Living Your Lie (boyxboy)

Chapter 27

A few hours later it was almost midnight and my phone was ringing again. Trying to bite back my irritation, I reached for it. Dakota grabbed it first, though, and as expected, he had a scowl on his face when he saw who it was.

He handed it back over to me. "He's called you like eight fucking times tonight."

"This is the seventh," I mumbled, staring at Dante's name flashing across the screen until it went black again. It was prom night for his school too and I hadn't heard from him since I'd told him how I felt...what I had wanted us to become. That had been three weeks ago, but it felt like a lot longer inside my head.

"I know, I'm sorry," I told Dakota earnestly.

The phone lit up again as Dante called once more. I was about to reject it when Dakota stopped me with a surprisingly gentle hand over mine. "Just answer it. He's probably not going to quit calling until you do."

Groaning and with my heart racing from anxiety, I got off of the bed and slipped out of Dakota's room. I quietly shut the door behind me and started to walk down the hall, wishing I was doing just about anything besides answering the call.

I took a deep breath before finally hitting the answer button and to be completely honest, I was terrified. I had no idea what Dante wanted to say to me--especially after weeks of silence--and all I could picture was the harsh look in his eyes when he'd told me I'd never meant more to him than a means for sexual gratification.

I wished it didn't even bother me anymore, but there were some things that managed to hit you right in the core of your insecurities that stuck with you much longer than you want them to. That was one of them. It still made me sick to think about how mortifying those last few minutes I'd spent with him were.

I put the phone to my ear, but I couldn't make any words come out of my mouth. On the other end of the line I could hear the echoing sounds of loud music behind Dante's steady breathing. It didn't take more than a few seconds to realize he was calling me from his prom venue. I couldn't help but wonder who he went with--if it was a girl, that one named Maia, maybe? Or maybe he just went with his friends. It didn't matter anyway, I decided.

"Fuck," I heard him mutter to himself, the vowel drawn out too far. "Why isn't it--oh. Harley? Harley did you pick up?"

I swallowed. He sounded hopeful and the slur in his voice was evident. I figured he'd probably been drinking with his friends the whole night. I could hear someone else speaking in the background but I couldn't make out their words.

"Harley? Are you there?" Dante asked loudly into the speaker. I flinched but didn't pull the phone away from my ear. "Please, just say something, okay?"

"How's prom?" I asked. Because with everything soaring through my mind, I couldn't put any other words together.

"Harley! Hey, it's so good to talk to you. I miss you," he said. This time the words were slurred together so harshly it was hard to make them out. I could hear the smile in his voice, though. I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck and I seriously regretted answering. "Can I come ov--Russ, shut the fuck up I'm trying to talk to my boyfriend!"

While there was scuffling taking place between two people on the other end of the line, I froze. My brain came to a jarring halt, as if all of its data had been momentarily wiped clean.

Then my heart stopped racing from anxiety and went into overdrive fueled by anger and fear. My skin itched for me to run, to hide, to be anywhere but on a plane of existence where Dante had just used my name in conjunction with him referring to his boyfriend while he was in public.