Even In Pieces [Bxb] Chapter 26

Zachary

Bad luck. That’s the only explanation for this situation. Never would I have thought that we would run into the soccer guys when we were making our way to my room. Now Everett can’t come to my room.

“Am I seeing things or are you both walking just two between you without killing each other?” Pierce teases with a sly grin taking over his face.

“We are not five, Pierce,” Everett says.

Dylan shakes his head at him. “When you both are five feet from each other, you guys are worse than Five.”

I scoff at them. I can’t blame them though, I thought I couldn’t stand him either but then again I didn’t know how good he was in bed then. I hold back a smile at my own thoughts.

“But seriously, where the hell have you been the past few months. You have been disappearing a lot the past week too,” Finley narrows his eyes at him.

Everett frowns. “You guys remember me telling you that I got to work in a drama theater? Well, they are having a play tomorrow, so I have been busy helping them.”

Dylan scrunches his nose. “And you aren’t going to invite us? That hurts, dude.”

“You want to come?” Everett sounds surprised.

“Well, you seemed to work so hard on it. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t come to watch after all that?” Finely points out.

For a moment I envy Everett for having friends like that but then again it would only be weirder if he didn’t because he is as loyal as it gets. I know for a fact that he loves these guys. He has told me a lot about these three people and whenever he does, he always sounds so happy.

Everett gives me a sideways look. I understand what that means, if these guys come to the play then they’ll know that I work there too. Somehow, that doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as it used to. So I give Everett a nod. His eyes glint in happiness. Totally worth it.

“Then you can come,” He turns to Pierce, “Remember the theater we went to last time with Sloane? It’s the same one.”

Pierce gapes at him. “All this time Sloane and I were grilling you about where you were working, and you never told us that it was the same theater!”

Everett smirks at him. “Not my fault that you were too stupid to figure it out.”

I laugh at that. All of them turn to me as though realizing I was still here.

“Oh yeah, you should be very careful when you walk around Uni tomorrow. Alice is very pissed that you cancelled your coffee date with her and then ignored her calls and texts,” Dylan grimaces.

I groan. “That woman is crazy. She’s got it in her head that I am definitely seeing someone, and now she won’t stop bugging me about it.”

Pierce raises his eyebrows at me. “Are you seeing someone?”

I smirk at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Pierce snickers. Dylan laughs.

Finley on the other hand looks surprised. “Wait. You have finally decided to give up your dream of being a professional whore and embrace romance? Jesus. What has the world come to?”

I roll my eyes at his dramatics. “Who said anything about giving up my inner whore? I can still be a complete whore but just with one person then.” I look over to Everett as I say that. He gives me a smoldering look that sets every nerve in my body on fire.

“So you are seeing someone!” Dylan deduces.

I shake my head. “I never said that.”

All three of them groan when they realize I wasn’t going to give anything away. I almost feel bad for them. Almost.

“You are a jackass,” Finley states.

I smirk. It’s not like they are going to judge me if I am actually seeing someone. And they mean a lot to Everett. So before I can overthink I say, “Fine. I am seeing someone for real.”

Except for Everett, all of them look like they saw an explosion or something.

“That…that’s unexpected,” Dylan clears his throat.

“Damn, this person, whoever it is, must have horns or their head or something to get past your commitment issues,” Pierce smirks.

“I do not have commitment issues,” I snort.

“Dude, I can’t think of a single reason other than that as to why you avoided relationships like the plague,” Finley says.

Was I really that obvious? Everett laughing pulls me out of my thoughts.

“I am pretty darn sure nothing is going to resolve his commitment issues, whoever it is must me fucking amazing to put up with him,” He gives me a smug look and damn if he isn’t the sexiest guy I have ever met.

“Well, I don’t know about that, I think you give too much credit,” I tell him.

“Okay shut up. You guys are not talking to each other. I am too tired to go through that,” Pierce tells me and Everett, “More importantly we should invite Alice and Sloane too. They’ll kill us if we won’t.”

“Good. We can meet at the theater and then head back to practice,” Dylan confirms.

“All you fucking think about is practice,” Finely grumbles.

They start bickering among themselves and I rush out a goodbye and make my way to my room. I can’t say I am not a little disappointed that Everett couldn’t come too. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell them Everett is my boyfriend. It’s not like we really have to keep it a secret if they will know where I work anyway. Even though I was the one who initiated on being boyfriends, I still can’t imagine myself being any good at it. I have never been anything but a prick to all my other partners, and why would this be any different? Maybe this is different because it’s Everett.

Everett

I get the text from saying that all of them are outside, I immediately run out of the theater to meet them. Looking around I find at least ten people waiting near the ticket counter.

I walk towards them. “Jesus. Why didn’t you guys just bring the whole university, huh?”

Pierce grins. “Word got around and most of them wanted to come. It’s not like we can tell them no. So here we are.”

They even brought a few of the freshmen, including Jayson by the looks of it. Zachary’s going to lose his shit if he knows that. I have told him all about the homophobic asshole and Zachary absolutely loathes him.

“Well, you guys should get your tickets checked first,” I tell them, and they move towards the ticket counter.

Dylan stops in his tracks when he sees Zachary behind the counter. Zachary looks up trying to suppress his grin. “Ticket?”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dylan asks.

Zachary raises his eyebrows. “Working.”

“You work here!?” Pierce asks, surprised.

“You work?” Alice asks.

I laugh and all of them turn to me.

“You knew? Of course, you knew!” Sloane burst out.

I shrug. “He didn’t want anyone knowing.”

All of them gape at me. Zachary clears his throat. “Ticket.”

Dylan scoffs, but he hands him the ticket and Zachary checks them. He finishes, then looks up with a polite smile, his work smile. “Enjoy the show.”

I roll my eyes at him. The rest of them move inside, and I turn to Zachary. “Really?”

Zachary smirks. “What the hell are you waiting here for? A kiss?”

“Well…”

“You have to take what you want, or you won’t get it.”

I smirk as I lean in and capture his lips in a gentle kiss. He grins when he pulls back. “Go deal with your annoying friends.”

I narrow my eyes at him playfully but go inside to sit with them. The drama starts and everyone falls silent. The play went by perfectly, capturing all our attention towards it.

We all make our way outside towards the parking lot, when the play finishes. I see Zachary leaning against my car, looking down at his phone as he waits for me. Just like every time my heart starts beating faster.

“What’s he doing?” Sloane asks.

“Waiting.” I say as he looks up from his phone.

Sloane frowns. “Why is he waiting?”

“For me to drop him back at the dorms,” I say nonchalantly. Sloane looks at me, shocked. I don’t say anything more than that.

Alice rushes towards Zachary. “Why didn’t you tell me that you work here!?”

Maybe I am imagining it, but I feel a bit of hurt in her voice. That’s when it sinks in that Alice used to date Zachary, and he never told her that he worked part-time. It doesn’t matter if they broke up, Alice must feel a little hurt that he was hiding stuff like this when they were together. It hurt like a bitch when Zachary was secretive about his life from me. I would never take it for granted that Zachary opened up to me, willingly.

“It wasn’t important,” Zachary waves it off.

“More importantly, why the hell do you even work part-time?” Pierce asks.

Oh. Shit. I look at Zachary, but he doesn’t even flinch at the question as though he was expecting it.

“For money,” he says simply.

“Isn’t your dad fucking rich?” Jayson snorts.

Zachary looks at him. “He is.”

He doesn’t explain. He looks around at the freshmen in confusion, since he doesn’t know any of them.

“Oh, these are the freshmen. They heard about the show and wanted to tag along,” Finley says.

The freshmen introduce themselves and when Jayson says his name, Zachary snaps his head to me, eyebrows frowning. I give him a lazy look that only makes him pissed.

“I can’t believe you both work together and still one of you is alive!” Pierce snorts.

Except the freshmen, the rest of them grins at us. I shake my head at their stupidity.

“And you even drive together!” Sloane pitches in.

This gathers all their attention as they examine the both of us like we are a newly discovered species, and they are scientists from NASA.

“You guys are being really ridiculous right about now,” I tell them, unapologetically.

“Agreed,” Zachary says.

“Now they are even agreeing with each other!” Alice points out.

“Are they ex’s or something?” One of the freshmen asks. Zachary and I exchange a look, both of us smirking.

Jayson groans. “Do we have to discuss this?”

Pierce glares at Jayson. “You didn’t have any problem discussing you fucking someone.”

“Me fucking a chick! I don’t want to hear about dudes sucking dicks, alright. It’s not okay.”

The silence that fell over was the loudest thing I have ever heard. Zachary moves from the car towards Jayson. His amber eyes blazing with anger. Just that look is enough to make Jayson take a step back, involuntarily. I’m pretty sure he pissed pants. Zachary can be terrifying when he wants to be. He grabs Jayson by the collar of his shirt and pushes him back. “The guys here won’t hit you because you are their teammate, but I am not.”

That’s all Zachary had to do for Jayson to back off. He wouldn’t even look Zachary in the eyes. Zachary turns to me and grabs my waist as he kisses me hard. It takes a moment for me to understand what is happening but when I do, my hand goes to his hair as I pull him closer to me. I smile into the kiss and close my eyes.

When we pull back both of us are smiling mischievously and the rest of them are gawking at us. Zachary lifts his hand, clutching onto something. My car keys. He took them from my pocket while we were kissing.

“I am driving,” he states.

I groan at him. “Fine.”

We get in the car and drive off, leaving them to wonder about what they just witnessed. We laugh as soon as we are away from their sight.

“I think you just outed our very secret relationship.” I tell him.

“No shit,” he grumbles.

“Let them deal with it taking all the time they need because by the looks of their faces they are going to need it.”

“Their problem.”

I grin at Zachary. “We should head back to your room and celebrate.”

Zachary smirks. “Celebrate?”

“I have heard the bed is a great place to celebrate.”

“The bed, huh?”

“Naked and sweaty.” I nod, trying to hold back the laugh that’s threatening to come out. Zachary seems to be having the same internal struggle too. We make eye contact and that’s all it takes for us to laugh again.

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