Declan crossed his arms; the movement made my eyes fall to his chest, at the slightly-wet fabric clinging across it. “You don’t get to order me around. You’re just my roommate, nothing else.”
I could’ve told him that his dad had told me to watch out for him, but I had the feeling Declan wouldn’t like hearing that. Call me psychic. So instead I said, “Come on. It’s been almost a week. Isn’t it time for us to have our bonding moment? I thought that’s what roomies do—”
Apparently the thought of bonding with me was the worst thought Declan could’ve had, for the expression his face wore right then stopped me.
“Okay,” I switched tactics. “We don’t have to bond, but I do want to see you eat.” I got out of his wooden desk chair, moving closer to him to tug on his sleeve’s fabric. “We don’t have to talk. We can eat in silence.” It sounded like a boring ass dinner to me, but if that’s what got him to sit down and eat, then I’d be fine with it.
Declan let me lead him to the pizza boxes on the floor, heaving a sigh as we sat down. I didn’t get plates; we’d eat straight out of the boxes like animals in the wild. If he really wanted to not eat with me, it would’ve been easy for him to pull away from the tiny grip I had on his sleeve, but he didn’t, so I was choosing to call it a win.
I watched Declan open the pizza box closest to him, waiting for him to take a piece first. We sat a foot apart, and yet it felt like there was so much distance between us. After telling me about Sabrina, Declan had closed himself off. He hardly spoke to me, hardly looked at me. Honestly, it bugged the shit out of me. It would be a long year if we couldn’t get along.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew Declan was dealing with a lot of stuff right now. The whole school hating him, and all that. I knew it could weigh even the strongest person down, but he didn’t need to take it out on me. I hated being given the cold shoulder. Hated it with a burning passion so strong I couldn’t describe it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know what kind you’d like.” I got a cheese and a pepperoni. Those were two safe bets when it came to pizza toppings. Unless he was the sort of person who thought pineapple should go on pizza…if he thought that, there was no salvaging this situation. We could never be friends. Yes, I was that vehement against pineapple on pizza.
A muscle in his jaw clenched. “It’s fine,” he muttered, slowly taking a slice. Meanwhile I was too busy staring at his jaw, at the dark stubble on it. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and it made him look older, made his lips look extra inviting.
Okay, don’t look there, Ash. Definitely don’t look there. Need I remind myself about the whole off-limits thing?
I grabbed a piece out of the box in front of me, pulling my knee up to my chest as I ate. Nothing good was on TV yet. It was too early for new shows, the time of day when newscasts were on. With the pizza in one hand, I went for the remote, starting to flip the channels. Declan was off in his own world, but me? I needed some mindless entertainment while I ate, whether that mindless entertainment was watching other Hillcrest students in the union or a rerun of an old TV show, I didn’t care.
I flipped past a news station, only catching the tail end of their story about some serial killer called the Angel Maker. Eh. America was obsessed with serial killers, and any new ones that evaded capture always made national news. Me? I couldn’t care less about them. There were too many freaks out there, too many other losers who, in my opinion, were worse. Most of humanity sucked, but maybe that was just my cynicism talking.
I was very cynical when it came to most things.
Eventually I found a channel with a rerun of a sitcom about a group of nerdy guys sharing an apartment. I liked this one. I could watch it over and over again without getting tired of it.
We ate in silence for a while. I knew Declan was content in the silence, but I wasn’t. I wanted to talk, I wanted to get to know him better. If we were friends, wouldn’t that make this year go by faster? We were living together, for goodness sakes. Going on like this all year would only make it miserable for the both of us.
“So how are your classes?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me right away, and at first I thought he was going to get up and walk away, tell me off or something, but all he did was wait a minute before saying, “Fine.”
Fine. Huh. So interesting. You could carry a whole conversation on that.
I said, “Mine are good too, thanks for asking. The professors call on me more I think because I don’t blend in with all the other dicks.” Ugh. Dicks? Why the hell didn’t I just call them guys? I had to go and say the word dick…
Declan was finished with his first piece of pizza; he’d eaten the crust and all. Ew. Crust was nasty, but that was just one of my many, many opinions. I was full of them. “I thought you said we didn’t have to talk?”
“Why is talking to me such a bad thing?” I wanted to know. I needed to know. He could go on ignoring me forever, but it made me want to pull my hair out—which was saying a lot, considering how long it took me to find a pink dye that didn’t fade after two showers.
“Because” was all he said, which clarified absolutely nothing.
He started to get up, but I grabbed him by the arm. My fingers wrapped around his arm, feeling the muscle underneath. I also felt him tense immediately, as if being touched so firmly by me was the worst thing ever. I…I don’t know why, but I didn’t like knowing that my touch repulsed him.
“No,” I said, still holding onto his arm, keeping him rooted beside me. I’d dropped my half-eaten pizza slice on top of the box. I was now on my knees next to him, prepared to play tug-o-war on his arm to keep him down. “You’re going to tell me, because I can’t go a whole year like this, Declan.”
Declan’s dark gaze was slow to meet mine. We’d never been so close before; it was the first time I noticed the small flecks of light amber speckling his brown irises. I’d always thought brown eyes were boring, but his? His I could stare into all day. His were gorgeous.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, but I was still lost in his eyes.
So pretty. Why didn’t I realize how pretty his stare was before? And his lips…they weren’t the thin lines some guys had. A perfect balance between being thin and being full, very kissable lips. Lips that were slightly parted as he looked at me, like there was more he wanted to say but couldn’t find the right words.
While I was lost in my own hormonal mind, my grip on his arm must’ve loosened, for he started to get up.
“Wait,” I said, getting to my own feet. His were bare, since he just got out of the shower; mine still had high tops on. Even so, he was a good six or seven inches taller than me. Not tall by guy standards, but the perfect height for me. I wouldn’t need to stand on my tiptoes to kiss him.
God, I should really stop thinking about kissing him. No one should open that can of worms. Besides, I was sure the moment I did anything remotely sexual with any of the guys on campus, rumors would spread like wildfire about me.
I could handle the rumors. I didn’t care what people said, but I did figure to hold them off at least until my second week of classes.
“Just leave me alone,” Declan said, his sorrow turning into annoyance. “I don’t need you to help me through this. I’m fine on my own.” If we would’ve been anywhere else, I was sure he would’ve stormed away after saying that, but he had nowhere else to go. The day was winding down, and he had no friends now.