Page 83 of Clean Finish

Thinking about it, I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Which means…”

I was back to fidgeting and staring at him anxiously. “Um…”

“Jesus fucking…” Holt pinched the bridge of his nose. “Give me fucking strength.”

I went red, hunching my shoulders. “I’m not trying to be an idiot, dude.”

“You’re not an idiot, Lark. You’re just young and you’ve never been in this situation before.”

“This feels like a pretty unique situation,” I said doubtfully.

Holt snorted. “I didn’t mean the fuckletics thing. I meant the rest. How you feel about Seb.”

“Seb’s my friend,” I said uncomfortably, except that didn’t feel quite right coming out of my mouth either.

“He is,” Holt agreed steadily. “And he’s a really great guy. And he’s obviously been very understanding. He’s calm and mature. Plus, he’s pretty handsome, right?”

“What?” I squawked out a laugh. “He’s—I mean—Y-yeah, anyone can see that he’s… Shut up.”

“He’d make a wonderful partner, right?” Holt continued. “A really amazing boyfriend for the right person. For someone who loves spending time with him, and likes how calm and nice he is, and enjoys sitting at the back of the private box with him doing crossword puzzles instead of watching the wrestling.”

“Yeah,” I breathed, nodding in agreement. Whoever Seb ended up with was… super lucky. The luckiest.

“Seb’s very level-headed and doesn’t make rash decisions, so he must’ve had a really good—or really specific—reason for agreeing to your fuckletics plan.”

“Um…” I rubbed my cheek again. “He’s just… really nice.”

Holt closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, then gulped down his rum. “I tried.”

“Tried what?” I asked uncertainly.

“Here’s what I think you should do,” he announced instead of answering me. “Obviously you don’t have to listen to me, but for once, I’m going to pull the age card here. I do have a bit more experience with this.”

“Okay…” I watched him warily.

“You should go and tell Seb exactly what you just told me. That you don’t actually want to have sex with any of the wrestlers. You just want to have sex with him. You love spending time with him.”

Terror made my entire body clench up. I shook my head frantically. “Oh my god, dude, I can’t tell him that!”

“Why not?”

“Because he’ll think… It’ll sound like… like…” I swallowed. “Like I want to… be with him.”

“Don’t you?”

My belly tightened, something fluttering through my chest.

“He’ll think I’m a total loser,” I mumbled. “He only agreed to the… fuckletics thing. That’s all it’s supposed to be. I can’t go and tell him that I… that I might…”

“He won’t think you’re a loser, Lark,” Holt said flatly. “Trust me.”

“I can’t,” I croaked, my palms growing clammy at the thought of saying all of that to Seb.

I’d be the inexperienced virgin who’d gotten overly attached to the one person who’d agreed to help me as a friend. And if I told him all of that, he’d have to gently let me down—tell me that he’d only agreed to the lessons, not anything else. Not a relationship with me. I couldn’t think of anything more humiliating.

Holt sighed and reached over to squeeze my hand. I let myself cling on weakly, needing the comfort, but wishing it was Seb’s hand. Wishing I could just nestle into him like I had in his bed last night after I’d made him come.