A/N: So the rest of the story will be from both Ryan and Alex's perspectives - though I'll identify when it switches between them.
Enjoy :-)
* * * * *
Alex
After that night, our first real kiss, things settle down. We haven't started anything, not yet, although I know we will, it's in the air. But what I want more than that is to get to know him properly, to stop being such a coward when I'm in his presence, to help him break down the walls that I can sense him holding onto, just because they've been built up so high.
The next week feels like the best kind of blur. On Monday, Ryan smiles shyly at me when I sit at the table across from him at lunch and my insides turn to liquid. He's just too beautiful, and to have him looking at me with that mix of nervousness and excitement makes me want to leap across the table, take his face between my hands, just so I can stare more deeply into his indigo eyes.
Our friends are talking about the party, but none of them know what happened between us. We'd agreed, when we broke out of that heart-stopping kiss, that we'd take this, whatever it is, slowly. But I have no doubt they will have witnessed the new lightness in my step and in my attitude, because there's no way I'm able to hide it.
After we'd gone back to the party, Ryan had danced, in that incredible elegant, sexy way of his, and I'd sneakily watched him from the side-lines, pretending to be in a conversation with some of the team, but not listening to a word of it. I ask him now, because the conversation has turned to dancing at parties, about it, wanting to know everything about him.
"So, have you had training in dance, Ryan, you're really good?"
"No...no money for dance school, though I'd have loved to have done something like that when I was a kid," and I sense that he's revealed a little extra something about himself in that.
"Anyway, didn't you go to a posh private school? Surely you were learning all the waltzes and foxtrots every evening after your Michelin-starred dinner?" he snorts, and I love the fact that he's taking the piss.
"You know what? I wish we did have stuff like that. Only time we did anything like that was just before the year twelve ball, that we shared with a local girls' school, but the practice we did was just with the guys from school, so I got lots of chances on that dancefloor."
He laughs, which makes his eyes glitter with joy. Want to make him laugh every time.
* * * * *
Ryan
I'm amazed at how quickly things change from uncertainty to certainty, in a blink of an eye, a stroke of the skin, a kiss of the lips. After spending so many weeks feeling unclear about so much to do with Alex, now I can barely believe it wasn't all entirely obvious to me from the beginning.
We have agreed to not rush things, choosing to see where it goes naturally, but I'm already slightly regretting that, restricted, as we are, to seeing each other almost always surrounded by others. But we're speaking, finding out little things about each other through normal conversation, and I think our friends our appreciating the positive new dynamic that creates.
Gone is any awkwardness and the only problem I'm having, and I suspect Alex is too, is stopping myself from reaching to hold his hands, or stroke his arm as he speaks, and I know there have been a few incidences like that that have caused the odd raised eyebrow with our friends, although no one has called us on it yet.
It's not that we aren't going to date. We managed a whispered conversation before English today and we're going to go to a great diner downtown after basketball practice on Friday, which is the one evening this week I'm not working.
On Friday, I work in the library until I know practice will be nearly over. I'm having to fit study in wherever I can at the moment. My mom's earnings have been cut as there isn't as much overtime for her, and I know she's worried it's going to get worse. She has a constant furrow of worry on her face, so I've been picking up even more shifts at work so I can give her money to help toward bills.
I don't suppose schoolwork matters. I won't be going to college, even if I can get a scholarship, which is a possibility, but I can't take my income away from her, so I'll probably still be working at the coffee shop, but full time, after school finishes.
My heart has been heavy with these pieces of knowledge, but the thought, now, that I'm going to be spending my evening with Alex lightens it. I head down to the locker room, seeing that the guys are still on the court, probably with ten more minutes of play based on the time. I brought a change of clothes, folded carefully in the bottom of my backpack.
I pull out my favorite dark jeans and my gray and black color-block Henley. It's not a fancy outfit, but it's one I've never worn for school, or the black belt with a vintage brass buckle and black military-style boots, which are the only new shoes I've bought in two years.
I strip down to my boxers and am surprised when the creak of the door tells me someone has come in. I was intending to be changed and waiting outside before the guys got in from practice, so quickly pull on my jeans, shimmying the tight-fitted denim over my hips.
Before I have chance to fasten the button Maxwell comes around the edge of the lockers and stops in surprise when he sees me. He's not on the team, he must have been working out on the gym equipment, covered as he is in a sheen of sweat. He looks me up and down, and I really don't like the leer on his face.
Before I can react he's on me, pushing my bare back against the scarred metal of the lockers. My shoulder hits a padlock with a sharp pain but I can't shift to release it - his hands are on my chest, holding me back, his knee pushed between my thighs.
I'm confused by this strident change in behavior. I've never liked Maxwell, his overblown attitude as an apparent attempt to replace wit or charm, his hulkingly broad body not hiding any subtlety of movement, but I had never thought this of him, this aggressive forcefulness, this disinterest in consideration.
I know what he's doing before he speaks, breathing his ketosis into my face. I know of what happened with him and Robbie in the past, more recently I know, from Robbie, just how much he liked it, despite all protestations to the contrary. I am not some innocent ingenue, so I know what's coming.
"So Ryan, hanging in the locker room, huh? Hoping to see some hot naked guys I guess?"
He gives me no chance to answer, not that I would dignify it with one.
"I know what kind of thing you're interested in. Know you got up to all sorts of freaky stuff with Charlie at his party. Who'd have thought stuck-up little Ryan was such a filthy slut hey?"
Again, no need to answer. He doesn't want one. I'm not bothered by his words, which I know he's just pulling from his limited imagination. Regardless of what I've thought of Charlie in the past, he's not the kind of guy that needs to talk people down, and I doubt he would have given someone as vulgar as Maxwell any specific details about that night.
Plus, I'm well beyond caring what a person like Maxwell would think of me. It's what nasty little ideas he might have got into his head that worry me, and I'm really hoping the guys don't decide to run any extra drills tonight.
Maxwell leans closer and I turn my face away, though I can't move my body as he presses into me and I feel his hardness.
"How about we have some fun, Ryan? I know you'd be up for that, I'm sure it's why you're here anyway."
He starts groping at my hips, trying to push my jeans down. Pushing at my shoulder with the other hand, trying to get me to bend. This move makes me fight back in earnest, and I push at his thick chest, but it's pointless, he barely notices, and I feel my legs begin to give way, finally feeling a bead of fear.
The door creaks again and relief floods through me. I can't see, my head still to the side, as Maxwell doesn't seem to have heard. The distraction caused by the noise means my legs give way, and I drop to my knees with a painful crack.
"What. The. Fuck?"
It's unmistakably Alex, and I have a moment of horror. Does he think I want to be here?
