Totally Tormented Read Free Page B

so I pulled it down as best I could. He had sweatpants on, so it wasn’t like we would have been skin to skin, but still.
    I started at his shoulders, kneading my palms into his skin. His muscles were tense, and I hated that someone had done that to him. I wondered again if I should say something about his new gym maybe not being the best place for him. But it really wasn’t any of my business.
    I stroked him, moving to his neck and letting my hands linger over the place where his hair met his skin. I ran my fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp gently.
    He let out a sigh of pleasure.
    My hands dropped to his back and after a few minutes, I could feel his muscles loosening.
    Suddenly, he turned over, grabbing my wrists to keep me from falling off of him.
    “Justin!” I gasped. But he held me tight.
    “Time to do my chest,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
    “No way.” I tried to move, but he held me close.
    “Why not?” he teased. “You afraid?”
    “Of what?”
    “Of what might happen.” He was serious now, and for the first time ever, I thought maybe I saw a flash of fear in his eyes. Was he afraid of what might happen?
    But why would he be? He wasn’t inexperienced like I was. So then what was he afraid of?
    “No,” I said. “I’m not afraid.”
    “Maybe you should be.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m saying. I must still be woozy from last night.” Something like frustration flashed over his face, and then he was getting up, crossing the room to his dresser, his flirty mood gone. He yanked at his dresser drawer, then pulled out a t-shirt and shoved his arms through the holes.
    I wasn’t sure why he was suddenly so upset. I hadn’t done anything. I watched as he picked his phone up off the dresser and checked the screen. He frowned, then punched at the screen, like he was returning a call.
    “Hey,” he said when the person answered. “Who’s this? Oh, hey….Yeah, okay.
    Yeah. Definitely. Text me the address. Okay. Bye.”
    He set his phone back down and turned to me, smiling. “That was my new coach,” he said. “From the Slaughterhouse.”
    “From the what?”
    “The Slaughterhouse.”
    “The name of your new gym is The Slaughterhouse?” I was dumbfounded. Who the hell thought that was an okay name for a gym?
    “Yeah. Anyway, they’re having a party at my coach’s house tonight. In Brookline. And they want me to come.”
    “That’s great.” I pulled at the bottom of the t-shirt I was wearing. “Um, do you… I mean, are you sure this is a good gym?”
    He got a suspicious look on his face. “What do you mean?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just… what happened to you last night, it’s kind of…is that normal?”
    “Not exactly, but it’s how they do things there. It’s their method of teaching.”
    “Okay. It just seems a little harsh, that’s all.”
    He turned away from me, and I thought he mumbled something that sounded like,
    “You wouldn’t understand.”
    “What?”
    He shook his head. “Nothing.” He crossed the room then and took my hands in his. “You have to come with me.”
    “Where?”
    “To the party.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yeah. It’ll be fun. I can introduce you to everyone.”
    I hesitated. The last time I’d met some of his friends, it hadn’t exactly gone so well. That being said, I didn’t like that he’d just said I didn’t understand something about him or his life. I might have been true, but I didn’t want it to be that way. I wanted to understand him.
    So even though I knew it had the chance of being a total and complete disaster, I gave him a smile. “Of course I’ll go with you.”

JUSTIN
    We took the train out to Brookline, then got off and headed for the address Quarry had texted me. I was kind of shocked that he lived in one of the most expensive areas of Boston. Brookline was the top of the food chain, and even the snootiest snobs with the richest families didn’t