“So I thought I would get through it. I’m sure everyone else had to do something embarrassing for their initiation, so I just decided to take it. It was going fine, until Jack suggested the rest of the initiation was my providing everyone with sexual favors. That’s when I hit him.”
Malcolm looks absolutely pale. “We don’t do initiations here.”
“Yeah, well, I would have done it if I needed to. The things I want to do matter to me. I’ll do whatever I need to to get to my goals.”
He’s quiet, “I’m sorry, Juno. I didn’t realize.”
“How could you?” I ask. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We’re practically strangers who have been fucking.”
For a second, I think he’s going to comment on it, but he doesn’t, and the moment passes so quickly that I think that I imagined it. Fine. I’ll go unpack and let him think about it. I brush past him, and he stops me. “Wait.”
He strips off his shirt and hands it to me.
“I’m just going across the hall, Malcolm,” I say.
“I know,” he says quietly. His hands reach for me and stop, like he doesn’t know if he should touch me or not. “But we’re not the only people on this floor, and they’ve seen enough of you.”
“Malcolm—”
“You have no idea how beautiful you are, Juno,” he says, cutting me off but looking away. “You should only ever share that with who you want to.”
The admission startles me. He hasn’t called me beautiful before, and the emotion that I hear in his voice is completely unexpected. I don’t think anyone is going to be venturing up here for a while, but I don’t want to hurt him further. So I slip the shirt over my head, still warm from his body and smelling like the cologne that I can’t get enough of.
He’s still looking away when I slip out of the door.
13
Malcolm
I’m an idiot.
Rage is still simmering under my skin and I feel like I can’t quite get it under control. Jack is an asshole, and I knew he was pissed, but I didn’t think that he would pull something like this.
And what he tried with Juno…that’s not pulling anything, and I’m sick to my stomach knowing that someone like that ever shared space with me. How many times have I hammered consent into the people in this house? It’s one of the only three rules that we have here that there’s absolutely zero tolerance for. Keep your grades up, be a good representative of Granite House, and honor consent always.
If I see him again I’m going to end up in jail.
I’m unbelievably proud that Juno took him on. She’s a badass, and I know that she can handle herself, but I still feel ill that something could have happened to her. The urge to protect her is fierce and deep and pulling on my insides.
Right then, I was going to tell her that I knew a little about her—that I had seen her before. But it really didn’t feel like the timing was right. I do want to tell her, and I want to beg forgiveness over again. She didn’t storm out of the house, so I can only hope that she’ll give me a chance to make it up to her.
I don’t bother putting on a shirt as I head downstairs. The house is completely quiet. Everyone seems to have cleared out to let the mood fade. I don’t blame them, and it’s a good idea. I don’t want to see any of their faces. I can’t believe they thought that I would put Juno through any initiation, let alone one like that. We’re going to have to have a house meeting to make some things super fucking clear.
I grab us some water bottles, and some grapes and a bag of popcorn. No idea if she’s hungry or not, but showing up with food can’t be a bad thing, right?
She’s right though, in a way. We don’t know each other that well. I want to change that. Now that she’s here, I have a month to know her completely and get her to stay. Because I have a feeling that I’m going to want her to stay. Hell, she’s barely been here and I want her to stay.
Jogging back up the stairs, I knock on her door. “Juno?”
There’s no answer. It’s entirely possible that she doesn’t want to talk to me, but I’m hoping that she will. “Juno are you okay?”
Again, no answer. Maybe she fell asleep, has headphones on? I try the doorknob, and it’s not locked, the overwhelming need to see that she’s okay overcoming propriety. I peek inside the room just to make sure that she’s there, and she’s not.
Oh, shit.
I didn’t hear her leave the house, and she didn’t tell me she was going. Strange. I set the snacks I brought on top of the dresser, noting the messy state that Jack left all the furniture in. Another reason I need to beat his ass. And I make a quick sweep of the house. I don’t think it’s likely that we could have missed each other moving up and down, but there’s always a chance. She’s not in the living room, and she’s not going to be any of the guys’ rooms. Where did she go?
My mind immediately spins to the worst. Did Jack come back and do something drastic? “Juno?” I call, sprinting back up the stairs. “Juno?” I yell her name louder. Finally, “Juno!”
“What?” She sounds just as panicked as I do, and I turn to find her in the bathroom doorway, soaking wet in a towel. Her glistening skin makes me want to touch her even more than I already did. Dripping hair and big green eyes, she’s so fucking sexy that I can barely contain myself.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “You were yelling.”
“I couldn’t find you and…” I paused. “I’m sorry, I worried that Jack had come back and done…something.”
She smiles a
