Alex
I push the hair off my forehead and look at the scar there. It’s been a week since Quinn took the stitches out and all that’s left now is a thin, pink line.
I pull the beanie back over it while I look at myself in the mirror and take a deep breath. I have to head out there soon and see her again.
Quinn.
Who keeps insisting on taking care of me when all I want to do is to try and quit her. She told me to stop avoiding her, but I can’t. The only way I know how to quit is by going cold turkey. I’ve been trying my best to do it, but she won’t let me.
Getting this movie marathon planned hasn’t made thing easier, and while I’ve been trying to pawn off most of the organizational things that include her off on Erik, she keeps asking me things.
“Just a few more hours, man,” I say to myself in the mirror. “Then you never have to see her again. Out of sight, out of mind.” I roll my eyes and shake my head at myself. I know that’s not true, even as I say it. But it’s just how it has to be. I scrub a hand down my face and leave the bathroom.
I look out over the living room. We moved all the furniture down into the basement and set up a sheet on one wall with a projector at the back of the room. Now, the floor is filled with students, most of them asleep already.
The marathon started on Friday morning with everyone having to pay a fee to enter, and another when you tap out or fall asleep. We also got one of the sororities to make meals, which you have to pay for. It’s now Sunday, and although we didn’t quite manage to reach our target, the money I got from selling the shit in my apartment and gave to Stephanie puts us well over that. Quinn doesn’t know about it though, and Stephanie gave me her word that she wouldn’t tell her.
I step over the unconscious bodies and make my way to the back of the room which Erik designated as the ‘prime spot reserved for the president and his VP.’ All it means is that we’re the assholes who get to change the movies and that I’ve been stuck next to Quinn all weekend. Which wouldn’t have been as bad if the girl could keep still for five seconds, but as it is my teeth from gritting them every time she gets a fright from a loud noise and clutches onto Erik as her life depends on it. We’re a bunch of guys, and so we chose action movies, and I realized that there are a lot of louder noises and explosions and fights than I thought there were.
When I reach our spot, I look over to Erik and see that he’s very close to nodding off, but I avoid making eye contact with Quinn who is still very much awake. I sit down and rearrange the pile of pillows behind before laying my head back against the wall.
We’re nearing the end of the sixth Fast and the Furious movie, and I should be loving it, I should be losing myself in it but Quinn keeps fidgeting or turning over beside me, and it’s distracting as fuck.
When the closing credits roll over the makeshift screen, I look around the room. It’s dark, the only light coming from the words running up the black screen and everyone's asleep, everyone except for Quinn and me. I get up to change over to Furious 7 and get back under the blanket. I grit my teeth again and ignore Quinn’s fidgeting as the opening sequence starts. I force myself to keep my hands at my sides and my eyes on the screen as I watch Jason Statham talk to his brother in the hospital bed. I smile and settle into it; this is my favorite of the series. I watch as he leaves the room.
“Oh my god,” Quinn whispers beside me when she sees the destruction in the hospital. Her voice is dangerously close to my ear, so close in fact that I can feel her warm breath against my skin. I angle my head to the side, so I won’t have to feel it but then I catch sight of her face, it’s full of tension and anxiety. I move my eyes back to the screen, but she won’t keep still.
“Quinn, can you keep still?” I sound irritated. “Do you need to pee or something? For real, what’s up with you?” It’s harsher than she deserves, but she’s driving me insane.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to me in the dark, and I immediately feel a pang of regret at the sound in her voice. But I don’t say anything, I just stare at the screen, unseeing.
“Alex?” Her voice sounds small like she’s afraid to ask me anything. I did that.
“Yeah?”
“Can we… do you think we can watch something else?”
“What?” I look at her fully now. She really does seem way tenser than a movie like this should make her feel. “Why?”
“I…” she bites her lips and my eyes immediately fixate on it. “I can’t stand the noise anymore.” I clench my fists under the blanket to keep from reaching out to her. She looks so lost, scared almost, so small at this moment.
“The noise bothers you?”
“It’s just...while my mom was sick I used never to turn the TV up too loud, or at all in case she needed something and it just kind of became our habit. It just scares me when I can’t hear anything else.”
I sigh, my heart-pinching. I totally get irrational fears and random anxiety at seemingly innocuous things. I’m angry at myself for letting her put herself through this for the entire weekend, and angry at Erik because he should have known this. Mostly, though, I feel guilty for ignoring her when she’s been dealing with it all this time.
I reach for the remote and mute the sound. “I think we’re going to break the rules if we watch something else, but is this okay?”
The light from the screen lights her face up enough for me to see her nod. She settles back in, and I keep watching her, but the tense set of her mouth doesn't go away.
“Are you okay?” I whisper to her.
“Yeah,” she smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just scared they’re going to crash and die.”
“They’re not going to die… yet.” I smirk at her, and her tiny fist punches my arm.
“I’m serious. I don’t know how you do it all the time. It just seems like they’re so… out of control.”
“Exactly the opposite,” I say to her as I watch the race happening on screen. She frowns at me, not understanding.
“Okay, you see,” I lower my body and turn it towards her, so my head is level with hers and point to the screen. She looks to where I’m pointing. “If you know what you’re doing, if you’re good at what you do then you know your car,” I whisper into her ear. “It becomes like an extension of you, a part of you,” I feel her body relax against me; I shouldn’t be this close. “It almost becomes like a living thing, you can feel every vibration,” my lips brush against her ear, when did she get this close, I swallow. “You feel every dip and peak like it’s melted into your blood. You know exactly when to pull back,” my heart hammers in my chest when she turns her head to face me.
“and when to push.” I finally manage to get out. Her eyes fall to my lips.
“That’s…” She looks into my eyes, her pink tongue shooting out to lick her lips when she looks down at mine again. “Amazing.” She whispers the word, and I swallow again. We stare at each other, my gaze flicking between her eyes and her lips in the quiet of the room. She angles her head up, and her mouth is so close to mine, so close.
“Alex,” she says my name but nothing else. I don’t respond. I just try and fight against my head moving closer to hers, but she loses the battle for us both when she presses her lips to mine. Softly, gingerly, she sucks on my bottom lip, and it’s like a bolt of electricity that I feel down to my toes and short circuits my brain. That's the only explanation I have for reaching my hand into her hair and pulling her closer while her boyfriend is lying right next to her. But she feels so good against me, and she tastes so good that I can’t think of anything else. I’m only aware of the feel of her tongue against mine, slowly working me up into a stupor as it slowly, torturously explores mine. Her body molds itself to mine, and I can’t fight the urge to rub my hard-on against her. Her hand fists into my t-shirt and a delicate moan escapes through her mouth and into mine, the vibration from her chest running through my bones.
Then someone coughs in their sleep, and it shakes us out of it. She pulls back like I’m on fire and looks back towards Erik like she just remembered he existed. She looks back at me, and I don’t like the look on her face, but I don’t have a chance to do anything about it because she shoots up and practically runs out of the room.
I get up and go after her, opening and closing doors in the hallway when I finally find her in the bathroom. She’s pacing up and down the tiny space with her head in her hands but freezes when she senses me. She looks up at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. I take a step towards, but she shakes her head and holds up a hand. I stop. We stare at each other, both of our chests heaving.
And then, like two magnets, we shoot into each other’s arms and our mouths crash together. I fist my hands in her hair and devour her. Her hands are on my face. We’re both battling for control, but neither is willing to relinquish it. The only thing driving us is the hunger we feel. The hunger that won’t be sated, that only becomes more desperate the longer we kiss. It’s hard, and punishing, furious and intense.
My hands fall from her head to grasp at her ass, I press her deeper into me, and she moans when I grind my dick into her. But I can’t get close enough. I grip her thighs and wrap her legs around me, turning us around I place her on top of the bathroom cabinet. And as I keep kissing her, devouring her, her hands tug at my shirt but I don’t want to let go of her mouth to give her what she wants. I know what we’re doing is wrong but with every fiber, in my being, I pray that she doesn’t come to her senses, that she doesn’t remember him, that she stays in this moment with me.
I grunted when she pulls at my shirt, annoyed and frustrated that I won’t give in. She bites my lip, and I jerk back, just long enough for her to get the shirt off over my head. Her breathing is labored as her hands travel down my pecs and to my stomach, and back up. There’s a beat where we just stare at each other again, and then we’re at each other again. My hands don’t know which part of her to touch and which to let go of. My mouth goes to her neck, licking and sucking like I’m crazed, the sound of her moaning my name ringing in my ears.
“Let me fuck you, Quinn,” I whisper in her ear. “I need to get inside you, please. Please, just one time. Just for a second.” And then she freezes. And I just stand there, holding onto her.
“Alex,” she starts, but I don’t let her finish.
“Quinn,” I grip her hair, but I keep my head tucked into her neck. “Please.” I sound desperate. Fuck, I am desperate.
“Alex, I can’t. Erik.”
“Fuck!” I shout and shove away from her. I slam a fist into the wall and then turn back to her. Her hair is a mess, her lips are swollen, and her face flushed. Then I take three steps towards her.
“Leave him. Be with me.” It’s not a question.
“I can’t, Alex, I… can’t hurt him.”
“So, you hurt me instead?” I shout at her.
Her eyes drop to the floor.
“Don’t you know how badly I want you? I would do anything, Quinn, anything to touch you. To be with you,” I shove my hands into my hair and then let them fall to my sides in defeat. “But I can’t keep doing this, Quinn. I can’t let you keep sucking me in,” I grab my shirt off the floor and pull it over my head, suddenly feeling disgusted. “You’re killing me, Quinn. Fucking killing me, man.”
I don’t look at her again as I push through the door and leave.