Ah, shit.
I pulled back, and my traitor of a tongue licked her taste off my lips, and I knew that I would never be able to unlive the moment now that it had happened.
It was a minor dip in our platonic relationship—you know, the one where we were roommates and possibly, on some occasions, friends—but I had reassured myself moments before falling for her tender voice and sweet scent that I would give her just a hint of what she deserved and nothing more.
The moment my phone pinged, telling me that Aasher was outside our door with the necessities that I’d texted for just an hour prior, I pulled myself back and regained my strength, even though it took much more strength than it should have.
The kiss was hot. It was unpredictably needy, and Claire was much more accepting than I thought she would be. And although I was only supposed to be kissing her to give her some of her confidence back, it was me who suddenly felt deprived of something.
“So, how did it feel?” I asked, wondering if I just needed a slight stroke to my ego so I didn’t feel so unrestrained. I had forcefully pulled myself back to gain some control of the situation, and I was thankful that my phone pinged, because I could definitely see myself craving to hear that sweet whimper again.
I couldn’t see her face, but I heard her mouth open before her quiet voice blocked out the devious things playing in my head. “How–how…did what feel?”
A chuckle raced from my mouth. “How did it feel to be desired? That’s what you wanted, right? Did I succeed?”
As if that was the only thing on my mind.
There was a slight knock on the door, and Claire’s entire body tensed beneath mine. My leg was still nestled in between hers, and my teeth dug into my lip like a knife against my throat. It was damn near torture getting off her bed, but I knew I had to slip back into the normalcy of our roommate relationship before I really fucked up.
“Yes, you did. Thanks.” She cleared her throat and sat up on her bed as I made my way back over to mine. I glanced to the ceiling, putting my back to her as I willed my dick to return to normal before opening the door.
“Good. Now remember that when he comes crawling back to you.” I turned and glanced at her over my shoulder as soon as I turned my lamp on. She was sitting upright, peering at me out of the corner of her eye. I dropped my eyes down to her chest and quickly turned away. Nope. I knew that the thoughts I was having were a simple reaction to the way her skin felt against my palm and the lingering taste of her mouth on mine, so I quickly got my shit together. “Chin up, roomie. We have a long night ahead of us.”
Her hot little gasp filled the room, and I turned around quickly, doing a double-take. Claire’s blue eyes were wide, and she looked both intrigued and alarmed. I laughed, hiding my accidental innuendo. “Don’t look at me like that, Bryant. That’s not how I meant it.” I cocked a brow, and her cheeks instantly turned pink. “Up.” I took my hand and flipped it palm up, signaling for her to get out of her bed.
“Why?” she asked hesitantly. Her legs swung over the rumpled covers, and instead of looking at her slender body, I kept my attention glued to her face, irritated that I could see the slight puff underneath her eyes from crying.
“Because we have a heart to mend.”
I walked over to our door and swung it open far enough for her to see into the hall.
Aasher was standing—rather impatiently—outside the door beside Ford and a worried Taytum. I quickly grabbed the pizza box from his hands and felt Claire’s presence beside me a moment later.
“Hey, you,” Taytum said, moving past my teammates. “I brought some extra necessities.” She held up a bag from the gas station.
Claire huffed out a small laugh. “What’s all this?”
Ford stole her attention—along with every other girl in a five-mile radius—with his Southern accent and cocky smirk. “Our ol’ captain here is such a good dude, ya know? He texted Aasher and asked him to drop off some pizza and chocolate for you, along with some booze, in case you wanted to get smashed.”
Taytum moved in front of Ford, and he glanced down at her briefly. “And I added some other necessities in there that I know you shall appreciate.”
I leaned over Claire’s shoulder, unable to stop myself from smelling her shampoo again and instantly pulled back after I saw the bright-pink vibrator. I smothered a laugh while simultaneously throwing hands at the hot, little thoughts coursing through my head.
Claire quickly slammed the bag shut and shot Taytum a glare. “Taytum!” she gritted.
“I picked it out.” Ford wiggled his eyebrows. “Seven speeds, baby. Makes us men pretty fucking redundant, huh?”
“I like the color,” I teased, bumping my shoulder into Claire to lighten the mood and to hopefully get back to normal.
“There’s a voodoo doll, too,” Taytum added, smirking. “I named him Chad. I say we cut his head off.”
Ford looked at her and said, “You’re just as crazy as your brother.”
Taytum pushed past us and pulled Claire by the arm after taking the bag from her hand and placing it on top of the pizza box in my hand. The door shut a moment later, and surprisingly, I wasn’t irritated that I was suddenly locked out of my room.
Ford stole the box of pizza from me and grabbed a slice before handing it back and walking away like nothing had happened. The moment Aasher and I were alone, he dropped his voice and asked, “What the hell was that?”
“What the hell was what?” I asked, wondering if he somehow knew that I’d pushed my roommate onto her bed and kissed her with a passion I’d never felt before.
He proceeded with caution, smoothing out his what-the-fuck expression. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you punch someone.” Shaking his head, he corrected himself. “Wait, yes, I can. You punched London for fuckin’ around on your sister, even though he was twice your age.”
“Fuck yeah, I did. I don’t like it.” My shoulders started to tense again.
“Don’t like what?”
“Cheating. It pisses me off. Don’t get in a committed relationship if you want to fuck other people. It’s just weak. And then this happens.” I inched my head to my door. “Girls end up with broken hearts and deny it until they are blue in the face.”
“Oh, so that’s why you went all ape shit and punched her boyfriend?”
Better be her ex-boyfriend.
“Yeah.” My answer lingered for a few seconds. “Why else would I do it?”
Aasher shot me a look, but I interrupted him as I caught movement at the end of the hall. I spotted several of my teammates lingering. “What the hell are they doing?”
Aasher turned around and put his hands in his pockets, sighing. “They’re keeping watch.”
“Keeping watch?”
“Yeah, they were at the party. They saw you throw a punch. They’re here to shoo him away if he comes to make amends to your roomie.” He laughed in between his explanation. “Plus, Taytum threatened them all if they didn’t keep guard. She has some pull because almost everyone is afraid of Emory.”
I was in disbelief. “I’m not that unhinged. I can control myself when need be.”
“They know that. I honestly think they are here for her more than you.”
His eyes flicked behind me, and I turned and stilled when Claire appeared in the doorway with her swollen eyes and slightly puffy lips. “For me?”
Aasher smiled at her. “They said you’re their favorite waitress. You always give them extra fries.”
A hint of happiness found itself on her face, and I pulled back in confusion. “You give them extra fries? You’ve never given me extra fries.”
She darted her attention to the pizza in my grasp. Her little hands snatched the box before she shrugged. “They don’t use my scrunchies on the door to indicate that they’re fucking someone in my room, now do they? Or give my favorite pair of underwear to some puck bunny.” Or kiss the fuck out of you to make you feel better.
The guys at the end of the hall whistled, and when I shot them a glare, they all turned around and pretended like they weren’t listening to our conversation. Claire snickered under her breath as she walked backward into the room. The second she was out of sight to everyone but me, I saw the lingering defeat still covering her features.
The door shut in my face, and I was left standing beside Aasher and Taytum. I peered down at the short blonde, and she sighed. “She said she’s fine, but she isn’t.”
I nodded at her and placed my hand on the doorknob. Claire didn’t show much vulnerability, but little did she know, I could see right through her, and so could her best friend.
I was halfway through the door when I heard Aasher say, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And to my surprise, instead of going home, he followed Taytum down the hall and sat there with the rest of the team, keeping watch for the fucker that broke my roommate’s heart.
I peeked an eye open slowly, irritated that the sun was shining through the small window in my room. My body ached when I moved on my side, and when I fully regained my ability to see through the blinding morning light, confusion swept me off my feet. I was staring at my bed, which meant that I wasn’t on it. An empty pizza box and tiny bottle of vodka laid on the floor, and I now had an explanation to why I had slept in and why my head had a slight thumping to it.
My eyes shot to the slightly opened door that led to the hallway. I recognized my teammates’ laughs, and a sense of relief went through me when I heard Claire’s laugh alongside theirs.
I slowly pulled myself up and stretched my arms above my head while cracking my stiff neck. Claire’s covers were messy beneath me, and it was warm where she had been lying. My laptop was still propped open on her desk that sat beneath her bed, but either the show we had binged had reached its end as we fell asleep or it had died. Recollections of the night weren’t blurry. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the small bottle to have gotten us both drunk, but we both took a few swigs to wash down the pizza.
Lifting my shirt over my head, I winced at the smell of her shampoo that lingered. There were very few times in my life that I had slept with a girl—and I meant that literally. There were also very few times in my life that, when I did happen to sleep over with a girl, I was the last one up.
I’d snuck out of girls’ rooms plenty of times in my first two years of college, and there were many windows that I’d jumped out of before school had started while I was in high school. But this? This was a first.
Claire and I were strictly platonic after our kiss. We sat together and ate pizza, watched the show she’d requested on her laptop, and took a few swigs of vodka before we both fell asleep on her bed. There was no mention of the kiss, and although every single brush of her skin against mine sent my thoughts into a frenzy, it all ended pretty innocently.
After pulling a new set of clothes on and taking a few swigs of water to wash the vodka out of my mouth, I opened the door to the hall and caught the sight of Claire leaning against the far wall with each of my friends surrounding her, like she was the second coming of Jesus.
Her smile was cheery, as if she wasn’t still mending a broken heart from her boyfriend sticking his tongue down another girl’s throat last night. Fuck, was that last night?
I latched onto her voice, mid-conversation, as I pulled the rest of my shirt down and wondered how she could seem so unbothered. The conceited guy I was down to my core hinted that it was our kiss that had mended her heart, but the righteous man my parents raised told me to keep that arrogant thought to myself.
“He asked for a refund.” Claire’s cheeks turned pink as her sweet little laugh filled the hallway. “But my boss quickly ran and got the cook from the back, and he escorted him out.”
“He asked for a refund?” Dax whistled. “This is why they should ban other teams from ever entering The Bex.”
Taytum snorted. “No way. Us girls need choices. We tend to get sick of the same flavor of Bexley U jocks.”
Ford acted hurt, but all attention turned to me as I leaned against the door frame and tuned in to their conversation.
“Well, hello, sleepyhead.” Dax smirked at me. “Leave it to our girl Bryant to get you to sleep in.”
“Your girl?” I questioned before flicking my eyes over to her. She caught my gaze for a split second before pushing off the wall and crossing her arms over her loose t-shirt. She looked down at her bare feet, and it seemed like she was hiding from something. When she brought her attention back up, the apples of her cheeks were redder than before, and it irritated me that she was acting all cheeky and comfortable with my teammates but was suddenly acting shy around me.
“Yeah, our girl.” Dax rammed his shoulder into Claire’s, pushing her off balance for a second. “We don’t keep guard all night long for just anyone.”
Claire’s hands went to her hips, and her crescent smile was infectious. Every one of my friends grinned at her annoyance with them. “I did not ask you guys to keep guard!” Her eyeroll made everyone chuckle. “And I’m not your girl.”
“But we’re your guys. You give us extra fries.”
Taytum pouted. “You give them extra fries too?”
Claire paused and looked around the small group that had formed around her. She laughed next and shrugged. “You guys tip better when I give you extra fries.”
“What?!” Ford squealed like a girl. “You only give us extra fries because we tip well?”
Taytum laughed when Dax put a hand over his heart. “I’m a little wounded. I thought you liked us.”
Claire’s expression softened as she peered up at Dax. “I do like you.”
“Is that so?” I asked, stepping forward and erasing the space between our door and the other side of the hall. I leaned beside her, resting one shoulder against the wall. “I thought you hated jocks.”
When our eyes caught, she inhaled a heavy breath. There was a pull in my core that had shifted to my gaze. I quirked a brow, waiting for her to turn away from me, but instead, she seemed to accept that I wasn’t going to let her act differently with me just because of last night. “Jocks aren’t so bad,” she mused. Then, she rolled her eyes, and I felt my lip curving. There you are. “I guess.”
“She guesses?” Ford scoffed, and we all fell into easy conversation again. Dax and I were chatting about grabbing some breakfast and then hitting the gym, and Taytum and Claire were mumbling under their breath, likely about Chad.
Part of me wanted to ask her outright if he had called her yet, but I knew it was none of my business. I was there for her last night, but that didn’t mean she and I were the best of friends now. She was still just my roommate…who kissed very well.
“Claire.”
The sound of restraints snapping was congruent throughout the hallway. Uh-uh. Nope. I stepped forward without even meaning to, but Aasher’s hand gripped a bundle of my shirt, and I stopped at the last second. Anger split down my spine, but I snapped out of it a moment later when I realized I had actually growled like a caveman.
Well, that’s new.
Taytum was the first to step forward, nearly facing off with Chad, who lingered at the end of the hallway like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. “Leave, Chad. No one wants you here.”
“Tay.” I snapped my head over to Claire so quickly I felt a pop in my neck.
Claire moved in front of Taytum, and although I wanted to push her behind me to protect her from him, I didn’t. It wasn’t my place, and I knew it. That wasn’t to say I didn’t want to knock him on his ass again or, better yet, stick my tongue down her throat—farther than I did last night—just to see how he liked watching her kiss someone else. Fuck, why am I so mad?
Chad crept down the hallway with caution, which meant that he was smarter than I thought. His gaze ran over my teammates and me, even shooting Taytum a wary look before saying, “We need to talk.”
“Why?” I asked. My arms went across my chest, and I was literally seconds from pulling Claire closer to piss him off. Instantly, I seemed to find my new hobby. It was no longer irritating Claire with pushing the limits within our roommate rules, or using her scrunchies on the doorknobs to irritate her. Instead, it was pissing off her ex. I wanted to pull her in and taunt him over and over again. I wanted to take the knife out of Claire’s back that he’d put there and cut him with it each time I touched her.
Claire peeked over her shoulder at me, and it was a heeded warning. Something silent was there that I wanted to ignore, but instead, I looked away and clenched my jaw in a subtle reminder that this wasn’t my problem.
“Come on,” I said to my teammates who were all just as bent out of shape as I was. One by one, they walked down the hall, each of them sending Chad a look that should have made at least a tremor of fear run through him. Taytum blew a bubble with her gum and waited until she was right beside Chad to pop it in his direction.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay,” I whispered, leaning in a little too close to Claire’s ear. I skimmed my eyes down to her bare arms and watched as goosebumps broke out along her soft skin. I flicked my attention to Chad and noticed his red ears. Oh, am I too close to the girl you cheated on? Allow me to step closer.
My smirk dug even deeper, but a moment later, I stepped away and looked into Claire’s eyes, waiting for her answer. She turned away and ran her hands down her arms. “I’m fine. I’ll see you…later.”
My teeth clanked against each other so hard it felt like I had been sucker-punched. The voice inside my head was telling me to go. But there was something keeping my feet from moving forward.
“Look at me, Bryant.”
Chad was approaching, and each step he took closer to her, the tenser she became. Claire’s blue eyes were heavy and clouded by something when she finally glanced up at me. “Are you sure you want me to go?”
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
She finally squared her shoulders and sent me a curt nod. “I’m fine.”
I nodded and slowly moved past Chad, sending him a chilling look that I had only ever used on the ice. Don’t fuck with her.
A gulp moved down his throat, but his expression remained steady and set on Claire. I pulled myself down to the end of the hall where Aasher was waiting for me, and I let him drag me the rest of the way to my car because there was something urgent that was trying to get me to turn around, and I knew that I shouldn’t.
