Page 51 of All That Remains
He cocked a playful brow. "He hasn't tried anything has he?"
"Mate?!" We laughed. "Hell no! I'd be sleeping on the sofa if that were the case, to be honest."
"Right, exactly," he fixed his fringe and spoke beneath his breath for the next part. "I heard...from a reliable source...that he's been pretty mad about Stevie lately."
"Davis?" She was a brunette smoke show we’d met back at school. She’d gone into modeling after graduation.
"Yup,Stevie D."
All the hairs on the back of my neck stood in unison. The temperature in the room must’ve dropped. I watched unseeingly as he opened his phone to read a few texts from the source. He had bad hangnails along his thumb. One was on the brink of bleeding.
"Heard he's sort of gone and lost it for her. They've been at it a few weeks now, mate. Nate supposedly got her number for him, like, last month, I think. That's where it all started."
Nathan was sat in the lounge finishing off what must've been his fifth slice. I knew he would regret it later. He always atemore than his fill and had stomach issues after. Levi must've said something idiotic because both Rome and Nathan burst out laughing in unison. Now I glared at them both in disgust. Nathan for his role in securing Stevie's number for Rome, and Rome for his role in desiring it.
Alex continued, but I couldn't hear anything. A high-pitched ringing had overtaken my brain. I was devastated that Rome might’ve been texting her the entire time. Right beneath my nose. Probably every night before we fooled around. Had he only settled for me because she wasn't here? Was I just a bedwarmer? A glorified placeholder for better people he had in mind once he left?Her?
I grew sick imagining the things we’d done. The places we’d touched. The places my tongue had roamed. I’d put his cock in my mouth. His fat, dripping cock in my mouth? And all this time he’d been planning on humiliating me when we left here.
I tried to control my rage, but it boiled up the back of my neck and the flesh began to blister. If it weren't for Alex standing nearby, I would’ve screamed until my throat ached and punched something to alleviate the pain. Tears sprang into my eyes, but I blinked them away, transfixed.
"So yeah, that boy iswhipped," he made the motion with his hand and the sound effect.
"Why're you so sure?" I retorted, at a loss for anything else to say.
"He fancies her way too much. Mate, they've just started talkin’, yet he met up with her nearly every night before we came here. He's locked in, y'know? We're all mad at that stage, right? Same with me and E. And even think of you with Carley? You couldn't shut up about her the first few weeks, and you hadn't even kissed yet."
My rage abated when I thought of Carley, realizing only now she was sort ofmyStevie. How exactly could I be pissed when Iwas in a similar situation? I was obsessed with Carley. She was insanely sexy, older—mucholder—experienced,independent, and the fact that she’d shown interest in me was a colossal ego-boost. While some ridiculed her for the unsightly age gap, I was praised by the boys and clapped on the back anytime I was spotted out with her. We made headlines like clockwork, which she loathed.
Still, the pride I once felt over securing her number had long since faded. This week had altered everything. With so little effort, Rome had reprioritized my affections and shoved her out of the limelight in my heart. Where I’d once been curious about him, I was now lost in him.Gone. Beyondthe pale. Carley couldn’t compare in the least. Not to his mystique. Or his maleness. Or the secrecy he’d entered with me.
Alex and I moved back into the lounge and he was decidedly more energetic than before our talk. "Bagsey mine!" he screamed, lunging into the array of boxes to steal the last cheese slice. I was glad his mood had improved since I’d mended things with him, but now I was the brooding one, staring atRomeweirdly.
What had I done? Things were fucked. He planned on going back to Stevie the second we got home. Back to normalcy. To decency. Of fucking course he did. What he and I shared was nothing short of a depraved, fevered dream. Something akin to an MDMA trip, except far more gross and unconscionable. It had no place in the realm of the civilized. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
I thought he was mine. We’d made out so long, of course he was mine. We were each other’s. The guy whosejizzI had to clean off my hand while he lay trying to catch his breath?Mine. No one in this world or the next could say he didn’t belong to me. The guy who'd kissed me non-stop, until my gutsshuddered?Mine. Him falling asleep against my mouth?Mine. Him whispering that he loved me?Mine, mine, mine.
Now when I looked at him, all I saw was infrared. It was to become the running dynamic of our anti-relationship. A crazed, almost chemical polarity that would haunt us until the bitter end. Untempered passion on either end of the spectrum. Hate and love. Estrangement and enthrallment. Fighting and fucking. War and peace.
18
I went to pack my things; glad I was alone. Free of him. It lent me room to think, but mostly about him. I was fucked. I’d fallen hard and there was no recovering my dignity at this point. He’d exposed the real Ralph. A version of me that had eagerly debased himself to please another dude. A dude? All for fleeting jollies. The only thing that comforted me now was the idea that he’d once beenmine. A truth I wouldn’t relinquish without a fight, no matter what the battle entailed. No matter how manySteviescame between us. I’d collect heads if I must.
I stepped back into the lounge sometime later, and things were nothing short of chaotic. Levi was spinning around in circles in the computer chair from my dad’s office. Alex and Rome were sticking things into Nathan's mouth because he’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Their snickers caught my ear. The pizza boxes were still splayed all over the floor. One of them had flipped over and thrown Rome's crusts everywhere. I knelt and collected them, confident they were his, as he was the only one who refused to eat the crusts. If they belonged to anyone else, I would’ve made them clean up their own mess.
"Woof... gotta have a lie down," Levi uttered, halting the spinning chair and staggering towards the sofa. Nathan awakened and snapped at the boys to stop bothering him. He was never ornerier than when someone disturbed his sleep.
"Wicked..." Rome whispered once Alex found Nathan's phone. They hacked it and went straight to Twitter. Later wefound out they'd tweeted something to give the illusion Nathan hated dogs. The animal rights activists were in his replies before he could delete the tweet.
"These lads gonna land me in trouble," he said, approaching me. "A decent man can't even take a nap around the lot of you! Jeezuz! Lousy bastards!" Everyone mocked the way he said‘Jesus’and he threw his hands up and went to the toilet.
"Change your bloody password!" I called after him.
Later, before my mum arrived to ship us home, I asked Rome to meet me upstairs so we could talk. He could sense I wasn't happy. He went straight for my cheeks and pinched them until I smiled.
"Dimples..." he muttered softly.
I relented with embarrassing ease and helped him pack his stuff. I even gave him a few of my dad’s books that he'd fallen for and kept theHarry Potters. I thought about not broaching the subject of Stevie since I wanted to head home on good terms, but once he stepped into the toilet, his phone vibrated. I moved over to where it charged on the nightstand, and there was a single message previewed on the lock screen.
