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“It isn’t like you,” I told him.
“I know,” Sawyer said again. “I had a girl earlier, but…I kicked her out.”
I stared at him. He kicked a girl out? “Before or after sex?”
“During.”
It took everything in me to keep my surprise to myself. Sawyer kicking a girl out during sex—something like that didn’t just happen. He always finished, and then he kicked them out, unless he wanted to go for another round. Kicking them out during sex was blasphemous.
I almost asked if he was feeling sick, but a sick person did not go and weightlift. Or at least they shouldn’t. I noticed the way his jaw clenched, how the hand that wasn’t holding onto the empty water bottle curled into a fist. Sawyer wasn’t happy.
“Why would you kick a girl out during sex? Was she that bad?” Even if a girl was bad, there was always room for improvement. Rope, mouth gags, really, there was no excuse. If Sawyer wanted to get laid, he’d get laid…unless, I realized in abject horror, he didn’t want to get laid.
Or, more accurately, he didn’t want to get laid by her.
Maybe he wanted to fuck someone else. Maybe he wanted to be with the one girl who I’d never let him be with. Ash was mine, and he better get it through his thick skull sooner rather than later, or else I’d make him regret his choices.
“No, she was fine,” Sawyer said begrudgingly. “She was just…” His bare shoulders rose and fell once. “I couldn’t do it, Travis. I couldn’t fucking do it.”
I kept quiet, letting him dig his own grave.
“I kept picturing Ash—” To that, he swore under his breath. “—and then I’d see it wasn’t her, and I just couldn’t do it.” Sawyer leaned his head back on the couch, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed a large gulp of air. To say he was ashamed at what he told me would be the year’s biggest understatement. I knew he wanted to crawl under a rock and die for admitting that to me.
Hell, if he wanted to go die somewhere, I wouldn’t stop him.
Ash was mine, and I’d be damned if I let Sawyer’s dick anywhere near her.
“I don’t know why, either,” Sawyer went on, propping up his legs on the coffee table before the couch. “She’s not even that pretty. She’s…annoying. She’s aggravating. She’s everything I hate in a girl and I still can’t stop thinking about her. I hate her, but…”
“You hate her but you don’t,” I finished for him, holding back my frown.
“It’s fucking stupid is what it is,” he said.
We sat in silence for a while, watching whatever was on the TV across from us. A giant flat screen that was half the size of the bed in my dorm room. Sawyer thought his family was richer than mine, and maybe they were. There was a lot of money to be made in America thanks to its for-profit healthcare system. My family’s money came from someplace else, multiple places we couldn’t advertise about. Some of us called them donors, others called them sponsors. Either way, they paid us to do what we were good at.
“Is it the hair?” I offered an idea, glancing at him. “Why don’t you just get a blonde, make her dye her hair, and then see if it helps?” Forcing a girl to dye her hair before fucking her wasn’t something Sawyer was used to, but if he needed help to convince the girl, I’d be down for it.
Sawyer chuckled. “Make a girl dye her hair pink? You really think I could do that?”
I shrugged. “You have the money and the dick. I’m sure there’s some girl desperate enough out there who’d be willing to break their own back for you, so hair dying would be a step up, I bet.” I was really pulling most of this from my ass, because I didn’t want to destroy Sawyer. If I could get Ash away from him without hurting him, that would be ideal.
However, I was more than willing to throw down the gauntlet and play dirty. She was mine; she’d never be his. I would fight tooth and nail for her, even destroy my own friendship for her. I would burn it all down.
Sawyer didn’t look too convinced, but he was curious, which was all I needed to see. If he was curious, it meant he was willing to try it. I’d seen the expression on his face before, and I knew what came next. I also knew what would happen if he pushed the curiosity to the side: he’d spiral a hell of a lot worse than he would’ve if he would have just done what he should’ve done to begin with.
“I’ll help you,” I said, “if you want.”
It took him a while, but eventually Sawyer nodded. “All right, deal.” He rubbed his cheek, blonde stubble coating his jaw. He needed to shave; he was so torn up about thinking of Ash during sex that he was neglecting his appearance. Not a good sign. It meant he cared for her more than I wanted him to. “Can I show you something?”
It was good he got up just then, good that he changed the subject, because I was about to lay into him. When it came to Ash, my patience was at an all-time low. In addition to doing anything for her, I’d also act stupidly and rashly, apparently.
“Sure,” I said, biting my tongue to keep myself from saying anything else.
Sawyer moved to the kitchen, the off-white light casting shadows along his back muscles. He picked something up, a piece of paper, and brought it over to me. The towel still hung around his shoulders, and he grabbed both ends of it, waiting as I looked at the paper.
A letter. A letter that read Stay away from her. She’s mine.
“It’s about Ash,” Sawyer said, to which I wanted to glare at him.
