I Hate Summer (38 page)

The field full of dated disco music had smelled of rotting garbage beneath the scent of chip fat and sweat and popcorn. Theo had had to stay home to help out his dad on the farm, and I had been left with the elder brother of one of Jorja’s friends to look after a group of about ten girls. I wasn’t scared of people, but I resented being left with the stranger and had hardly said five words to him all afternoon. I had spent most of the day watching the people around me. For the first time in my life, I was enjoying the hot weather because it meant a significant number of guys had gone topless, and I drank it in, getting reacquainted with the thick stirrings of lust my body produced, so much darker and stronger than anything I’d had before the incident, when I had basically still been a child.

“D’ye want some beer?” the guy had offered as we’d waited for the girls to finish on some ride or another. I was leaning forward on a fence, not bothering to hide the fact I was watching the half-naked ride attendant with rapt fascination. I’d twisted my head to look over my shoulder and caught his eyes flicking up quickly from my ass.

There was a brief flash of panic inside of me, but it faded quickly as I straightened up, stretching to my full height as I looked at him properly for the first time all afternoon. I realized that even though he was a couple of years older than me, I was the taller of us; he wasn’t short, probably just under six foot, but nevertheless I was already able to look down on him. His skin was golden bronze and dusted with freckles from working outside and stretched over lean muscle from the same work that kept him outdoors. He’d kept his shirt on despite the heat. I could smell his sweat, and the scent was familiar after being with him all day.

“No thanks,” I muttered as I pressed my hands into the small of my back, arching up onto my toes to straighten the kinks from leaning on the railing. To my surprise, his eyes darkened.

“You’re such a fucking attention whore.” His breath was a hiss, and he flicked his gaze away from me, but I watched a faint flush rise up on his cheeks beneath pale brown eyes that were half-hidden by a flop of blond hair that looked like dirty straw compared to mine. He downed another mouthful of his beer. “Like sex walking around on two legs.”

I’d looked beyond him, and it was the first time I realized that more or less everyone was a bit shorter than me. And as I let my eyes skim the crowd, I had noted gaze after gaze for just a second. Most hastily turned away when they caught me looking, a few returning dark glances.

I turned my eyes back to my companion, and I considered him as he stared determinedly toward the ride our sisters were on.

This guy didn’t know me, he’d never met me before, and even he resented the attention I got.

“Ye want me t’ fuck ye?” I asked with a laugh as I turned back to lean against the railings as if my comment had been no more significant than when he had offered me the beer.

“I’m not gay.”

“S’fine; ye think I look like a girl, right?”

“Why would I want t’ be fucked by a guy who looks like a girl?”

“Don’t ask me. It’s ye that wants it.” I glanced over my shoulder and caught him staring again. I let my face relax into a nonchalant smile as he glanced hurriedly up.

“I don’t—” I’d cut him off by pressing my lips down over his. He’d tasted of cheap lager and candy floss. Our teeth had clashed and he’d shoved me off him
almost
instantly, but not before he’d let my lips linger for just a moment against his. I’d not fucked him that day; it had taken me maybe a month.

I’d realized that if even a stranger could get jealous of the attention on me, then I had no chance at an actual relationship. I couldn’t change the way I looked: I had already tried dressing, acting, and behaving differently back when I’d been dating. That day at the fair I decided to just embrace it. I couldn’t change myself, and I couldn’t change others, so why bother worrying about it, why not just welcome it? And I had, completely: I had accepted every flirt and come-on and discarded them once I was done, before I could be discarded. And that had been what I had been doing when I met Dan: fucking every guy that looked my way.

I dropped my head into my hands as it suddenly hit me what a fuckup my life was and how much I was screwing Dan over just a little more thoroughly with every day that passed and I didn’t tell him about Trystan. Theo was right, maybe we’d never sat down and said we were going out, but Dan had given me what no one else had ever given me. He had never once made issue of the way people were around me, the way people watched me, lusted after me—coveted me. He had embraced it, enjoyed it,
used
it with me for games and conquests. And for the past two years, because of Dan, I had let myself forget.

I had ignored the unspoken rule that had governed my life since that day in the fair when the grass had been burned and golden and the air had been full of dust and pollen and the buzzing of wasps.
Don’t get too attached.
A rule that had never been meant for application on those around me, because that’s just what people did, they got attached to me. That rule wasn’t for them. It was for me.

Because no matter what I felt or how hard I tried, the jealousy and doubt would eventually drive everyone away.

I wasn’t even fooling myself anymore when I pretended I didn’t understand the odd shimmering feeling that buzzed through my nerves when Trystan was around. Or that I didn’t know the reason why I was suddenly willing to spend a week, a month, however long it took, building up to having sex with him. Or why I suddenly felt this churning nauseous feeling of emptiness when I thought about the look that had passed over Trystan’s face when he had eyed up the toilet cubicles.

I hated that place right then.

It was everything I was, everything I had embraced about myself as protection. And I suddenly hated it all. Because in the end, I could say that I was different, but to the rest of the world I would always be the same.

I didn’t want Trystan to leave.

I didn’t want him to see this and realize what a mistake he was making.

But I had nothing to offer him to stay.

I twisted round to continue my pacing and realized Trystan was standing next to the door, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed against his chest and a frown darkening his eyes.

“I
DE
?” T
RYSTAN
said when he saw me notice him. He gave an irritable huff when I turned on my heels and paced away from him again.

Seeing him scowling at me did not help. All it did was reinforce the awful gnawing sensation in my chest. I felt a hand wrap around my upper arm, forcing me back around and giving me no choice but to meet Trystan’s eye.

“Ide? What the hell is wrong with you?”

I glared at the ground and pushed his hand from my arm. I didn’t bother trying to turn away; I just opened up half a step between us and glanced in the direction of the bar as I waved a hand toward it. “I told ye, ye wouldn’t like it.”

I ground my jaw together. “But it won’t change, Trys. It’s always going t’ be the same, whether it’s here where people know me or in some place I’ve never been before. It never stops, the looks and the come-ons, men and women, yer brother, ma friends, strangers… it’ll just keep happening. There’s nothing I can fricking do about it, so ye should just quit while yer ahead.”

He stared at me, his head cocked to one side, and his irritation turned to a genuine look of puzzlement.

“Seriously?” A quick series of emotions flashed across his face as he stared at me, and then with a sigh he reached forward and hooked a hand behind my neck, not pulling or demanding, just a gentle pressure against my skin, almost like he was reassuring me that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Why are you being like this all of a sudden, Ide? You’ve never been bothered before. Hell, you paraded it in front of me the first week I was here.” An odd, tight smile thinned his lips, but there was still a frown tensing his forehead. “You know I’m not exactly some chaste little virgin, right? I’ve slept around plenty, and it’s not exactly like I care what people think of me.” He gave an irritated huff and clicked his tongue. “Hell, if fucking in a public place does it for you, then you just have to get me drunk and I’d probably be on board.”

“Huh?”

“Ide.” Trystan stepped toward me, holding me in place with the hand that remained against my neck as he let our bodies slide together. “You told me to trust you, right? So I’m trusting you. And I told you to give me a chance to be what you want, so don’t just make decisions by yourself. Give me a chance.”

“Nnn.” I groaned something low and incomprehensible even to me. “But this—”

“You think I didn’t know what you were like?” he interrupted with a weary shake of his head. “You think your sister and your housemates didn’t tell me all of this shit to try and convince me what a bad idea dating you was?
I know
, Ide, and yeah it’s not ideal, and yeah I’m kind of possessive usually, so it’s not been easy to turn down the urge to punch every guy that looks at you or kisses you.” A wry smile flickered across his face, and he gave a soft chuckle. “But I don’t care what you did, or who you did it with, or how many people you did it with. I just want the stuff you do now to be with me.”

Trystan was staring at me with such a look of determined frustration, his eyes gleamed in the yellow lamplight as he held me against him on the edge of the road. People just walked around us. A few catcalls and insults came our way, but we were mostly ignored. His body was pressed up against mine, feeling as divine as ever. And finally I admitted to myself that the reason it felt so good wasn’t because of his muscle or bone structure—I’m sure it helped—but because it was Trystan, and because my messed-up head had decided to fall in love with him.

Which was
such
a bad idea.

Because he was going to leave me. He’d get jealous and leave.

But he was staring at me with his hand cupped gently behind my head. Staring at me with conviction and just a little bit of hope and a lot of regret, and he didn’t look jealous, just worried.

“Oh fuck it.” I slid my hand round his back and up his spine, enjoying the faint sparks of pleasure my body created from that simple touch as I wove my fingers up through the hair at the back of his head and pulled his lips against mine.

I’d never kissed someone like that.

Or maybe I had. Maybe I’d been kissing Trystan like that this whole time and I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself.

He looked slightly dazed as I broke away. I imagine I looked much the same.

“I don’t want t’ fuck ye in the toilets of some shitty bar, and I don’t want ye t’ fuck me there either.” My voice was low and breathy as I spoke. “I want ye all t’ myself, I want t’ be the only one allowed t’ look at ye and touch ye, understand?”

He understood. I could see the inexorable realization blossoming in his eyes, spreading through his face and curling up the edges of his lips in a self-satisfied smirk. He pressed his lips against mine, kissing me just how I’d kissed him, and I was in ecstasy.

“Just tell me, Idrys. Come on, I told you right from the start, so tell me… tell me this isn’t just a fuck, tell me the reason why you suddenly care so much,” he whispered against my ear as he broke off the kiss. He pressed his lips against my tragus, dragging his teeth slightly against the flesh. “Tell me, and you can take me home right now and fuck me.”

I hissed a breath between my teeth as his words slid straight down my spine and into my groin.

“I know it’s been killing you.” His voice rumbled straight into my ear. “I know blow jobs aren’t enough for you, and you’ve been holding back for me; it’s so fucking cute….” He grasped my free hand and guided it to his back before sliding it down over his ass and pressing it against the firm muscles there. My fingers gripped his flesh through his jeans, pulling us closer together so I could feel the faint stirrings of his erection twitching against mine.

Was I really going to say it?

“I like ye….” I held my lips against his, speaking the words straight into his mouth.

He chuckled and pulled me closer.

“You’re such a head case.”

Then he was pulling me down the side street the bar was on and toward the main road where we’d be able to get a taxi. His face was split in the biggest, darkest, and sexiest grin I had ever seen. It left me speechless and horny as hell, and it couldn’t have just been me, because other people were staring at him too. People paused, their eyes widened, their breath hitched as they watched the gorgeous guy dragging me by my wrist. I could have been imagining it, my head was so messed up the whole thing could have been some kind of twisted dream. Or maybe my drink had been spiked.

“Shit.” I stumbled to a halt, forcing Trystan to a stop. He stuck his hand out to flag down a taxi. “Josh,” I said, and the boy’s name brought me out of the lust-filled haze I had been inhabiting.

A taxi pulled up to the curb and Trystan gave our address and tugged me toward the door. I tried to hold him back, and he shot me a dark look before using his extra muscles to drag me inside.

“I asked that Echo dude to keep an eye on him, but my brother can do what he wants. If he wants to fuck that guy, then that’s up to him. Hell, I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I tried to stop him.” He jerked the door shut behind me and the taxi pulled off.

“But I thought….”

“I don’t care who my brother fucks, as long as it’s not you.” He gave a small shrug. “Besides, that Chris guy seemed sound enough.”

“How could ye possibly tell that from across the bar when he had his tongue down yer brother’s throat?”

Trystan grinned. “I went over and said hi before I came out to find you emo-ing your pretty little brains out.”

“I was not—” I was cut off by a mouth pressed over mine. I had a moment to hope that the taxi driver was open-minded before my blatant lie along with all other thoughts were drowned out by Trystan’s tongue working my lips open and pressing against mine, drawing it inside his lips so he could suck down gently on it. I groaned and pulled him against me.