Happy
Valentine's Day! Instead of chocolates or flowers, I figured I'd give
you something you could actually use--- sweet teenage angst. (With a playlist, because everyone knows Valentine's Day should involve music!) *g*
A
little background: Zeke and Hatcher are the main characters in the YA
book I'm working on, Incoming
Credits.
This short picks up about six months after that book ends. The short and the book are both written in first person from Zeke's perspective.
Enjoy!
Love
Hurts
I
scowled at the phone, dropping it on my bed without erasing the voice
mail. If Hatcher thought he could just apologize his way out of this
one, he was sorely mistaken. Sorely being the operative word.
Three
hours ago, I'd stormed out of Hatcher’s dorm room with my
proverbial tail between my legs, and he'd been calling and texting
nonstop ever since. Not that I'd answered any of them.
The
phone beeped with yet another incoming text. I ignored it. It was
probably just another variation on the I'm
sorry
messages he'd been sending every twenty minutes or so.
I
shifted on the bed, dislodging the makeshift ice pack my roommate
Chris had made me before he'd left for his date. Unlike some people
who shall remain nameless, he was taking the safe route, going with
dinner and a romantic walk through the park for his
Valentine's Day date.
That's
what I'd wanted to do, but no, Hatcher wanted to try something new.
It'll
be fun,
he'd said. What
could go wrong, it'll be fine,
he'd said.
I
glared down at Ziploc bag resting on my crotch. It hadn't been fine.
The
Tylenol I'd taken when I'd gotten home had helped, but it was
starting to throb more. That probably meant it was time for another
dose. More ice would probably help, too. But did it hurt enough to
justify putting on pants and limping down to the ice machine in the
basement? No sir, it did not.
Just
the thought of rough fabric touching the burn made me cringe. Sitting
through class was going to be fun tomorrow. It would have been okay
if it had been anything other than my drafting class. Most professors
didn't really care what you wore, but Professor Arnold had a dress
code in his syllabus. The first week of class a girl had been thrown
out for wearing sweatpants with the university logo on them, so I
didn't think my tattered plaid pajama pants—the softest pants I
owned and the only thing I would even consider letting close to my
crotch right now—would fare any better.
*.*.*.*
It
was nearly midnight when my phone pinged with an email from Hatcher.
I was expecting a lengthy apology, given the number of times he'd
been texting and calling, but it was just a few words and a link.
I
clicked on the link, my lips curving up into a grin despite my best
effort to frown as I read the playlist name: “Love Hurts.”
Hell
yes, it did. The track listings made me smile, too. I’d always been
amused by Hatcher’s dark sense of humor, and this was no exception.
Love
Hurts,
Nazareth
It
Hurts Like Hell,
Aretha Franklin
Why
Does It Hurt So Bad,
Whitney Houston
Hurt
like Mine,
The Black Keys
Sex
on Fire,
Kings of Leon
King
of Pain,
The Police
Burning
Love,
Elvis Presley
Sexual
Healing,
Marvin Gaye
It
was definitely an eclectic list, and I had to give Hatcher points for
creativity. It didn't make the burn hurt any less, but something in
my chest eased a bit. I hated fighting with Hatcher, even when I was
the one instigating it. And it hadn't really been his fault—it had
been an honest mistake, but my embarrassment had made it worse.
Really,
I was probably most upset by the fact that he'd thought our sex life
was boring. I mean, it's not like either of us have much experience,
but I'd thought things were good. What was I supposed to think when
his big Valentine's Day surprise ended up being a box of things to
spice up our sex life? That doesn't happen when your partner is
satisfied, right?
The
body chocolate Hatcher had ordered from some sex shop online hadn't
said it should be heated up, but we'd kind of figured it was like a
jar of hot fudge. He hadn't even put it in for that long—less than
a minute, for sure. But it had been more than hot enough to burn me
when he'd drizzled it on.
Thank
God he hadn't put it on my dick. Having a burn on the skin in the
crease of my thigh was bad enough. I couldn't imagine how much worse
it would feel in an even more sensitive area.
I
lifted the blanket and moved the ice pack aside, looking at the angry
red burn again. The chocolate had been hot enough to cause my skin to
blister, but it wasn't the worst burn I'd ever had. I'd done worse to
myself taking things out of the oven. Then again, those burns had
been on my hands. Not my groin.
Even
with most of the ice melted, the bag felt nice against my skin, so I
put it back. Chris wasn't coming back tonight, so I didn't need to
worry about pants until tomorrow morning.
I
settled back against the pillows, careful not to dislodge my ice
pack, and plugged my headphones into my phone. I hit play, grinning
when the first song started.
Hatcher
had texted a few more times, but I still wasn't ready to talk to him,
even though I'd already forgiven him.
Let
him suffer a little.
*.*.*.*
“Figured
you'd still be asleep.”
I
startled awake at Hatcher’s voice, nearly falling off my precarious
perch on the edge of my bed. I must have fallen asleep listening to
his playlist. It took me a minute to realize that the room wasn't
dark anymore. Sunlight poured in from the blinds that I'd forgotten
to close last night.
Oh
shit. It was morning.
“Fuck,
fuck, fuck!”
I
scrambled to get up. The Ziploc bag that had been full of ice last
night fell to the floor and burst open, splattering both of us with
cold water.
Hatcher
grabbed me by my shoulders and stopped me from face planting onto the
floor, but I squirmed against his hold.
“I
have class!” I muttered, wiping the droplets of water off my face
with the back of my hand once he let me go.
“You
had
class,” he said, his grin entirely too smug for this hour of the
morning. I didn't have time for this. Professor Arnold locked the
doors of the lecture hall at precisely 8:01 a.m. and didn't let
latecomers in. He only allowed one unexcused absence all semester; I
wasn't going to waste mine in February.
His
words sunk in a beat later, and I looked over at the alarm clock on
my nightstand. Fuck. It was almost nine.
I
stopped fighting against Hatcher's hold and slumped back against my
wet pillow. “Shit. I'm fucked.”
Hatcher
grinned, and even in my panicked and still pained state, my pulse
kicked up a notch. We hadn't had sex last night, what with the body
chocolate fiasco, and it had been days since the last time we'd
gotten off together. Even though I didn't feel remotely like having
sex, I'd missed that smile and all the dark promise it held.
“Yeah,
you would
be fucked, if I
hadn't gone to your professor
with the note from your doctor,” Hatcher drawled.
“If
I hadn't—what did you do?” I asked, terrified. Professor Arnold
was not the type to just accept an excuse—he'd call to check on the
validity of the note, and then I'd be in trouble for lying as well as
ditching class. My scholarships required a high GPA and no ethics
violations. “Oh my God, I'm going to get thrown out of school.”
The
smile slid off Hatcher's face, and he sat on the bed next to me, his
hands coming down to grab mine. “Hey, no. It was a real doctor's
note. I have some cream for your burn, too. And Dr. Hanson wants to
actually see you in person in a few days, or sooner if the cream
doesn't help.”
“Dr.
Hanson?”
Hatcher
grinned sheepishly. “My doctor here in town.”
Ah,
of course. Hatcher's richer-than-Midas parents wouldn't stoop to
letting him see a campus doctor at the health center like everyone
else. It made sense that he'd have a personal doctor here. Though he
hadn't been sick once all year. When had he met Dr. Hanson?
“You
know your doctor well enough to get him to write notes and give you a
prescription for a patient he hasn't even seen?”
Hatcher's
family might be crazy rich, but there had to be a limit to what money
could buy, right? Surely they weren't paying off doctors now.
“His
sister went to school with my aunt, I think. We know him somehow, at
least. And I have seen him. I had a physical in September when school
started. Mom insisted.” He tossed the tube of burn cream to me.
“It's not a prescription. Just regular over-the-counter stuff that
his nurse recommended. You're supposed to use it three times a day.”
I
rolled my eyes but uncapped it anyway. I'd been too panicked about
missing class to notice the pain when I'd woken up, but it was
definitely there now. The skin felt tender, and it pulled and stung
every time I moved. “Is there anywhere in the world you could go
that your family doesn't have some sort of connections?”
His
smile brightened. “The Winthrops haven't made a lot of inroads in
Asia. Want to move to Singapore?”
I
laughed. “Not even a little. So I need to go see your doctor?”
That
was going to cost me a pretty penny, I was sure. I doubted my Mom's
crappy health insurance was going to cover a doctor that Hatcher saw.
I still had some savings from working at the camp over the summer. I
couldn't call home and ask Mom for money—especially since she'd
want to know how I got injured in the first place.
Hatcher
watched me dab on the cream with obvious interest. I flushed,
remembering that I was completely naked. Not that I hadn't been naked
in front of him before. Just not this casually. I'd always insisted
on sleeping in at least a pair of boxers, since both of us have
roommates.
“He's
on retainer.”
Seriously?
That was a thing? I thought only lawyers were on retainer. Hell, I
wasn't even entirely sure what that meant.
Hatcher
seemed to pick up on my confusion. “My parents pay him a fee to
make sure he's available whenever I might need him. This kind of
visit is covered in that. Most minor things are.”
God.
I shouldn't be surprised, but Hatcher was so normal that it was easy
to forget just how wealthy his family was. Even when we'd been at
Winthrop Prep together, he and Leighton had been so much more down to
earth than the rest of the blue bloods. Here at Cornell, the divide
between heir to the Winthrop fortune Hatcher and normal Hatcher was
even more stark. He acted just like everyone else. Except for having
a doctor on retainer, apparently.
“Oh,”
I muttered, swallowing thickly. “Right. Erm, thanks.”
“Don't
be weird about it,” he said dismissively. “Besides, it's kind of
my fault you're hurt anyway.”
If
his interpretation of kind of was completely,
then yes. I gave him a dirty look but chose to let it go.
Though
next time Hatcher had an idea for how to spice things up in the
bedroom, I was going to insist he
be the guinea pig.
“So,”
Hatcher said brightly, nodding to my phone where it sat
on the mattress next to my pillow.
The earphones were still attached, making it obvious what I'd been
doing when I'd fallen asleep. “What did you think?”
I
snorted. “I think the last one was a bit optimistic. If you think
I’m going to let you anywhere near my –”
He
leaned in and kissed me, cutting me off mid sentence. I couldn't
complain. Kissing Hatcher was one of my favorite things in the world,
and he was being careful not to lean
on me and
aggravate my burn.
I brought my hands up and buried them in his hair, letting him lead
the kiss.
My
cheeks were flushed by the time he finally pulled back. “Was that
an apology?” I asked, earning a huff from him.
“Would
you accept it if it was, unlike the dozens of others I offered you
last night?”
My
blush deepened, this time out of embarrassment. I'd been really angry
last night, but after sleeping on it I could see how ridiculous it
had been to just storm out of his dorm room and not answer any of his
calls.
“Yes.”
His
smirk softened, and he peeked down at the burn. It looked worse than
it had last night, but it actually felt better, especially after
using the cream he'd brought. I wasn't going to be rushing into my
skinny jeans anytime soon, but I was pretty sure I could stomach
wearing sweats without wanting to die. That was progress.
“I
really am sorry. I should have read the directions, but I was just
too excited to use it. I wanted to make you feel good.”
The
confession took me off guard. “Really? It's not because you think
sex with me is boring?”
Hatcher
gaped at me. “What? No! That's what you thought?”
Relief
flooded through me. I hadn't realized just how worried I was that
Hatcher was getting tired of me until just now. Things between us had
gotten off to such a rocky start that we couldn't even agree on how
long we'd been dating. I count from the day I actually realized we
were dating—six months. But Hatcher counts from the day we started
our little friends with benefits arrangement, since he said he
thought we'd been dating all along—seven months.
Either
way, it had been plenty of time for someone as gorgeous and amazing
as Hatcher to realize he was wasting his time with someone as
ordinary as me.
“Yeah.
I mean, what was I supposed to think? You say you have big
Valentine's Day plans for us, and then you pull out this box of
stuff...”
I
trailed off, not sure how to explain how I'd felt when I'd seen the
silk scarves and padded handcuffs. There had been a vibrator, too,
but I'd been too mortified to really process that. When he'd asked me
what I wanted to try first, I'd grabbed the body chocolate because it
was the only thing in there that I knew what to do with.
Though
clearly I hadn't, since I didn't stop him from putting the damn thing
in the microwave.
“It
came as a package,” Hatcher said, his own cheeks stained pink. “The
website said it was a Valentine's Day exploration kit. There were
these hokey coupons, too. For sex and other things, like candlelit
dinners. It wasn't because I think sex with you is boring, Zeke. I
don't. But I've never been in a relationship with someone before, and
I kind of panicked about what to do for Valentine's Day. Leighton
recommended this sex toy site, and I swear to God, this box of things
was the least scary thing on it.”
Hatcher's
sister was one of my best friends, but she was a menace. Of course
she'd suggest sex toys for Valentine's Day. God damn Leighton. I'd
have to yell at her next time we Skyped.
Or
better yet, open up that vibrator and then give her details about
using it on her brother. That would teach her.
My
dick actually twitched a bit at the thought of going through the box
of toys now that I realized Hatcher was just as overwhelmed by them
as I was. And finding out that he hadn't gotten them because he
thought I was bad at sex helped, too. Now that I wasn't panicking
about him dumping me or worrying that I didn't satisfy him, I could
see how most of the things could actually be kind of fun. Not today,
of course. They all seemed to require a flexibility that I just
didn't have right now. But maybe soon.
The
thin sheet covering my lap didn't hide much, and Hatcher noticed my
interest pretty quickly. His eyebrows rose. “Really?”
I
shrugged. “Maybe the last song on the playlist wasn't that
optimistic,” I said, grinning when he leaned in closer and kissed
me.
“What
time is Chris back?”
He
usually didn't come back to the room til after lunch, which meant we
had plenty of time. I didn't think my injury was going to let us get
too crazy, but that didn't mean we couldn't mess around.
“He's
got an 11 a.m. class, and he'll probably hang out on campus after for
a bit,” I said, shifting over carefully to give Hatcher some room
to settle in on the bed.
He
darted in and kissed me on the nose. “So since Valentine's Day
didn't go so well for us, so I was thinking maybe we could do
something tonight.”
I
arched a brow at him. “Valentine’s Day, the sequel?”
“Too
much pressure. There are all these expectations for Valentine's Day.
It's
bound to be another disaster.
How about we celebrate President's Day instead?”
I
snorted out a laugh. “Because nothing says sexytimes like
President's Day?”
“Well,
it is
the
biggest mattress buying day of the year,” he said, wiggling his
eyebrows suggestively.
I
shook my head and drew him in for another kiss. “You're ridiculous.
Happy President's Day.”
I
could feel his smile against my lips. “Happiest President's Day
ever,” he murmured.
Blurb:
Incoming Credits
When Zeke's life at the exclusive boarding school
he attends is already hard enough with the stigma of being a
scholarship student and an art nerd, so being forced out of the
closet is the last thing he needs. Getting outed because someone
heard him mooning over the school's resident golden boy? Even worse.
High school ends in a blaze of misery for Zeke,
but that doesn't matter because he's on his way to Cornell. He'll
start over where no one knows him, and he'll finally be able to be
himself. He's so anxious to get started that he enrolls in a summer
program that offers incoming freshmen the chance to earn a few
credits and a stipend for helping out with a summer camp.
Zeke figured it would be easy to get over his
crush on Hatcher when he didn't have to see his stupidly perfect face
every day. Unfortunately, that's just a hypothesis...because
Hatcher's at Cornell, too, and he's suddenly interested in talking to
Zeke.
Zeke finds himself falling even harder for Hatcher
as their summer progresses. And surprisingly, Hatcher's not just
another pretty face. He's smart and funny, and it turns out that
boarding school was awful for him, too. He'd had money and
popularity, but he hadn't had many actual friends. It's a learning
curve for both of them, especially when Zeke learns that Hatcher is
gay. Helping him out of the closet is easy, especially when Zeke
offers to show him the ropes, so to speak, in a strictly
friends-with-benefits situation. Things get complicated when feelings
get introduced, and Zeke ends up learning just as much about himself
as he does about Hatcher.
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