Page 70 of Hot for Teacher
The ache in Chase’s chest made it hard to breathe, but he managed. Barely. He shut off the water, turning to face Spencer. “He was?”
Spencer popped another chip into his mouth. “I told him what’s what.”
“Oh, Jesus.” That could mean so many things in Spencer’s world, and Chase was now worried about all of them.
“He’s really got it bad for you, huh?”
“It’s … good sex.” The words felt wrong coming out of Chase’s mouth, but he’d been repeating the mantra for so long that he didn’t know how to stop.It’s just good sex. Intense sex. Sex, sex, sex.
But it seemed like, for once, Spencer wasn’t letting him off the hook with that. He cocked his head. “Is that it? Just good sex?”
“No.” Chase ran a hand over his face, shaking the water dropsoff afterward. “I don’t know.” The silence was deafening, and his mouth moved without permission. “He wants to date me.”
“Isn’t that what you were already doing? Even with the secrecy, it was kind of obvious.” Spencer laughed, not unkindly. “You spent his rut with him, Chasey.”
Obvious. Of course. Chase’s relationship with Killian seemed to be an obvious thing to everyone but him. Like how Killian had thought Chase should just know that Killian had been growing feelings for him. And apparently Spencer and probably Noah thought the same thing.
But Chasedidn’tknow. How did anyone know?
When Chase had been too little to have better sense, he’d asked his nanny why his parents didn’t love him like his friends’ parents seemed to love them. His nanny had told him thatof coursehis parents loved him. All parents loved their children.
But that had been a lie, one it had taken Chase almost his whole life to figure out. Trying to parse through why the love his parents felt for him didn’t feel like love at all.
And why did everything have to come back to them?Fuckthem. Fuck his dad’s narcissistic self-interest. Fuck his mom’s enabling and her cheek kisses that never touched skin. This was about Killian. Chase and Killian.
Standing seemed suddenly a little too difficult to manage, and Chase slid down until he hit the floor. Spencer, being Spencer, sat down across from him in the doorway. Chase rested his head against the wall. “How do you do it, Spence? Put your feelings out there over and over?”
It wasn’t like Spencer was proclaiming his love to random hookups over and over, but he was still … open. With his friends. With almost anyone. He never hid how he was feeling, good or bad, even when people wanted him to.
Spencer shrugged. “Dunno. Only way I know how to be.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Oh yeah.” Spencer nodded. “But feelings get hurt either way, don’t they? Whether you bottle them up or not.” He reached into his chip bag, then paused, giving Chase an incredulous look. “Dude, are you looking tomefor relationship advice? Please tell me you’re not. I’ll call Noah in. He’s, like, normal about this shit.”
Against all odds, Chase found himself smiling. “I love you, Spencer.”
He didn’t know why he could say it to a friend and not to … other people. Didn’t know what held him back, other than a fear so bone-deep it hardly registered in his brain. Like it was so much a part of him—this anxiety over what would happen if they named things that had been unspoken until now—that Chase hadn’t even known it was there.
And he’d fucked everything up because of it.
Spencer looked positively moony. “Aww, I love you too.”
“My parents don’t, I don’t think.” Chase took a deep breath. Let it out. Let the truth out. “They don’t love me. They never have.”
Chase hadn’t spoken to his father since that night. He’d left his number blocked, and he’d blocked his mother’s while he was at it. It was novel, being the one doing the ignoring. He probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever, but it was working for him for now.
Spencer’s response was instantaneous, without an ounce of hesitation. “Then they’re selfish, shitty assholes who don’t deserve you.”
They were only words, but they loosened something in Chase. Something Killian had already wiggled free with his tenderness and care and protection. A tightness Chase had been living with all his life.
He let his eyes fall shut, let himself breathe easily as he admitted, “I don’t know how to just … be loved by someone. I don’t know why it’s so scary.”
Spencer scoffed. “You’ve been loved.Welove you.”
“It’s different. You don’t have any … expectations.”
“And does this professor expect you to be something you’re not?” Spencer sounded pissed off by his own question, like if the answer was yes he’d jump up and go hunt Killian down for putting too much pressure on Chase.
