Becca Ritchie - Addicted for Now

But I’m not that girl. Sure, I may have played into his advances a year ago, but now they literally curdle my stomach. I recoil and try to untangle from his strong hold, but he grips my hand and places it right on his pants.

Whatever I feel—it doesn’t last long because Lo grabs his shoulders from behind and throws his back into the wall.

I flinch, not accustomed to physical aggression from Lo, not even when he pinned Mason against my car. And he eases off the guy within a second, his eyes pulsing with something hot and black.

“This is why America invented the sexual offender registry, you sick fuck,” Lo spits.

“I didn’t touch her,” Blond sneers, the veins in his neck bulging. “Your slutty girlfriend was all over me.”

“I was not,” I snap, about to charge him myself. I don’t have nails, but I’m not below slapping.

Ryke grabs me, and I squirm, trying to go help Lo. “Lily, stop,” Ryke says, holding me tighter.

“You want your dick to be touched so badly, fine,” Lo growls, and he does something that causes me to pause, going quiet and motionless in Ryke’s arms.

Lo slams the guy again, his back digging further into the wall, and he puts his hand over the guy’s pants. The icky feeling I had for touching Blond vanishes. I’m not the only who did it. Though, Lo volunteered his hand.

Blond thrashes, and Lo must grip hard because his face contorts into a pained wince. “Get the fuck off me.”

“What? You don’t like it anymore?”

“I can sue you for harassment.”

“Let’s play that fucking game,” Lo replies. “Let’s see whose lawyers are better. I’m a goddamn Hale. My family eats shitty fucks like you for brunch. Don’t you ever force yourself on a girl, ever again.” Lo loosens his grip, and then he steps back from him. Blond hesitates to retaliate, but his eyes ping from Lo, to Ryke, to Connor, and he mutters a curse and retreats down the hall.

Ryke looks ready to run after him and take a swing.

Lo’s chest rises, his hands clenching and unclenching. I see Jonathan in his words and actions, and I know the same comparison must infiltrate his head. Sober Lo still does mean things, and I’m not sure what the right way to protect me was—or what I could have done to help. But I do realize how much he hates even the notion of turning into Jonathan Hale. And for sacrificing a large chunk of his heart to come to my aid, I am very, very grateful. What he just did for me—it wasn’t easy.

His eyes find me. I step forward and put my arms around him, wanting to hold him and thank him all in one swoop.

Drunk Lo wouldn’t have been here.

I’d either have to give into this guy’s advances, scream for help and hope that a Ryke Meadows was around, or try to find a way to fight off a six-foot guy.

Lo kisses the top of my head, and says, “Are you sure you don’t want a bodyguard? I can’t always be around you, Lil.”

I’ve contemplated it. The idea of a guy shadowing me is a little unsettling, but after this, it’s definitely safer. “Only if you want me to.”

“We can pick out someone who’s really ugly,” he offers with a small smile. It’ll make him feel better, and that matters a lot to me.

I nod. “Okay.”

I separate from Lo and hold up the manila folder to Connor, who has been staring at it in curiosity for the past couple of minutes. “All my exams,” I explain. “The professors don’t want me on campus anymore.” For obvious reasons. And right now, I don’t want to be here all that much either.

Being a sex addict does not give guys the right to touch me. I didn’t think that would be an issue until now. Is this a problem that will persist for the rest of my life? Or something that will die when the media loses interest in me?

Only time has the answers.

“This would go a lot faster if you’d just let me bubble in the two other scantrons while you work on that one,” Sebastian tells me. He sits on the Queen Anne chair smoking his cigarette as he watches me hunched over piles of papers and scantrons. I’m basically copying the answers from Sebastian’s old exams to my finals, which feels more like cheating than simply memorizing.

But I’m fairly certain that actually letting him bubble in the answers would be cheating. “I’m not a cheater.” I cringe. “I’m not a complete cheater. Don’t tempt me to your dark side.”

He blows out a line of smoke. “Your angelic image was tarnished far before you ever accepted my help. You and I aren’t so different, Lily. We both enjoy an unhealthy amount of co—”

I throw a pillow at him and he catches it with his free hand, trying to protect his cigarette. Some things haven’t changed after I was outed as a sex addict. Sebastian is still Sebastian. And apparently he’s seen enough rich kid debauchery that my secret was hardly anything riveting. His words.

So I called him to bring over old exams for all my finals, and he hasn’t stared at me any differently than before the scandal. Which is kinda nice.

The front door bangs open.

I hurriedly shuffle the old exams into a pile. My head whips around, trying to find a good hiding place. I lift up the sofa cushion and stuff them under it.

When I meet Sebastian’s gaze, he looks like he could rip out my jugular for putting his old exams with the dust bunnies and rusted pennies. Oops.

Connor’s voice echoes from the kitchen. “We can keep brainstorming. We’ll come up with something, Lo.” They must be discussing the start-up company that Lo has to pitch to his father. He has a couple days left to choose a platform, and he enlisted Connor’s expertise. They spent all morning at a meeting to throw around ideas—and when I say “meeting,” I mean they sat in Starbucks.

They both saunter into the living room, Connor carrying a tray of coffees and a small pastry. “I thought you could use some test-taking boosts,” he tells me. Oh, this is why I love Connor Cobalt as a tutor. I beam, but that falls suddenly at the realization that I’m (A) Lying to him. (B) Cheating. (C) Team Sebastian. (D) Accepting the treats despite all of the above.

I say thanks and scoop the whipped cream from the coffee with my finger. Sin does taste delicious.

Lo stands off to the side, busily texting on his phone. Six days have passed since our bathroom fight over my self-love, and he has yet to forgive me completely. Our fights used to revolve around our addictions—sometimes we’d just drown in them for an extended week, ignoring each other. But this is a real, normal fight that hurts more than I ever thought it would.

“Lo, did you come up with any good ideas for the company?” I ask. I offered to help, but every time I suggested something, he told me to focus on my health. I grab the chocolate-filled croissant on the table and tear off small pieces to eat. I dunk a portion in my coffee.

Lo acknowledges me, and his eyes lighten when he sees me eating. “The top choice is a food truck.” He doesn’t look enthusiastic about that idea.

I take a slurp from my coffee. “You have more time,” I remind him. “It’s not over until the fat lady sings…” I narrow my eyes. No that’s not right. “Well, in this case the fat lady would be your father.”

He smiles, and he must catch the momentary lapse of happiness towards me because his lips downturn quickly. He closes off the conversation with the shift of his body.

We’re still fighting apparently.

“Where’s Rose?” Sebastian asks, lighting another cigarette.

Connor stares at it, letting irritation cross his face, his chest inflating with a deep inhale. “She’s taking a final, and you shouldn’t be smoking in here.”

“And yet…” Sebastian blows out a short puff. “I am.”

Lo’s phone rings, and he slips into the kitchen to answer his cell.

Connor steps towards Sebastian, and my evil tutor suddenly springs from his chair, both guys standing their ground with superiority. They each believe they’re better than the other. I’m not accustomed to intellectual stand-offs.

Sebastian appraises the cigarette in his fingers. “She hardly cares if I smoke, you know. If you did it, she’d drop you like she did her last boyfriend. She found a pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket. Next day, he was gone. Lasted one taxingly long week.”

“You planted the cigarettes on him, didn’t you?”

Sebastian takes a long drag and breathes the smoke right into Connor’s face. “Perceptive.”

Connor doesn’t even flinch. “Maybe you should be.”

Sebastian lets out a laugh. “You don’t think I am? I know that Rose has spent almost no time with you since Calloway Couture has suffered. I know that she cried on my shoulder two nights ago, not yours. I know that she called me, not you, to help pack up her office.”

She already started boxing her workplace?

“You feel threatened by me,” Connor states, stepping forward so only a small space separates his body from Sebastian’s. Connor has the height advantage—he usually does.

“By Connor Cobalt? A guy who is willing to sell out anyone if the benefit weighs on his side. No, I am not threatened by you. I just hate you.” Sebastian gives him a long once over. “Rose always did too. I don’t know what you said that changed her mind.”

“She never hated me,” Connor says casually.

“She bitched about you all the time in prep school. She’d return from Model UN, and I’d have to listen to her drone on about how Richard made a treaty against her country’s best interests. How Richard won the highest honor for countering terrorist actions.” Model UN sounds mildly intense and slightly scary.

“For such a smart guy, you really know nothing,” Connor says, his voice even-tempered. “She liked me, Sebastian. She bitched to you because she was attracted to me, a guy that riled her more than placated her, and that pissed her off.” Connor steals the cigarette from his fingers. “And if you truly cared for that girl, you’d realize that every time you smoke in this house, you set off her OCD.”

Sebastian’s lip twitches.

“You didn’t know that, did you?” Connor says. “While she cries on your shoulder about her company, yesterday she stayed the night at my apartment. And I spent four fucking hours calming her down because you put wild ideas in her head. You smoke, you mess with her things, and you return her to me restless. She paces back and forth, muttering idioms that make no sense, and I have to figure out how to put her back together. You are not a friend to her; you’re a parasite.”

I drop my pastry on my lap.

Sebastian is left speechless, his lips pressed tightly together.

Connor won this round. But when Rose enters the mix, I just hope he’s able to win the whole battle.

After Connor snuffs out the cigarette on his empty cup, he masterfully bottles his annoyance towards Sebastian, and his eyes fall to the scattered scantrons. “You should be taking those in a quiet testing environment, preferably somewhere clean.” His collects the gum wrappers, and Sebastian’s crinkled magazines, tossing them in a nearby trash bin.

“She’s fine,” Sebastian says, finding his voice again.

“What are you even doing here?” Connor asks. “If Lily’s taking her finals, she doesn’t need to be tutored anymore.”

“I’m monitoring the exams so she doesn’t cheat,” he lies. I want to snort, given the fact that minutes ago he offered to bubble-in my finals for me.

“I can do that,” Connor says. “Go propagate cancer somewhere else.” He takes a seat next to me—right on the same cushion where I buried the tests.

I hear the crunch and the crackle of papers, muffled but still distinguishable. I close my eyes and count to five in my head. This cannot be happening.

“Lily,” Connor says tensely, “am I sitting on porn?”

What?! I open one eye and meet Connor’s gaze. I expect him to be calm in the normal I’m-Connor-Cobalt-and-I-don’t-show-real-emotions kind of way. Instead, he wears disappointment fairly well. This is the moment where I can either out myself as a somewhat-cheater or take the hit for stashing porn. There’s no contest.

I spent days without self-love or any kind of sex from Lo, trying desperately to return to good faith with him. All of that will be squandered in one moment if he thinks it’s dirty mags. And I’m so sick of lying.

“It’s not porn,” I confess.

Connor stands and lifts up the cushion. He stares at the papers, the top exam with a random name (Jeremy Gore) and a letter grade (A-).