Page 64 of A Stealthy Situation

“Why?”

I turn my head to look at Em. “What if he never talks to me again?”

“What was going to happen if you started dating? If things got serious?”

“He’s still figuring himself out. I don’t see that happening.”

“You suck at hypotheticals. Just try for me.”

“If we dated, we would have dated. What kind of question is that?”

“And you would have had to tell him about me.”

“Obviously. But he never had to know you were in class with him. I would have just been all, ‘Here’s Em, who has never been at all around this area, and you definitely haven’t met him before.’”

Em laughs. “Ah. So, you’d start your relationship on a lie.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Well, stop being chickenshit.”

I huff and ignore my phone lighting up again. The dread curls deeper in my stomach every time I think about facing Harrison. We’d been all date-y the other night, and it low-key freaked me out, even as I loved it, but now that there’s a chance he might get angry with me? It’s driving home how much I want him.

“He’ll be okay, right?” I ask Em. “It was a simple mix-up. And technically his fault. He approached us.”

“Yeah, I suggest leaving that last part off.”

“Fuck.”

“You can do it.”

But that’s the thing. I really, really, really can’t.

19

HARRISON

I’m confused and worried, and I only get more confused and more worried as the day wears on with no contact from Benny. My gut is telling me something isn’t right, but I don’t want to jump to theories or conclusions without getting a chance to talk to him.

Classes are a write-off, so I head home rather than over to the DIK house. If Benny isn’t texting or calling back, he doesn’t want to talk, so forcing him into a corner won’t do either of us any good. He needs to come to me, and he needs to explain what’s up with that goddamn scar.

“You okay?” Felix asks when I walk into the kitchen and pull out the bottle of vodka.

“Fine. Just too much thinking going on.”

He watches, amused, as I throw back a shot. “So, the cure to overthinking is killing brain cells. Love it.”

“What else would you suggest?”

“Talking it out is a good alternative.”

I grunt and take another shot. What do I say? I think the guy I’ve been hanging out with and having sex with might be hiding something from me, and that something is a whole-ass person?

Urg … my head aches.

Because if the theory I’m trying not to think about is actually true … I don’t know who I’ve been seeing anymore. I don’t know if it was all some joke they do for a laugh.

They.

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