Page 37 of Want You

He sighed and did the same, seeming to melt into the plush looking fabric. “You watched?”

“I even watched the pre-game show, boyfriend.”

His eyes went wide, the smirk dissolving faster than a Cheeto in water. “What?”

Octavia felt panic rise through her body. Had he not meant to say it? Was he talking about some other woman? “Um, you…Are you not?” she asked, confused by the entire interaction.

“No, sorry, you just caught me off guard. Girlfriend slipped out but then I asked them to…shit,” he spat, running his hand through his hair, gripping it tightly in frustration. “Fuck.”

“Okay, wow, if I’d known this would be your⁠—”

“No.” He cut her off, his head tipping back so he was looking at the ceiling. “It’s not you, I asked for them to take the girlfriend comment out before they aired the fucking interview.”

“Kind of seems like it’s about me,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest, afraid of what he was going to say next.

Nathan’s chin dropped and she felt the heat in his eyes as they landed on her. “You are my girlfriend. Don’t fucking doubt that, Octavia. I asked them to edit it out because I said it automatically and I haven’t said a thing to my brother about you. Not”—he held his hand up to stop her from admitting yet another assumption—“because I want to hide you away or anything. I just don’t need to make him feel like shit. He’s going through the worst time of his life. I mean he’d finally met someone, then he gets hit by a fucking bus. I can’t tell him about you. Not yet anyway. He already resents me enough for not having to try in the same way he does to get noticed.”

Octavia nodded. She’d been like that at one point. In high school, her sister just had to look at a guy and he was following her around, carrying her books, getting her lunch, and she’d bribed one of her friends to go to the prom with her with two bottles of tequila from her parents’ liquor cabinet. Flora had been born with a confidence in herself that Octavia had been lacking until sometime in her second year of university. She always figured it was a first child thing. Put your nose down and work hard. Flora managed to do that, become a mother at eighteen, and—despite putting off school until Tyler was walking—finish at the top of her kinesiology program. Some days Octavia wished she could go back and force her younger self to step outside her safe little bubble now and then.

“I get it. I was your brother in school. My sister was you.”

He studied her for a beat. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, I was, whether you believe me or not.”

“I told him he could move into my place,” he blurted suddenly. “I don’t know what I was thinking other than the fact I felt sick from guilt and being a shitty brother because while I’m on my knees for you, he’s staring out a fucking window wondering ‘what if’ all fucking day long.”

“That was nice of you. A shitty brother wouldn’t do that, out of guilt or not.”

They sat there just looking at one another, a little smile forming on his face the longer the silence stretched.

He broke the silence with a long groan that seemed to start at his toes as he ran his hand over his face. “I was so looking forward to watching you get naked for me, but I’m not really in the mood now.”

“We don’t have to do anything every time we talk or see each other, you know that right? Like, if we want this to be real, it has to be about more than just sex.”

Nathan laughed. “It’s funny hearing you say that after how this all started.”

Despite every intention Octavia had about keeping things with Nathan casual, she found herself thinking about him more than she expected. He made her feel good and that good feeling, regardless of her early claims, was something she wanted to hold onto with both hands and not let go of.

“Yeah, well, I’ve come around to the idea. You may be freaking out but hearing you refer to me as your girlfriend did…something. You sitting there with your hair all”—she waved her hand at her head—“and your shirt all tight, and I thought, fuck, that guy just called me his girlfriend. Goddamn.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmmmhmmm.”

“Gonna tell people I’m your boyfriend?”

Octavia took a deep breath and shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Too soon?” he asked, a concerned little crease appearing between his eyes.

“No, I just don’t want to share you yet. And if I tell people I’m dating Nathan Albertson, they’ll want to meet you, go to games, and be generally annoying about the whole thing. I want to keep you to myself for a little bit longer, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I’d prefer to keep you to myself too, Autumn girl.”

“Are you ever going to tell me why you call me Autumn?”

“You should go to sleep, babe, you look like you’re about ready to crash.”