Chapter Ten
Dakota
I was that person. The one nobody wanted to be around. I was the one that could dangle a dark raincloud over a bright and shiny room just by walking into it. I was the person that when somebody gave them a hundred dollars, they would bitch because they wanted a hundred and one. The piece of shit that wouldn’t go away even after you flushed.
Oh, dear Lord, now I was thinking of myself as shit. Where did this person come from? Why the fuck wouldn’t he just go away? Just disappear.
Hell, I had so much toxic shit surrounding me that I could even bring someone like Trystan Matherly down and he was on the loftiest perch available as far as college perches went. He was a college god and I was a fucking virus there was no cure for. If I infected him, he would slowly wither away and die. Could I do that? Could I be responsible for taking his light away from this world just because he’d given me the only moments of happiness I’d felt in years and years? Was I really that pathetically greedy?
Banging my head against the headrest, I started to think the choice was not going to be mine anymore. He was taking for-fucking-ever to walk around the back of the vehicle. Good, take the choice away from me because I really was that pathetically greedy. I was that starved for affection. I would infect him with my darkness for the few minutes of happiness I could steal from him. I would hate myself afterwards, but I would still do it. I wanted him that badly.
I’d thought I’d known love in the past. I’d thought what Evan and I shared had been love. Oh, I’d known it was twisted and wrong on more levels than it was right, but I’d still thought it was some level of love. It had been obsession. It had been dirty and built on a platform of lies and had ended with an explosion of lies.
I’d thought I had known hate in the past. I’d been wrong. The emotion I had identified as hate was nothing compared to what I felt for myself right now. I hated about every damned thing about me. I hated myself because I was going to ruin Trystan and I was going to destroy myself in the process. I was too weak to walk away. That had always been my story—too fucking weak.
Even the gods had to be against me. They knew my history, what kind of shit followed me like addicts followed drugs, and yet they created that absolutely perfect man and put him right into my path. Trystan was a combination of every fantasy I’d ever had since realizing I was gay. The muscles, hard and unyielding. The tattoos. The piercings. The smile. The way he watched me move. The sweet shit he said, even if he probably didn’t mean a damned word of it. Everything.
He was the entire ‘make Dakota fall in love’ package, so I knew he could not be real. He was just another pawn in the Fuck-Dakota-over fun-filled roller coaster called my life.
Evan was winning. Every damned time I had a panic attack and put an antidepressant in my mouth, he won again. When I’d been forced to drop out with one semester left before graduation, Evan had won. When I’d to leave my mother behind to live alone in the shitshow I left behind in Texas, Evan had won. Every lost tenth of a second from my swim time, every nightmare, every insecure thought crossing my mind, forcing me to hold everyone at arm’s length—it meant Evan had won.
I was so sick of losing.
While Trystan continued his mile-long expedition from my car door to his car door, my mind traveled back to the phone conversation I’d just had with my mom. She was the one person who loved me no matter how much shit I shoveled. She stood by me, regardless of what she had lost in the process, and had never one time complained about it. Today was the first day I had heard disappointment and frustration in her voice.
What do you mean you’re stopping your medication, Dakota? You can’t do that without talking to your doctor first! It’s dangerous, sweetheart. You’re on the medicine for a reason. If you honestly think you’re ready to try to deal with what happened without the aid of your medication, we will set up an appointment with your doctor to ensure you cut the dosage properly. You can’t quit cold-turkey, Dakota. There are side effects!
Well, there were side effects to taking them, too. I was tired. I couldn’t think straight. They curbed my sex drive and for the first time in for-fucking-ever, I had a sex drive that I didn’t want anything to interfere with. My mind was sluggish. The list went on and on. On top of that, I just didn’t want to fucking take them anymore. Yes, I’d read the side effects. I knew they could cause my depression to get worse—increase my thoughts of suicide. I was aware of the possibility and I would know what to look for. I hadn’t taken them this morning and I wasn’t taking them ever again. She was just going to have to accept that fact. I was fucking tired of living in a fog.
Finally, Trystan climbed into the vehicle, closed the door, and locked his seat belt. When he reached for the ignition, I started talking. I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted to be capable of saying something to make him understand…without saying too much. There was so much I couldn’t say—either the words wouldn’t leave my mouth or a gag order prevented the words from leaving my mouth. Either way, I was restricted, incapable of pleading my case and trying to make him understand. I couldn’t give him much, but I would give him what I could. “I don’t like being this way, Trystan. I’m sorry. If I could change me, I would. I promise I would. I’m trying. Hell, that’s what the drugs are supposed to be for, to give me the courage to keep trying. I hate the way I’m, what I’ve become. Please try to be…patient. I know I don’t have the right to ask for it, but please….”
He looked at me, a frown marring his beautiful face. I bet he’d never frowned in his life before I tumbled into it.
“You’ve been hurt, Dakota. I get that. I’m not completely self-absorbed.” He laughed softly. “Okay, maybe I’m but I’m not a total ass—contrary to popular belief at the breakfast table. I see the pain in your eyes every damned time I look at you. I want to be the one to make that pain go away. I’m not giving up on us. Hell, no. Never. But patience? It is clearly not my strong point. When I want something, I want it…and I want you. I’ve wanted you from that first moment. It is that impatience that makes me rush you, to push you harder than you need to be pushed. I feel fucking desperate around you. It’s like, if I don’t hurry and make you mine, you’re going to be gone.” He smiled. “Try to be patient with me too. I bulldoze over people to get what I want. I’m going to piss you off. A lot. Just try to remember, I’m doing it because I want you so damned bad and because I was raised by completely incompetent parents. They made me this way. I’m laying all the blame at their Louis Vuitton clad feet. It’s all them.” His words were light-hearted, his face was not. “Give me a chance to undo everything that bastard did to you, Dakota. Please give me a chance.”
“How the hell do you do that, Trystan? How? What the fuck?” I asked.
“What? I’m sorry, Dakota. I told you I’m going to screw things up and apparently I just did. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I swear it was meant to be right.” He massaged his forehead and then in a weary voice, he said, “In my head, it sounded right.”
“It was right,” I whispered. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is always right. I’m the one that’s wrong, yet you turn everything around and blame yourself. Why do you do that? It’s me. I’m the fuck up. I’m the one who’s messed up in the head and heart—not you. Don’t take any of the blame. Put all the blame at my bargain-store clad feet.” I knew I wasn’t funny, but when I was nervous, shit flowed out of my mouth. I was nervous. Shit was flowing.
“You aren’t messed up, Guppy. I’m going to spank your ass red when we get back to our apartment for putting yourself down like you just did.” He smiled weakly. “Let’s start this day over, okay? No more heavy shit for us today. Let’s just get to know each other and try to have some fun. You can teach me how to be an angel and I can teach you how to be a devil. It’ll be fun.”
“There is nothing angelic about me, Trystan.”
“Thank the fuck,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of here. I’m dying for you to show me some of your devil stuff.”
His smile was back as if nothing had ever happened. It was as if he had some kind of super power of deflection—my shit just bounced off him.
“You’re moving in with me, right? No arguments. Just gather up your shit in record time and back in my car. The faster we take care of it, the faster I get to the part of me spanking your ass…with the balls inside of you.”
My cock twitched at his words and the vision they invoked. Yeah, I wanted that. I wanted it really bad. “Are you sure about this living arrangement thing, Trystan? You don’t know me. It’s going to get weird fast and then where will we be? Maybe we should take some more time and do that ‘get to know each other’ thing you mentioned a few minutes ago. I swear that I’m perfectly safe in my dorm room. I was having a bad night and made some stupid decisions. It won’t happen again. I try not to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.” That was a big fat lie. I was the poster child for making the same mistakes again and again, each a little worse than the time before it.
He backed out of the parking lot, humming the Alabama Temple fight song like I hadn’t even said a word.
“Are you going to answer me?”
“No. There’s nothing to say. You’re moving in with me. If you don’t come willingly, I’ll kidnap you, so let’s just do this the easy way. A kidnapping could be rather embarrassing for my NFL career, not to mention your future. To avoid all the red tape and police reports, let’s just forego the kidnapping and settle on acting out some bondage and kidnapping scenes in the bedroom. Deal?”
He was an idiot. I was going to fall in love with him. Hell, I was already a little bit in love with him.
“Deal.”
****
Twenty minutes later, Trystan and I were knocking on my dorm room door. I’d made him swear he would not say anything mean to Baxter and he definitely couldn’t kill him. I think he wanted to kill him. He promised he wouldn’t. Hell, it was not Baxter’s fault I acted like an idiot. The poor nerd was just horny.
I heard Baxter’s squeaky voice say it was open, so I slowly stepped inside the room. Already Trystan was growling about there not being a reason for me to knock on my own dorm room door. He was probably right but on the other hand, he hadn’t walked in on skinny, deathly white Baxter while he was ass-up, getting fucked by an equally unappealing guy. Sometimes you just did things to protect yourself and knocking on my own dorm room happened to be one of those things.
Baxter was lying on his bed, curled in a small ball and facing the wall. He looked tiny and pitiful, like he might actually be ashamed of what had happened. The room smelled funny. I could not quite put my hand on it, but it was not good. My stomach rolled at the odd scent but since Trystan didn’t seem to notice, I tried to ignore the odor. It was familiar…yet unfamiliar. Whatever it was, my stomach was begging me to make my escape.
It shouldn’t take long anyway, I didn’t bring much with me when I moved, just the bare necessities. To say I’d left in a hurry was an understatement. I could still remember how shocked I was that another school had agreed to accept me under the circumstances. I should have felt grateful, but I’d been pissed—just another thing I’d allowed Evan to take away from me.
Ignoring Baxter, I moved around the room to gather my belongings, tucking them into my oversized Louis Vuitton carryall—the only nice thing I’d kept after the incident. It had been a gift from my mother and I’d been damned if I was going to sell it for pennies. She’d worked hard for every luxury we’d owned and I’d taken every one of them away with my stupidity. When all my clothes were gathered and stuffed into the bag, I went over to the nightstand to retrieve the reminder of my past that I kept hidden there. I quickly reached into the drawer, pulled out the small plastic bracelet and crammed it into my pocket hopefully before Trystan could see what it was. It was ridiculous really, a small reminder of what I’d left behind and what I had to look forward to, which had been not a damned thing before Trystan exploded into my life.
I’d spent exactly sixty-two nights in this room and hadn’t even made a ghost of an impact. It meant nothing to me and I meant nothing to it. It had been a hiding place instead of a sanctuary.
Glancing at Baxter’s curled-up body, I realized I’d probably been a pretty shitty roommate, too. Not only had I stolen his opportunity of having a room to himself, I’d been about as unfriendly as humanly possible. At first he’d tried to be nice to me, but I’d shut him down at every turn. After a while, he’d quit trying and I’d been thankful. After the initial attempts at friendship, his only communication with me had been catty remarks and requests that I make myself scarce. I’d started out as an asshole and he had ended up as an asshole, but through all of it, he’d never once told anyone about the nightmares I’d suffered through when I’d first arrived. My screaming and moans had to have kept him awake, but he’d never called me on it, never made fun of me to anybody else. I owed him a hell of a lot for that. I sure the fuck hadn’t needed more whispers and unkind words surrounding me than what I had already generated all by myself.
I looked in his direction one last time, wanting to say something but knowing it was too late. Baxter was a sweet nerd, he would be better with me gone. Turning back to Trystan, I said, “I’m ready.”
His eyebrows shot up comically. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” He placed his massive hands on his hips. “Don’t be leaving things here, planning to come back because you know I’m not going to let that happen. No, we aren’t going to let that happen. Bring it all.”
“Uh…yeah, this is all of it.”
Shaking his head sadly, he wrapped his massive arm around me, he said, “We have to go shopping. I’ve got things to buy you. Lots of things.”
“No,” I countered firmly. Gifts didn’t need to equal into the equation. Gifts were Evan’s way of asking for forgiveness, without actually saying the words. Gifts were things he’d used when he denied knowing me in front of his friends, or made fun of me when I walked by, or when he hit just a little harder than he meant to….
“We’ll talk about it. You’re a business major, so you can practice your negotiation skills with me.” His tongue swiped the side of my face. “I bet I win, though.”
“You have to lose every now and then, Trystan. No gifts.”
He merely chuckled and started tugging me toward the door. Baxter’s soft voice stopped both of us on the spot. “I’m sorry about last night, Dakota. I never thought anything bad could happen.” His voice hitched. “I never thought you would really go out to your car. I’m…I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Trystan growled but didn’t say anything else when I elbowed him hard in the side. He grunted, but that was it.
“It’s not your fault, Baxter. I should have known better than to do something stupid like that. We’re good.” We weren’t good but that was solely on me, Baxter had nothing to do with the failure of what could have been a friendship. He’d tried. I’d denied.
He rolled over and I heard my own gasp of surprise bounce off the walls. Baxter’s face was covered with bruises, his upper lip split open, and his right eye swollen shut. Angry red marks circled his thin neck. Dried blood streaked his platinum blond air.
“What the fuck happened to you, Baxter?” I practically screamed as I crossed the room and knelt next to his bed. “Who did this to you?”
“Nobody you know,” he muttered. “I met him at a bar. I should have known better than to trust a stranger.” He laughed bitterly. “I know how dangerous that is for a gay man. I knew better, but I brought him back here anyway.” He glanced up at me, his brown eyes wet with tears. “He’s the one that told me not to let you in. I’m sorry, Dakota. I was just…”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t. Who is this guy? Have you called the police? You’ve got to call the police.”
Trystan was pulling out his cell phone but Baxter shrieked for him to stop.
“No! Don’t call the cops. He said he would do worse if I called the cops and I believe him. Just…just forget about it. I won’t make the mistake of trusting him again.” His head hung down. “I won’t make the mistake of trusting anybody again. I just don’t want any cops involved, though. This will heal.” He pointed to his face.
I reached out and touched the spot in the middle of his chest. “Yeah, but will this heal? Will this?” I gently tapped the side of his head. “You can’t let this go, Baxter. If he did this to you, he’ll do it to somebody else.”
“He said you would say to call the cops,” Baxter whispered. “He said you would tell me to and if I did, he would kill us both.” He looked up at me, his eyes wide with fear. “I believe him, Dakota. You don’t know the coldness I saw in his eyes last night. He was furious when all the cops and EMTs showed up. I think he knew he could get into trouble.”
A cold chill washed over me. It was not possible. Evan was gone—out of my tiny bubble of life. It had to be a coincidence. “Did this guy know me?”
Baxter shrugged. “I don’t think so, he acted like he knew your type. You know? Like the kind that would be brave enough to report something like this. I’m just too scared, Dakota. I can’t do it. I can’t risk it. He was so mean, so angry. He’ll hurt me if I do.”
“What did he look like?” I asked, my voice more harsh than it needed to be but I guess panic would do that to somebody. I felt Trystan tense behind me, but I refused to look at him. I didn’t want to see the look in his eyes right now. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking about me and my continuous drama.
“He’s a big guy,” Baxter said softly and then nodded toward Trystan. “Big like your friend, maybe bigger.” He shook his head in disgust. “I should have known somebody that hot could not be interested in me. I should have known.”
“You shouldn’t want assholes to be interested in you, Baxter,” I countered weakly. “What color was his hair? His eyes? Did he have any tattoos?” Oh, fuck, I sounded delirious. I knew it couldn’t be Evan but I couldn’t seem to stop the terror that was making questions tumble from my mouth.
“Black hair. Gray eyes. I…I didn’t notice any tattoos, but he kept most of his clothes on.”
Black hair. Gray eyes. Not Evan.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Guppy. It wasn’t me, I was with you the entire night.” Trystan hissed down at me. I must have had a strange expression on my face, but it had nothing to do with thinking he might be guilty of what happened to Baxter. The look on my face was from the thoughts that I was somehow responsible for what had happened last night. I could not quite figure out how I was to blame for Baxter getting beaten, but something told me I was responsible. I guessed it was because I was usually the guilty party.
Baxter looked up, surprised at Trystan’s words. “No, it wasn’t you.” He stared at him oddly. “But he looked a lot like you. Do you have a brother? Stepbrother? Twin?” Baxter scooted further away from Trystan.
“No, I don’t have a brother, cousin, or doppelganger.”
He ran his fingers through his hair and then pinched the end of his nose. “Listen, kid. You need to call the cops about this. Men like the one who hurt you last night? They don’t stop. You might be able to protect yourself by staying away from him but try to think about the next innocent person he encounters. I assume he’s charming up front?”
Baxter nodded. I could tell he was in pain and worried about what he should do about whether to call the cops or not, but he was still in complete awe that Trystan Matherly was in his dorm room, talking to him. Any other time, Baxter would be floating on air.
“Are you going to call the cops or not?” Trystan asked, probably a bit more harshly than was needed.
“I’ll…I’ll think about it.”
A frustrated hiss of breath escaped Trystan’s lips. Looking around the room, he asked, “Do you feel safe here, Baxter? He can’t get into the dorm without a pass, can he?” He fiddled with the lock, checking how sturdy it was. “Does this work?”
A little bit of life fluttered back into Baxter when he realized Trystan was really worried about him. I should be shocked since he wanted to kill Baxter less than thirty minutes ago, but I was not at all surprised that he was worried about my roommate—that was just Trystan…always the good guy.
So much better than me.
Deserving so much better than me.
“I feel safe here. I might not have reported it to the police, but I let everybody in the dorm know what happened and what he looked like. I’m pretty confident that he wouldn’t have a chance of sneaking in here.” He smiled sweetly, already back in flirt-mode even with one eye swollen shut. “The lock works really well too. Thanks for caring.”
Trystan grunted. “Think about calling the police, man. Nobody should be able to hurt somebody like he did you and get away with it.”
“Okay, I think I will,” Baxter said. He finally noticed my packed bag and said, “Are you moving out? Is it because of me? Please don’t hate me, Dakota. I know I screwed up.”
“I don’t hate you or blame you, Baxter. I, uh…”
I didn’t know what the hell to say about where I was going. Did Trystan even want people to know he was getting a new roommate?
“Sorry, Baxter. He got a better offer,” Trystan answered when I didn’t. “Not that there’s anything wrong with you, it’s just that I think I can give him what he needs better than you can.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Trystan to always bring it back around to a sexual innuendo.
“Maybe you can give him a smile. He needs one.” Baxter looked at me, shaking his head. “Always so sad, Dakota. Have some fun.” His brows waggled up and down best they could with his injuries. “You’ll be the envy of the rest of the campus population.”
Truer words were never spoken. Trystan and his friend Alex were the most popular guys on campus. So what the hell was Trystan doing with me?
“Be careful, safe and call the cops, Baxter.” Trystan told him and then turned to me. “Let’s go, Guppy. Remember my plans for today? It’s, uh, not something I want to be late for and hope you feel the same way.”
No, I didn’t want to be late by even one second for a sex marathon with Trystan. Now that I knew I could be intimate without having a panic attack, I was more than ready for another round. Waving goodbye to Baxter, I followed Trystan out the door. My mind, traitorous bastard that it was, knew that my following him had so much more to do with just sex. I’d lied when I told him just physical. Well, technically, I hadn’t lied—I had believed it when I said it. Now I was flat-out terrified that I was wanting something so much more than physical with him. Hadn’t I learned a damned thing?
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even realize we were in the parking lot until the toys in my ass started vibrating again, sending a bark of surprise out of my mouth. “Fuck! Why do you keep doing that?” I asked. I could feel the beginnings of arousal starting to wash over me as I looked into his gray eyes. It was as if I was no longer standing out in the freezing cold in front of a nosy audience. In my mind, it was just Trystan and me. His masculine scent, like catnip to me, consumed me, overpowering the fresh morning air and wrapping around my entire body. My eyes only saw him. My body was only aware of him.
He stepped closer and then closer, not stopping until his massive body pressed against mine. Using a finger, he tilted my chin up to look him in the eyes. “I keep doing that because I love the sounds that come out of that sexy mouth of yours. I keep doing it because I love how your pale flesh flushes with desire, turning it into a pretty shade of pink.” He placed a soft kiss on my lips. “I did it because I wanted to remind you of where you were going instead of what you were leaving behind.”
It was scary how easily he could control me with just words. When he’d talked dirty to me while we fucked, I’d responded like a dirty whore. When he’d flirted with me, teasing me with silly words, I’d giggled like a schoolgirl. When he whispered things that promised of a future with us together, my heart fucking melted.
Giving someone that much power over you was dangerous. Intoxicating. Dangerously intoxicating. Yeah, that was it.
“It worked,” I whispered.
“Then let’s get you home, I’ve got wild things planned for you today.”