Forsaken Desires (The Deepest Desires 2)

chapter thirty-six

Aston

The morning sun is unforgiving as it pours through the blinds. The pounding in my head and the putrid bile sitting heavy in my stomach, threatening to spew out, force me to remember the shit night I had last night.

Reminds me of the dumb decisions I made. Answering Knox’s call being front and fucking center. I knew it… I fucking knew it was dumb to take the call, yet I did it anyway. A fucking glutton for punishment of the worst kind.

I just needed to hear his voice, needed to hear him say my name. Needed it like I needed fucking oxygen.

Stupid. I’m goddamn stupid, and this gnarly hangover is my punishment. Running my hands over my face, I let out a heavy sigh while figuring out my next move.

Coffee.

I throw my legs over the side of my bed until my feet firmly plant on the carpeted floor. When I stand, I stretch my arms over my head before heading to my dresser to swap my pajama pants for a pair of sweats, then throw on a t-shirt. After slipping on some socks and shoving my feet into my Nike slides, I grab my wallet and phone, heading out of my room.

I feel like dog shit and don’t really want to go far, so the coffee cart across campus is going to have to do. Thankfully, it’s open on the weekends.

It takes me about ten minutes to get over there, and the first thing I notice is that there’s no line, and the second thing I notice is that the fucking barista is Katie. Shit. Forgot she fucking worked here. I consider walking away and not getting anything, but she already saw me and that would just be awkward.

I’m not going to coward out. I can fucking do this. She’s a fucking chick, not a damn cheetah or a piranha. As I approach the cart, she smiles at me, and it’s obnoxiously genuine.

“Hi, Aston,” she greets me cheerfully. “What can I get for you?”

“Hey, Katie. Can I get an iced coffee, please? The biggest size you have.”

“Sure thing, babe.” She gets to work, but her eyes keep flittering to me, and I just fucking know she has something to say. Sure enough, a few moments later, she asks, “How are you doing?”

“Hungover as shit,” I deadpan.

She giggles. “I’m sorry to hear that, but I meant in general. Not just right now.”

I know what she means, and if it were anyone else, I’d probably tell her to fuck off, but something tells me she isn’t going to let it go.

“Not amazing.” My fingers run through my hair, probably doing nothing but messing it up even more than it already is.

“Sorry to hear that, Aston.” Her soft tone and the gentle, kind expression on her face lead me to believe she truly means that. How the fuck is she Knox’s best friend? They’re polar fucking opposites. “You know who else is doing pretty shitty?” she can’t fucking help but add.

My eyes narrow as my gaze connects with hers. “Please don’t.”

“It’s the truth.” She pins me with a stare as she grabs a plastic cup.

“I know it is, Katie. But he did this. We’re where we are because of him, so forgive me if I’m not too sympathetic to how he’s doing.”

This fucking girl rolls her fucking eyes at me before handing me my drink. “Here you go. Let’s go.” She unties her apron, pulling it over her head, and shoving it under the counter. As she grabs her phone and keys, walking over to me, and I’m confused as fuck.

“What? Go where?”

“We are going somewhere to talk, you stubborn buffoon.”

“Uhh,” I sputter, face screwed up as I stare at her. “I wasn’t planning to do anything today. Kinda hungover.”

She spins on her heels, stopping right in front of me, a smile on her face, which now looks a little condescending and, quite unexpectedly, scary. “I wasn’t asking, Aston. You’re going to listen to what I have to say.”

“You’re fucking bossy,” I grumble.

“What was that?” She lifts a brow, that perky smile I was greeted with now wiped clean from her face.

“Nothing. Lead the freaking way, I guess.”

She takes us about five minutes away to the courtyard, and we sit under a giant, overpowering, oak tree, which, coincidentally enough, reminds me of her personality.

“My head is fucking throbbing and this bright ass sunshine isn’t helping. I don’t have my sunglasses because I didn’t plan on being out of my room for more than fifteen minutes. This is bullshit.” I barely register that I said any of that out loud until she shoves something in front of my face.

“You’re fucking whiney. Put these on.”

She’s holding a pair of black sunglasses out for me to take. A pair of chick sunglasses she expects me to wear. “I’m not wearing those. I’ll look ridiculous.”

“Put them on so we can get this over with, my gosh.” She huffs and has the audacity to look put out, like she isn’t the one who dragged me here against my will. Begrudgingly, I put them on, but not before mumbling how fucking stupid I look.

She peers over at me and her kind, soft eyes are back. Cool. She cornered me and got her way, so now she’s nice again.

“Look,” she starts, “I don’t normally like to butt in—”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter, cutting her off, earning me a scowl.

“As I was saying, Knox is really fucking bad at communicating his feelings, and—”

“Yeah, never noticed.”

“Oh, my gosh! Will you shut the fuck up and let me fucking speak? Jesus!”

“Okay. Fuck, no wonder you’re friends with him.” I cross my arms over my chest and try to not roll my eyes. She’s fucking feisty, and I’m too damn hungover for this.

“Knox sucks with feelings, and I know he hurt you, but he’s hurting just as much. If not more. I wish you’d hear him out. Things aren’t the way you think, and I know he never meant to hurt you. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he really was trying. He doesn’t open up to anyone—not even his friends, who he’s known his whole life. He’s a vault, and he opened up to you. That means something, Aston.”

I stare at her for a few moments with a bored expression, even though on the inside I’m barely holding it together. “Is it my turn to talk now?”

This asshole side of me rarely makes an appearance, especially to people who truly don’t deserve it, but I can’t help it. I don’t fucking feel good and I don’t want to fucking talk about this. She thinks she can fix everything with her bossy attitude and her southern smile, but she can’t. She can’t fix this.

No one can.

We were broken before we even started, and it was only a matter of time before we imploded.

“I swear to God, I’m gonna slap your smart mouth if you keep testing me.” She tries to look serious, narrowing her eyes at me and squaring her shoulders, but her façade fades and she cracks a smile. “Yes, you asshole. It’s your turn to talk.”

“Listen, I appreciate and can respect what you’re trying to do. It’s noble of you to try and fix things for your friend. It’s probably not easy seeing someone you care about hurting, but respectively, you can’t fix this.”

Her mouth opens like she wants to say something, but she quickly snaps it shut.

“We ran our course. We had fun—a lot of fun—but it was never meant to be more than that. He can’t be who I need him to be, Katie. He’s never going to change, and it’s not fair of me to expect that of him.”

This time, when her mouth opens to speak, she doesn’t stop herself. “You know, respectively, I’m going to have to disagree on that last part. He has changed. He may not have made leaps and bounds yet, but he’s certainly made strides. He has a deep-seated fear around these feelings, but he tried for you. Why can’t you see that?”

My heart is pounding against my ribs. I don’t know if I’m more upset or pissed off about this conversation. I fucking hate that she’s making me question myself, question if I’m doing the right thing. He fucking hurt me. Period. There shouldn’t even be a question. I know she’s just trying to be helpful, but I’ve about had enough.

“He lied to me, Katie. Lied. And brought a date to an event. A date he lied to me about and I fucking caught him. I would never want to push him out of the closet before he’s ready, but it’s also not fair to expect me to live in secret. I was his dirty fucking secret and that sucks more than you know, especially because I actually did care about him.” Okay, I definitely still do care about him, but she doesn’t need to know that. “I understand you love him and you’re just looking out for him, but I have to look out for myself. I have to put myself first because he didn’t. He sure as fuck didn’t put me first.”

My eyes fucking ache with emotion I don’t want to be feeling, and it’s hard to swallow past the lump in my throat. Why the hell am I reacting like this? I need to get the fuck out of here before I do something ridiculous like break down and cry in front of her.

“I appreciate where you’re coming from, Katie, but this conversation is over. Knox and I are over. Hell, we can’t even be over because we never even officially started. We were nothing more than late nights, empty rooms, and stolen moments. He was never planning to take it further with me. I was never anything more than an experiment to him.”

I shove my hand into my pocket and pull out my wallet. Tossing a ten-dollar bill and her sunglasses on the ground, I stand up. “So, thank you for the coffee, and the lovely, forceful conversation you put upon me, but I’m gonna go.”

Turning on my heel, I walk away without another word. She’s either stunned speechless or she realized how serious I was, because she doesn’t try to stop me. For which I’m thankful for.

Now I need to get drunk all over again and fucking forget the last hour of my fucking life.