Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“You realize how crazy you are?” Niko asks me after watching the letter curl and disintegrate into ash.
“And you love it,” I tell him.
He turns to face me, a mixture of sorrow and relief on his face.
“Why are you willing to do all of that for me?”
“Niko, you saved my fucking life,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”
He shakes his head, walking over to me and taking my hands gently in his.
I stare down at our hands, intertwined.
His six of hearts tattoo near my skin.
I’m never going to be able to give you up, am I?
It makes so much sense for us to be holding hands now, but not too long ago, all of this would have felt impossible.
Just holding your hand feels like it lights my whole body up.
Makes me feel alive in a way I never have.
“If it weren’t for me, you never would have been in this situation to begin with,” he says.
I exhale, taking a step closer toward him. “I felt like I barely lived before you, Niko. Maybe I was ready for this all along.”
He pulls me close into a tight hug. “I don’t care if you’re ready for it or not. I never want to see your life in danger again. For me or for anything. Do you understand that, Oliver? Can you please, please understand how badly I need you to be okay? To be safe?”
There’s panic in his voice like there was earlier today.
It still takes me by surprise, hearing Niko express that much emotion.
“I understand,” I tell him softly.
He holds me close, rocking back and forth in front of the fireplace, like he can’t imagine letting me go.
“You did this for me,” Niko says.
I swallow hard.
My throat is tight, but there are words begging to spill out of me.
Words I know are real, even though I shouldn’t say them. Even though they’ll probably come out like a goddamn grenade if I let myself say them.
But if I don’t tell him… that grenade will go off inside me, instead.
I can’t keep anything from Niko, anymore.
I bury my face in his hair.
And I tell him.
“I did this for you because I’m falling in love with you.”
He smells like home, even if he shouldn’t.
He feels like the safest place on Earth, even if it’s insane for me to feel that way.
I’ve never felt raw like I do in the moment that follows.
I gave Niko my virginity, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. I’ve admitted so much to him that I’ve never told anyone.
But he’s the first person I’ve ever fallen in love with.
And that makes me shake.
It feels tectonic, like nothing will ever be the same again now that I’ve said it.
“Don’t say that,” Niko whispers.
I clutch the back of his head, letting my fingers run through his soft hair. “Sorry. It’s the truth.”
He sighs against me, nuzzling his face at the crook of my neck like he’s trying to bury his head in the sand.
“Well, then we have a problem,” he says. “A big, big fucking problem, because I love you, too, Oliver. And I can’t love you. I can’t—”
I pull back, looking in his eyes while I keep my arms wrapped tight around him.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I fuck everything up. And I cannot fuck this up.”
I suck in a deep breath of air through my nostrils.
The fire beside us pops and cracks, and I can’t keep a smile from my face as I look at him.
“Fuck it up all you want. Fuck me up.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“And I’ll stay right here.”
“God, Ollie.”
I kiss him like it’s another first.
All over again.
Like we’re in uncharted territory, and all I want to do is plunge forward.
“I can’t love you this much,” he says, clutching me like I’m something to him.
“I’ll be here. Loving you, until you feel like you can.”
23
Niko
Niko, naked on camera before the New Year’s party, sending a direct video to Oliver
Username: Dragonfly
I run my fingers along the underside of my cock, taking the video at the angle Oliver loves the most.
Between my legs, looking up.
It’s just a tease, and I’m not coming. Yet.
And I’m not wearing a mask as I film. Because this video is going straight to his direct messages, and to nobody else.
Dragonfly: This one’s just for you.
Dragonfly: I want to give you all of me.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is quiet.
And quiet has never felt so good.
The college administration reopens again a few days after Oliver’s break-in plot, and all of us are nervous that day, waiting for potential repercussions.
But they don’t come.
Oliver is right that the college has no reason to check the security footage if they don’t know anything was ever missing. No other letters were taken, and we locked up and left the building like we’d never been there in the first place.