Annoying

Elias’s POV

I walked away from Adrian with my pulse still slamming against my throat and the heat of his fingers lingering on my wrist like a brand I could not rub off, every word from the alley replaying in my head until his voice felt louder than the campus noise around me.

He had looked at me like he already owned the parts of myself I kept locked away, and the worst part was that some traitorous piece of me had wanted to stay even while the rest of me screamed to run. I hated how clearly my body still remembered the storage room, the exact pressure of his hands, and the low sound he made when he pushed inside me.

By the time I reached the bus stop my hands were shaking. I shoved them into my jacket pockets and stared at the cracked pavement, trying to force the memory down. It refused. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the dark intensity in Adrian’s gaze when he said he had walked away from some girl because she was not me.

The bus ride home felt longer than usual. I kept my headphones in without playing music, using the silence as a shield while my mind circled the same questions. What was I supposed to do with the fact that the person I had hated for two years had made me feel more in one locked room than anyone else ever had?

When I unlocked the front door the smell of medicine and stale air hit me first. The television murmured from the living room. I found my mother half-sitting, half-slumped on the couch, her face pale and drawn.

“Mom,” I said softly, crouching beside her. “You should be in bed.”

She gave me a tired smile. “I was waiting for you. How was practice?”

“Fine,” I lied, slipping an arm around her back and another under her knees to lift her carefully. “Come on. Upstairs.”

She rested her head against my shoulder as I carried her up the narrow staircase. In her bedroom I lowered her onto the mattress and pulled the blankets up.

“You’re quiet tonight,” she said.

“Just tired.”

“The coach still pushing you hard?”

I hesitated, then nodded as the conversation from two days ago rose up without invitation. Coach had pulled me aside after practice, his voice low in the empty locker room.

“Kane, you know your background,” he had said. “You don’t have the money or the connections the other boys do. All you’ve got is talent and the grades that keep that scholarship alive. One slip, one distraction, and it disappears. You understand me?”

“Yes, Coach,” I had answered then.

Now I smoothed the blanket over my mother’s legs and said, “He means well. He’s just reminding me what’s at stake.”

She reached out and squeezed my hand. “You’re allowed to have a life too, Elias. Not everything has to be about carrying us.”

I kissed her forehead. “I’ll bring you tea later.”

Once her door was closed I stood in the hallway with my forehead pressed against the wall, trying to breathe past the pressure that never really left my chest.

The knock on the front door came just after nine.

I knew who it was before I opened it. Adrian stood on the small porch under the weak yellow light, hands in his pockets.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“You said you needed time,” he answered. “I decided an afternoon was enough.”

“That’s not how time works.”

“It is when I decide it is.” He glanced past me into the dim hallway. “Can I come in, or are we doing this on the porch where the neighbors can hear?”

I should have shut the door. Instead I stepped aside and let him enter, closing it quietly behind him. He followed me into the small living room.

“Your mom okay?” he asked.

“She’s sleeping. Keep your voice down.”

Adrian nodded and lowered his tone. “You walked away earlier like you were done talking. I wasn’t.”

“I asked for space.”

“And I told you I’m not good at waiting.” He took a step closer. “I’ve been thinking about everything you said. The scholarship. Your parents. The team. All of it. I get that you’re scared.”

“You don’t get anything about me.”

“I get that you came apart in my hands and then spent the next day pretending it never happened. I get that you let some guy put his hand on your waist and expected me to just watch. And I get that you’re standing here right now looking at me like you still want to hate me but can’t quite manage it.”

My throat tightened. “You need to leave.”

“Not until you stop lying to both of us.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t thought about that storage room every hour since it happened.”

I could not do it. The silence stretched, heavy and revealing.

“That’s what I thought,” Adrian said quietly. “You can keep running, Kane. You can hide behind your sick mother and your scholarship and every rule you’ve built around yourself. But I already know what you sound like when you stop fighting. And I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to hear it again.”

Heat crawled up my neck. Upstairs a floorboard creaked as my mother shifted in bed.

“If you care about any of the things you just listed,” I said, voice low and tight, “you will walk out that door and stay away from me.”

Adrian held my gaze for a long moment, then slowly shook his head. “No.”

Before I could react he stepped forward, closed the remaining distance, and kissed me hard enough that my back hit the wall. His hand came up to grip the side of my neck, thumb pressing against my jaw as he forced my mouth open under his. For one dangerous second I kissed him back, the same helpless heat from the storage room roaring up between us like it had never left.

Then my mother’s voice drifted faintly down the stairs.

“Elias? Is someone there?”

Adrian froze against me, lips still brushing mine, eyes dark and unreadable in the dim light.

Neither of us moved.