“How many times have I told you money doesn’t buy happiness?”
“About as many times as you reminded me that I need to do something with my life so you wouldn’t have to support me forever,” he fires back.
“I just meant not to expect shit to be handed to you. If you want something, go after it, but I do think she needs someone—”
Oswald clears his throat, interrupting me.
“Possibly more than one someone in her life,” I amend.
“She seems chill, but also kind of sweet and innocent,” he says, and I know where his thoughts have gone. He’s wondering what she will think when she finds out we both want her.
Oz is the only real family I have left, and we decided years ago that whoever came into our lives would need to accept us both. At the time, I was thinking I didn’t want to lose my brother to a girl, but as the years passed, the idea changed into maybe just having one girl we could both be with. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, maybe it started as a joke, but the idea stuck and here we are, which works for me. I don’t know if I’m even capable of loving someone the way they should be loved, and Oz can, so as long as he’s happy, I can be too.
“What’s not to like? Everyone loves a two for one special.” I make light of the situation because I don’t want him to worry. I think we can make her see the benefits of being with both of us, plus I’m not sure she really has another option. I’m not giving up.
Waylynn
Once the guys leave,I lock the door and set the alarm. It’s not as if I’m worried they are going to return, but the house feels so empty now that I’m alone—another reason I shouldn’t have let them come over.
When I pull the covers up to my chin after climbing into bed, loneliness threatens to engulf me. I’ve already tried all my usual tricks, like a comfort movie and the radio while I was in the shower, but I still can’t get used to how empty the house feels now. Maybe it’s knowing I don’t plan on having them back that has me feeling this way.
Instead of dwelling on what isn’t, I revert back to my old counting technique and hope I can fall asleep quickly.
* * *
Butterflies explodein my stomach the moment I walk into English and see Memphis standing at the front of the room. It wasn’t my intention to look for him. The plan was to keep my head down and sit on the opposite side of the room and hope neither he nor Oswald noticed me, but that’s all blown to hell in the first three seconds.
His eyes track me as I navigate the back of the room, taking me as far from him as possible. I don’t mean to keep peering up at him, but I can’t help it. When he leans his head back and crosses his arms over his chest, I almost lose my nerve to sit down where I want, but I hastily drop my bag on the ground and slip into the farthest outside seat. The scowl I see from the corner of my eye leads me to believe I’ve disappointed him.
The seats near me slowly start to fill in, and before I know it, there’s low chattering all around the room. It makes me feel brave enough to lift my head up, and a tiny sense of relief has me letting out a sigh when I don’t find Memphis watching me. It’s short-lived, however, because I feel fingers touch my shoulder, and I instinctively look up. His dark blue eyes are only a few inches away when he says, “Eyes on me,” so quietly, I can barely hear him. Then he’s walking down to the stage, leaving me to wonder if he really said it out loud or if my mind is playing tricks on me again.
“You’re in my seat.” Oswald’s voice comes before I even have time to recover from his brother’s.
The guy next to me looks over at Oswald, who’s standing on the other side of me with a furrowed brow, and his mouth drops open to say, “Huh?”
I shrink down in my seat.
“There’s an open seat right there.” Oswald points a few rows down to the center of a pretty full row instead of repeating himself.
“You could have told me you were saving the seat.” The guy directs his ire toward me as he snatches up his stuff and begins to rise.
“Sorry,” I mumble. This is not going to plan, and I don’t know how to get it back on track.
“Don’t apologize. I’m the one who told him to move, and he didn’t say shit to me.” Oswald barely moves, so the guy has to work to get around him, and he stares him down the entire time. If I could melt into a puddle, I would. I feel like everyone around us is watching and whispering.
If I really want to avoid these two, I’m going to have to drop the class. I can see that now. Oswald drops into the recently vacated seat and lets out anoof. I glance over at him to see sweat dotting his temples. He must have had to run. Maybe he overslept. He still looks tired, actually.
“Do you need a drink?” I offer. The embarrassment I was feeling begins to fade as concern for him takes over. Did he get any sleep last night?
“As long as it’s not coffee. I just drank about a gallon of water, and I’ll probably piss myself before class is over if I have a diuretic.”
I pull my water jug from my bag and hand it over to him. “It’s just water, and I haven’t had any, so it’s clean,” I inform him.
Oswald squints at me and takes the purple jug one-handed. As I’m pulling my arm back, he darts forward and swipes his tongue across my lips. I’m so surprised, I jerk back, but my first instinct is to lick my lips. His blue eyes track the path of my tongue, and he says, “Your lips and hands can touch anything you like.”
My stomach does this hollowing out thing, and I feel a tingle between my legs. Holy crap, that was… I don’t know how to put it into words other thanhot. I look away from him because I don’t know what to say, and he can probably see how stunned I am, yet he’s acting like it’s no big deal.
I flip open my laptop and enter the password to give myself something to focus on other than Oswald. Thankfully, the clock tells me class should start any minute, so now I just have to sit next to him for ninety minutes and act normal, which is fairly challenging for a girl who everyone thinks is slightly off her rocker.
