Page 94 of Sugar Rush
Andrew, that creepy fucking alpha from the party that had ended up stalking Jordy and blowing up his phone with all those fucking texts. I’d basically forgotten his existence since I’d taken Jordy with me to the beach for the weekend, and as far as I knew, there hadn’t been anything else for me to worry about.
About two heartbeats after I noticed him, he seemed to sense that he was being stared at, and slowly turned to face me. Withmy eyes locked on him, I raised my hand once again to confirm my bid for the next dollar amount.
I watched his hand twitch as she asked if anyone wanted to bid higher, like he wanted to raise it. My lips peeled back into a snarl, but I didn’t let the growl I felt building up in my throat rumble out. The last thing I wanted was to embarrass Jordy. As far as I was concerned, he had enough to feel embarrassed about when it came to me. But the need to flatten this asshole and rip him to shreds was like a siren’s call, taunting and beckoning me.
I wasn’t sure if anyone else in the crowd could sense the charged tension pulsing and radiating like a living creature between us, but I didn’t care. If he raised his hand to outbid me one more fucking time, I was going to tackle him. He, at least, seemed to be able to sense my intense anger, as he regarded me with obvious caution. I remembered the way he’d backed down from me at the party, which had been lucky for him.
He stayed still as a statue, his arm frozen at his side as she did thegoing, going, gonething they did at auctions. There was very light applause, punctuated with more shocked murmuring, as she proclaimed me the winner, and shooed Jordy back through the big curtain behind them to let a tall brunette guy take his place.
My adrenaline was crackling and rushing inside me, and it felt like there was nowhere to direct my anger, until I felt someone’s soft hands grip onto my forearm.
“Hey, Kieran.” Dani’s pleasant voice was kind, but pointedly drawing my attention away from Andrew. When I glanced over to her, she gave me a sweet smile and tugged at my arm a bit. “Let’s go hang out over here. I’m sure Jordy’s going to be coming back out soon.”
“… Yeah.” Letting her gently pull me away and out of the crowd, I saw her gaze dart to Andrew once, quickly, before returning to me.
“He didn’t say you were coming,” she commented.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” I replied. “I decided at the last minute.”
“Aw,” she cooed, giving me kind of a gooey, sappy look like I was the hero in a romance novel. I was sure Jordy had regaled her with all kinds of stories of stupid, sappy crap I’d done with him. And probably ones that involved my cock, too. “I bet he’s really surprised.”
“I bet,” I said, but getting away from the crowd, and especially fromhim, was starting to cool me off. Minimally.
Dani stayed clinging to my arm, looking at me expectantly. I was pretty sure she just didn’t want me to haul off and attack the guy who I considered to be Jordy’s stalker. I was pretty sure I remembered that he was related to someone important to the center or something, so that would have caused a lot of problems.
As she stared at me with her dark eyes, her black hair pulled into a thick ponytail high on her head, I considered how close she was to Jordy and how eternally loyal they were to each other. She’d been there for him for longer than I’d known him, and would probably be in his life (and therefore mine, hopefully) for a really, really long time.
“So, uh… Jordy’s shown me some of the stuff you guys picked out for the dorm room. It’s cute.”
It was all sort of unapologetically cutesy, with polka dots and ribbons and lots of pink and white, but Jordy seemed thrilled with it, calling it coquette or something. When I googled it, it said it meant flirtatious and playful, which I guess tracked for him.
“Yeah?” She asked, looking pleased with my assessment. “You’re going to come visit him sometimes, right?”
“Sometimes,” I confirmed. “But he’s going to come home some weekends too, so… It’ll be kind of a trade-off thing for a while.”
“Yeah, he told me!” She said, and I was glad she didn’t seem bitter or annoyed that I’d be taking up a lot of his weekend time. “We’ll probably ride down together sometimes, since my parents are all emo about me being gone all the time, too,” she sighed.
“That’s good,” I said honestly. “I’m really glad he has you around.”
“Aw! Thanks, Kieran,” she said. “I’m glad he has you, too. I was kind of starting to worry you guys would never get together and he’d be all weird about it forever,” she sighed.
My eyebrows drew together as I cleared my throat. “I mean… Has he really liked me for that long?”
I knew he’d mentioned having a crush on me long before I’d drunkenly stumbled into his room and made my own feelings apparent, but the way she said it made it feel more extreme. When I looked back at when he’d been a kid, I couldn’t picture it. Being fawned over at school by his peers and teachers alike, and then coming home late most days because of all the clubs and extracurriculars he was in, I’d thought I’d been the last thing on his mind.
But when I really stopped to think about it… Even though he’d always had so much going on, he’d get so excited to spend any time with me. The way he’d beg me to take him with me sometimes, even if I was just running to the store to pick up a couple things, or the delight in his eyes and voice when I’d agree to just sit on the couch next to him and watch a movie.
Kieran, you are my prince.
He’d told me that after I’d taken his virginity like a careless asshole on the beach, and I’d sort of blown it off at the time, embarrassed and not able to believe it yet. But maybe he really meant that. Maybe he felt the same way about me that I feltabout him. It felt impossible and insane, but… the way that to me he represented that beautiful sparkling angel figurine that I’d always been too afraid to touch, no matter how desperately I’d wanted to… Did I represent some pinnacle in his mind that he’d always considered untouchable until now, too?
“You mean you don’t know?” Dani questioned, tilting her head at me a little, looking surprised. “It’s always been kind of obvious.”
“Not to me,” I denied, feeling a tiny curl of guilt in my stomach.
“Well… Yeah,” she finally said, after a pause. “It’s been a long time. Don’t tell him I told you that,” she tacked on.
“Nah, I won’t,” I said honestly.
