“Nika, you okay?” Val cocked his head.
“Yeah. Totally. Just tired,” I mumbled, shooting up to my feet and darting up the stairs. It was too abrupt to look casual, but in that moment, I didn’t care. What was the point, anyway? Adam and Val had graduated weeks ago. Adam was going to Juilliard. I wasn’t going to see him very often for the next four years—if at all—and even if I did, it was time I Band-Aided whatever was going on between us. The wound underneath it had festered and become too raw and painful to ignore.
I realized Adam had had me without really having me for the past year, since our attraction had become too magnetic to ignore. He threw clandestine, half-moon smiles my way like breadcrumbs to a bird, keeping me securely under his spell. Telling me I deserved better than the guys who asked me out, but never asking me out himself.
And the worst part was that I’d listened.
I was the idiot who turned guys down because they didn’t meet the astronomical standards of Adam. I’d played right into his hands, while he toyed with my heart.
I raced up the stairs, stormed into my room, and slammed the door behind me. I collapsed on my bed, bashing my head against the pillow with a groan.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
A knock on the door startled me.
“Nik?” Adam was the only one who called me Nik. He had a great voice. Low, gravelly, confident. I remember joking with my friends that I wanted him to narrate my life. He was going to become an actor, and I was certain he would detonate La La Land with his charm and looks the minute he landed at LAX. It depressed me, because his brilliance should’ve been my own worst-kept secret. Something that is uniquely mine to bask in, I couldn’t even deal with the high school girls who swarmed around him. I wasn’t ready for the entire world to fall for him, too.
“Leave me alone.” My voice was muffled by the pillow.
“When have I ever done that?” He laughed from the other side of the door.
“Never.” And that was my whole problem.
He opened the door, clicking it shut behind him. I saw him in my periphery, hooking his thumbs to the loops of his jeans, cocking his head sideways. Everything about him reeked of nonchalance. If the world ended tomorrow, Adam’s heart wouldn’t miss one beat.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you got jealous out there.”
His voice was careful. Measured. Bizarrely unflappable. He was gauging me.
“But you do know me, so rest assured, it’s just a stomach bug,” I murmured into my pillow. I felt nauseous with heartbreak. Like if I puked, the only thing to come out of my mouth would be a hairball of tangled emotions.
He ambled deeper into my room, perching himself on the edge of my bed. He tilted my face up so I’d look at him. I slapped his hand away, scowling.
“Hands off, Mr. McPervert. You just touched Maya’s hoo-ha.”
“Not exactly,” he growled, unfazed. He looked luminous. Like seeing me jealous made his day, month, year. I grabbed the pillow under my head and flung it in his face. He chuckled, dodging my pillow and tugging at my foot, perching it on his lap.
“I know what I saw.”
“No, you don’t. Admit it, Nika. You want me. You don’t want to want me, but you do. You just needed a little push to realize it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I maintained, but the fact that ninety-nine percent of my blood was concentrated in my face told a different story. Had he messed around with Maya just to get a kick out of provoking me? What a jackass. I kicked him off of my bed, but he was taller, stronger, and much heavier. Every time I pushed, I was met with his supersonic strength.
Besides, that was our thing—we wrestled. A lot.
“Nik,” he hissed. My nickname on his lips sounded like a dirty word. We were becoming a ball of knotted limbs and panting chests as he pressed against me. He was pinning me down to my bed playfully, restraining my wrists with his long fingers. I tried to kick him off, but to him, it was just another wrestling session, like the dozens we engaged in every month. Only, I didn’t want to do the whole roll-on-the-carpet thing tonight. Where we were half-fighting, half-grinding against each other, arguing over mundane things nobody understood or cared about.
We would roll on the carpet until I felt his hard-on pressing against my back.
Until we were both panting and groaning.
Until Val or one of my parents would find us and tell us to knock it off.
But that was before he’d carelessly stomped on my heart on my living room couch just to make a point. Before I realized I was in love. Before figuring out if I let him continue stomping on my heart, there’d be nothing left.