Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE.

Ollie’s POV

I shut down my laptop faster than I ever had in my life. My camera light blinked off, and the screen went dark, leaving only my reflection in the black glass. The mask was still clinging to my face, making my breath hot under it. My heart thumped like I had been caught doing something illegal, like someone had actually seen me through the walls. But nobody had. I was alone in my room, door locked, curtains closed, my little secret safe like always.

Still, that text on my phone glowed back at me like it was laughing.

“Hi Oli-nerd.”

The words were simple, but they dug under my skin deeper than they should have. Ryder. Of course it was Ryder. Who else would text something like that? I didn’t even remember giving him my number. He must have gotten it from someone else. Maybe Allison without realizing. Or maybe one of his stupid friends grabbed it off a group chat. However he got it, I hated that he had it.

I yanked the mask off and tossed it on the bed, scrubbing my face with my hands. My cheeks were hot. It wasn’t from the stream—it was from the idea of him knowing. Him being able to reach into my night and ruin it with two words.

I threw myself back against the pillow and groaned into it. I hated him. I hated his stupid smirk, his tattoos, his perfect jaw that everyone drooled over. I hated that he always had to make someone else small so he could feel bigger. And I hated that I was always one of his favorite targets.

I typed out a reply on my phone but erased it before I even hit send. What was I going to say? “Leave me alone”? He’d love that. “How did you get my number”? He’d twist that into a joke. The best thing to do was ignore him, pretend it didn’t bother me. Pretend he wasn’t under my skin.

I tossed my phone on the nightstand and pulled the blanket up to my chin. My sister wasn’t home, which made the place feel bigger and emptier than usual. She had texted me she’d be working overtime at Ray and Fishers Corp again, like she always did, and I told her it was fine. I didn’t mind being alone. Most of the time, I preferred it. Tonight, though, the quiet pressed on me.

I closed my eyes, trying to force sleep, but that was when I heard it.

A muffled sound, faint at first, coming from the wall next to me. I blinked my eyes open and listened. A low voice, a woman’s, moaning. Then the steady creak of a bed frame, the thud of it against the wall. My head jerked toward the noise.

My mysterious neighbor.

I had lived here almost a year, and I had never once seen who was in the apartment next to mine. It was like a ghost lived there. Quiet, no music, no laughter, no footsteps in the hall. But now? Now the ghost was very real, and very alive, and very loud.

I pressed my pillow over my ears, but the sounds leaked through anyway. The moans grew higher, sharper, joined by a man’s grunt. My stomach twisted. My skin felt prickly, restless. I shifted under the blanket, squeezing my thighs together like that would help. It didn’t. The more I tried not to listen, the more I heard.

“God,” I muttered, my voice hoarse in the empty room.

I rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling. My body wouldn’t calm down. It was like the noise was crawling over my skin, burrowing into my brain. The girl next door cried out again, and my pulse jumped. I bit my lip hard. I couldn’t do this. Not while Ryder’s stupid message was still on my phone, not while I was supposed to be ignoring the world.

But my body didn’t care what I was supposed to do.

With a shaky breath, I grabbed my laptop again. This time, not for the camera. I pulled up a site I knew too well, my fingers moving on their own. Straight p**n, like always. Nothing fancy, just simple videos, girls arching under guys, their moans sharp and clean. I put my earbuds in, drowning out my neighbor with the fake sounds coming from the screen.

I slipped a hand under the blanket, my body already betraying me. I hated how fast I got hard. I hated how much relief there was in just wrapping my hand around myself. My hips twitched, and I closed my eyes, trying to pretend it was enough.

But the neighbor’s moans didn’t stop. They blended with the p**n, tangled up in my head. Every sound made me jerk faster, and made my chest tighten. My mind was foggy, heavy, desperate for release.

And that was when my phone buzzed.

The vibration on the nightstand made me jump. My hand stilled. My stomach dropped. I knew before I even reached for it who it was.

Ryder.

The screen lit up, and there it was. Another message.

“Bet you’re crying yourself to sleep, nerd.”

I froze. My chest felt tight. The p**n kept playing in my earbuds, the neighbor kept moaning through the wall, and Ryder’s words cut straight through both. Crying myself to sleep. He had no idea what I was doing right now, no idea how humiliating it was to get that message at this exact moment. But my brain twisted it anyway, like he was mocking me for exactly what I was.

Pathetic. Alone. Getting off to fake moans and thin walls.

Heat rushed to my face. I wanted to throw the phone across the room, smash it into the wall, block his number forever. But my hand didn’t move. I stared at the message until the words blurred. My chest heaved, my hand still wrapped around myself under the blanket, my body demanding what my mind couldn’t accept.

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down hard on my lip. I hated him. I hated that he made me feel small even when he wasn’t here. I hated that my body wouldn’t stop. Even with that text burning in my brain, I couldn’t stop.

The neighbor moaned louder. The bed hit the wall harder. I couldn’t take it anymore.

My hand moved again, rougher this time, chasing something I didn’t want but needed anyway. My breaths came fast, broken, filling the room. I tried to block out Ryder’s voice in my head, tried to drown it in the p**n, in the moans next door. But it stayed, sharp and cruel, like he was right here whispering it.

“Bet you’re crying yourself to sleep, nerd.”

My body trembled, shame and need tangled up until I couldn’t tell them apart. And even as I reached the edge, even as my body gave in, all I could think about was how much I hated him for making me feel this weak.

When it was over, I lay there in the dark, sweaty and spent, the blanket twisted around me. The p**n was still playing, the neighbor was still going, and Ryder’s text still glowed on my phone. I felt hollow.

I turned the screen face-down and shoved it away, my throat tight. Tomorrow I’d pretend it didn’t matter. Tomorrow I’d tell myself it was just a stupid text, just Ryder being the asshole he always was. But tonight, lying in the dark with my body betraying me, I couldn’t pretend.

He got to me. And I hated that more than anything.