Word travels through the academy like fire through dry grass. By dinner, everyone knows. I purposefully avoid Liam the whole day, even if it hurts like hell. I need to give him time to cool down a little. I don’t even go back to the dorm during Quiet Time. I skip MMA altogether.
Liam finds me in the hallway after dinner, even so.
He's not crying this time. He's something worse, cold. His blue eyes are burning.
“You told him." Not a question.
"Yes."
"I asked you not to. I begged you." His voice is low, controlled, but I can see his hands shaking at his sides, cuticles raw from where he's been picking at them. "Just like you told Griff about the eating thing. You just... you don't listen. You decide you know better and you just go ahead and..."
"He's gone, Liam. He can't touch you anymore. I don't regret it one bit, baby. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And he shouldthank mefor not killing him."
There it is. The lack of control I feel when I'm close to Liam. I'm trembling again, remembering the fear in Garrett's eyes. It felt good. It still feels good. Too good. I'm smirking, and I know how unhinged I look.
"That's not the point!" His voice cracks. A few students downthe hall turn to look. Liam doesn't care, or maybe he does, but can't stop himself. "The point is, I trusted you! I told you something, and you used it! Again!"
He's not wrong. I made that choice for him. I did it with the eating disorder, and I did it again now. And I'd do it again. Every time. But he's not wrong.
"Liam." My voice comes out flat, even. The leader voice. "We're not doing this in the hallway."
"We're doing this wherever I…!"
"No." I step forward. Close the distance until I'm looking down at him, using every inch of height, my shoulders blocking the light and casting his face in shadow. "We're not."
I take his arm. Not rough, I'd never be rough with him outside of sex, but firm enough that he knows this isn't a suggestion. He tries to pull away. I tighten my grip, just enough.
"Let go of me!"
"Walk."
Something in my tone makes him go still. His eyes search my face, and I watch the anger flicker, shift, become something more complicated. He walks.
My office. Turn the lock. Liam rounds on me immediately, mouth open to resume the argument, and I kiss him.
Not gently. There's nothing gentle about it. I press him back against the door with my full weight, one hand cupping the back of his head, fingers tangling in the longer hair on top, my other arm locking around his waist and pulling him against me. He makes a sound against my mouth, surprise, protest, something, and I swallow it. I kiss him like I've been wanting to since the moment I walked back into this facility and found out he was in the hole. I kiss him like an argument I'm winning.
He resists for exactly three seconds. I count them. One, two, three, palms flat against my chest, pushing. Then his fingerscurl into the fabric of my shirt, and the pushing becomes pulling, and the sound he makes shifts from protest to something desperate and wanting and broken.
"I'm still mad at you," he gasps when I pull back enough to let him breathe.
"I know." I kiss his jaw. His neck. The edge of that geometric tattoo. I feel his pulse hammering against my lips. "Be mad at me all you want, baby."
"You can't just... you can't keep doing things without... oh, fuck..."
My hand slides beneath his shirt, fingers tracking over his ribs, too prominent, every one of them countable, and I'll deal with that too. I'll deal with everything, because that's what I do, that's what I am for him, even when he hates me for it. He's everything to me. I lift the shirt over his head, and he lets me, arms going up, and the bruises on his torso make my blood boil with leftover rage.
I press my mouth to the worst one, just below his left pectoral. He hisses.
"This," I say against his skin, "is why I told him."
"Ethan..."
"This." I kiss another bruise, lower, along his ribcage. His breath catches. "And this."
"You're... that's not fair..."
"You're right. It's not fair what he did to you. And he'll pay for it. My only regret is not being able to beat him until he cries and begs for forgiveness." I straighten up. Look him in the eyes. His pupils are blown wide, lips swollen and parted. I can see his resistance crumbling in real time. "Take off the rest."
