He opens his mouth, but no sounds escape. Instead, he’s trying to pull back. As I tighten my grip on his lower arm, he lifts his free hand, absent-mindedly scratching his neck.
“Seb,” I murmur. Behind him, the brunette is trying to regain his attention, her hands gliding over his shoulders, then down his back.
“Is this about your family?” I ask, although I already know the answer. His silence is confirmation enough.“Seb—”
“Not here,” he interrupts me, his voice strained. “We can’t do this here.”
“Then come with me. Let’s get out of here and—” I don’t get to finish that sentence, either. Behind us, a slurred voice rises above the thumping music.
“Well, well, well. Look who it is.”
For just a second, I close my eyes and take a deep breath as if that will make him magically disappear. But when I turn around, Olli is still there, standing just a few feet away, swaying lightly onthe spot, his glassy eyes fixated on us. He’s holding a half-empty bottle of something amber, his knuckles white from how firmly he’s gripping the neck.
“Olli,” I say as I look around, almost expecting one of my other roommates to stumble out of the crowd. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Olli is the last person who should be at a Kappa Nu party. He already caused a fight with some of their frat brothers last fall, effectively getting him and Nicko banned from any of their events. Why the hell he thought showing up here was a good idea is beyond me.
But he barely seems to notice me, his gaze going right through me as if I were made of glass.
“Sebastian fucking Davenport,” he purrs as he staggers closer, the hand with the bottle raised to point at Seb, “back to his old shenanigans. Breaking hearts left and right again, huh?”
Next to me, Seb has gone very still. He’s watching Olli like a deer is observing its hunter, afraid to make even one wrong move. I frown as I look back and forth between them, feeling like I’m missing out on a piece of crucial information.
“Hey, man.” I finally turn to Olli again, hands raised as I approach him. “Look, maybe you should call it a night. I can get you an Uber.”
“Don’t.” Although he’s slurring, Olli’s voice is cold when he snaps at me, his focus solely on Seb. “This isn’t about you, Micah.”
Behind Seb’s back, the girls exchange uncertain glances, the blonde taking a step back.
“You’re drunk, Oliver. Go home.” Seb’s voice is barely a whisper, a soft tremble vibrating in it. I’m reading the words off his lips rather than hearing them.
“Oh,I’mdrunk?” Olli’s laugh is like a knife, slicing through the stifling air around us. The sound is enough to make the hairson my arm stand on end, loaded with so many unsaid emotions that I feel dizzy. “Well, how many shots didyouneed before you had the guts to chat them up? Before you could bear letting them touch you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bull.Shit,” Olli spits, punctuating each syllable with a stab of his finger into the air. The liquid in the bottle sloshes around, some of it spilling over the rim, running down his hand.
“You need to stop talking and leave.Now.” Seb’s voice rises above the music, steadier, colder. His posture has shifted; he’s squaring his shoulders, lifting his chin. The vulnerability I glimpsed moments ago is gone.
“Funny.” Olli laughs again, hollow and bitter. “The last time we met, you begged me to stay.”
I don’t even have time to process the words because Seb moves too fast, darting past me and going toe to toe with Olli, his chest bumping against my roommate’s, who is stumbling backward.
“Shut your goddamn mouth, asshole!”
The music seems to stutter—or maybe that’s just my heartbeat. Around us, people have finally noticed the argument, the crowd parting to make room. Some of the Kappa Nu brothers are looking over from their makeshift bar.
“Guys, this is not the place.” I try to intervene, but neither of them is paying me any attention. Instead, Olli grins up at Seb, brown eyes shining with recklessness as he places his hand on Seb’s chest.
“Asshole, huh? That’s a new one. What happened to ‘baby’? What happened to ‘I love your mouth around my—’”
Every muscle in my body freezes while I try to process this. My pulse is pounding in my ears as I watch them, mouth slightly ajar.
I met someone. Seb’s words are replaying in my mind as the pieces finally click into place.
Someone you like? Or someone your mother likes?I had asked and immediately assumed the latter, while the answer had been right in front of my eyes: Seb canceling on the guys and me without explanation. Olli and Seb rescuing kittens together. Seb saying he’d have an eye on them and Olli while we were gone.
Seb…and Olli.
