Stigma

Chapter 7

James

I almost can't hear the knocking over the rain and the thunder. It was raining when Chris and I walked out of the bar, and it's just gotten progressively stormier over the past few hours. I head over to the door, expecting it to be Chris, or even Nico. It's neither of them.

"Jason?"

He shoves past me, tracking wet footprints onto the hardwood floor. He's wearing a brown leather jacket, and it's spattered with rain drops, the shoulders dark with water. "Are you dealing drugs?" His question is a demand.

"Well, hello to you, too." I shut the door.

Jason folds his arms across his chest. He looks fierce, frowning at me with his eyebrows pulled low over his pale eyes. There are rain drops caught in his curls and his checkered Vans are damp at the toes. He's beautiful, so fucking beautiful. "Are you?"

"What the fuck kind of question is that? You think I'm a drug dealer now? Why?"

It's hard for me to look at him and not remember the way he moved beneath me, the way his mouth tasted, the way he stretched around me. The way he whined. They commanding way he spoke to me mixed with the pleading in his voice – such a wonderful, tantalizing dichotomy.

Jason pushes his hair out of his face, and I wish it was me doing that. I want to touch him. I want to chase the droplets away, lick the moisture from his skin. "I saw you with Nico Lafosso. At the bar."

God, this really is a small city. Or maybe guys like Nico just know everyone. "So?"

"He deals, James," Jason says. "He deals to dealers. I know that already, so don't look at me with that pseudo innocent expression on your face and feign confusion."

Jason is still standing near the door, and I lean against my dining table and cross my arms, mimicking his posture. I'm sure I don't look nearly as good standing like this as he does though. "Do you talk like that on purpose to be condescending, or does it just come naturally to you?"

Jason blinks, and something flickers behind his eyes. "You're pissed that I didn't call."

"I'm pissed because you all but threw me out of your apartment." I pause, and then add, "And yeah, you didn't call. What are you doing, Jason? Why are you even here?"

Jason raises his hands and then lets them fall to his sides. "I don't know. I was headed home, and instead of going there, I came here." He takes a step away from the wall. "Nico is dangerous, James."

I'm getting tired of being spoken to about dangerous men. "I know who he is. Why do you care anyway? It's not as if you care about me, you don't even know me."

"I – that doesn't mean I don't care."

"You kicked me out."

Jason runs a hand up through the back of his hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions. It looks ridiculously cute. "You keep saying that." He sounds uncomfortable.

"Because that's what you did!" I don't realize I've decided to cross the room until I've already done it, and am standing right in front of him. "After you touched me like that, kissed me like that, spoke to me like that, looked at me like that! I wasn't expecting a proposal or an invitation to move in, but after sharing something – something that intense I was expecting more than a bullshit excuse about having an early class. Like it meant nothing. Like all we did was fuck."

"We did fuck," Jason points out.

"Tell me that's all it was. Tell me it meant nothing to you, that it was just another Thursday." I'm still angry, I am, but being this close to Jason... it's difficult to feel anything except the warmth of desire.