which means I’ve chosen you,” I continue. “So if you’re saying I have bad taste, then you’re just insulting yourself.”
“I don’t think that makes sense.”
“Does to me.”
Neo flushes, toying with my chest hair. I’m getting better at reading him. Right now, I suspect he’s embarrassed. “Fucking me once doesn’t equal choosing me.”
“It does if I say it does.”
He meets my eyes and smiles ruefully. “You’re a little intense sometimes. You know that, right?”
“Only sometimes?”
He pinches my nipple, and I hiss.
“Okay, all the time. But you get what I mean.”
I do. But over the past few weeks, Neo’s done something to me. Being around him has changed a fundamental part of me.
I suspect permanently.
“Do you have an issue with me choosing you?”
Neo sighs, shoving up into a sitting position. “Come on. Be serious.”
I prop myself up on an elbow, frowning at him as he grabs his pants from the floor and shoves them on—the pants he dropped last night before asking me to chase him. What’s changed between then and now? Fuck, I don’t want to go through the guessing game again. I’m terrible at it.
“I am being serious. Do you not want to do this again?”
Neo mutters under his breath before turning to face me. “What doyouwant, Wylder?”
His question is so direct that it catches me off guard. I have no time to articulate my thoughts, tripping and stumbling over my answer. “I want… I mean…can we…”
“That’s what I thought,” he says bitterly. “Okay, we really don’t have time for this. I have a feeling this is going to take a while to digest, and we need to tell the others what I found last night.”
He’s right. Why wasn’t that my first thought? Normally, I would’ve had us all meet right away. Instead, I chased Neo through the darkness like a man possessed.
Maybe that’s what’s going on. Maybe I can blame that.
No, that’s not right. I’ve always had this demon inside of me.
Neo’s just the one to beckon him forth and set him free.
“We do,” I agree, slipping from between the sheets. With the monster calm, I’m able to analyze and plan. My mind is whirring away, organizing the information we have and strategizing how to deal with it.
But I’m also thinking about the blue-haired brat who’s attempting to sneak out of my room. Turns out I’m quite good at multi-tasking when one of those tasks is Neo. Probably helps that he’s spent weeks distracting me. My brain is just used to accommodating him.
With my longer legs, I reach the door before he can leave. I close it with one hand, just as I did yesterday in the office. “Where are you going?”
Neo doesn’t face me. “To my room. I need to shower.”
“I have a shower that works perfectly.”
“Yes, but you’ll be in it.”
I press my lips beneath his ear, and smile at Neo’s shiver. “Is that a bad thing?”
Neo gently bangs his head against the door, and my smile grows. He’s discovering it’s not as fun when the shoe’s on the other foot. “I thought you were straight. What happened to make you go from that to asking me to join you in the shower?”
