Chastity Trials Ch. 06

AUTHOR'S NOTE/CONTENT WARNING: Contains themes of cheating/NTR/cuckoldry/etc.

===

Jacob took another swig from his cup, shivering once more at the sour, burning tang. He had no idea what exactly was inside it. That was, for the most part, why he kept drinking.

"Give us a roll, J! Come on! It's only an eight to hit! An eight!"

"Art thou a cowering worg? Strike the beast down!"

Shaking him at both shoulders were cargo shorts-Tim and dress-up-Vern, opposite in their dedication but equally, for once, absorbed in the game. The drinks had done that, too. Even the usually demure Riley drunkenly cheered him on from the sidelines, though she was long since disabled from the fight.

The DM, Tasha, stood with her binder in one hand and her drink in the other, silencing them all with her proclamation.

"The dragon thrashes wildly beneath the rocks, neck exposed! It is prone for now, but the fight is not over! Only the paladin Eloris lies in range! Jake, do you wait for cover, or do you act?"

Jacob swallowed, trying to focus on the campaign. He could almost feel the scene being burned into his eyes by the vodka, his mighty dwarven paladin standing axe raised over the scaled behemoth in the crumbling sanctum -- a sure hit. Riley's cleric, Isha, lay unconscious far away, all spells spent. The two scoundrel elf rogues belonging to Tim and Vern smirked down at him from the rafters, urging him to finish the job. Their plan to lure the dragon away from its den, blow up the ceiling, and pin it under the rubble had gone without a hitch. Everyone had played their part. Now, it was his turn to be the hero.

Instead, in the real world, his eyes were stuck on Tasha again. The ditzy girl had worn an extra slutty crop top tonight, giving him a full view of her olive midriff and tits bursting at the seams.

It was only a second. But a second was all it took.

"The dragon jostles once more! The rubble loosens! That's gonna be a 12 DC!!!"

The room exploded in a panic as the chance began to slip from their fingers. Tim and Vern practically throttled Jacob as they screamed in his ear. Riley covered her face, unable to watch. Tasha, drawn deep into her own story, smiled triumphantly.

Jacob snapped out of it and let the d20 free from his grasp. "Melee attack!"

The party leaned over the table as the die clacked once, twice over the table. It rolled to a stop right in front of Riley, who peered through a cracked finger to confirm the result.

Eight. With his strength modifier...

Eleven. Almost, but not quite.

The room deflated. Tasha drew a deep breath.

"Eloris swings his axe, but the dragon evades it by a hair! The great weapon cuts through empty air and embeds into the bricks, leaving the paladin open! With one last thrash, the dragon pushes free of the rubble and fixates on its attacker! It rears its jagged claws high! Jake, 22 DC strength save!"

He sighed, took another drink, and rolled again. Another burn. Another failure. His precious paladin slammed into the far wall, collapsing disabled next to Isha.

Riley patted his back as the two scoundrels frantically began plotting up another way to take down the dragon. He appreciated the comfort but felt his mood sour anyway, glancing again at Tasha from the sidelines. She gave him a sly, knowing wink that seemed more than a little mean, then went right back to her impassioned narrative. He brought the cup to his lips for another sip but found it already empty.

Almost, but not quite. Never quite.

That was always how it had been in the life of Jacob Myers.

===

He thought often of her when things were quiet, of her face disappearing behind the hill on the road that day. It had only been three weeks since then, and like with all pivotal moments, he hadn't thought much of it at the time. Now, sitting in this dingy basement of his dorm with a new assortment of acquaintances-called-friends, that moment seemed months out of reach, as did her face.

If April could see him now, drunk with another mixed drink on the way, she'd probably dump him on sight.

He reclined back in his chair at the edge of the room as he witnessed the night devolve further. The campaign had ended on a cliffhanger thanks to his fuckup. Tim and Vern had narrowly evacuated the party from the sanctum with their only dimensional door scroll, leaving the dragon in defeat, and the table, dejected, eventually settled on poker to cope. Immediately, it hadn't been as fun. Jacob lost twenty dollars on his first hand and opted out right after, trying to be self aware of his inebriated state. It was like a weight lifted from the group once he was out.

Him. The fifth guy. The floater. The filler friend. The guy who always needed to be told what to do and how to do it. Jacob Myers.

He tried not to let it bother him. This was his first time drunk, and he was grumpy and disorganized. He'd heard emotions could run wild with alcohol before. He was just overthinking things. The urge to cry was just an overreaction.

Besides, he had no reason to be upset. He had April, didn't he?

He instinctively reached for his pocket but found a void of space where his phone usually was. He'd left it upstairs tonight. He'd done so, reluctantly, on purpose.

He checked his cup to make sure there was still something in it. His face stared back from a dark, bubbling ichor. Dirty Dr. Pepper. Now that he knew what it was, some of the magic was gone, but he drank, and the burn came all the same. That, at the very least, was no magic.

Inevitably, his eyes landed again on Tasha. Tim had migrated steadily to her position, and she hadn't resisted him. Hell, she was getting handsy with him now, resting a hand on his forearm as he "taught" her how to shuffle cards before the next round. She was completely lost in his face, not listening to a word he said. Vern and Riley damn near groaned at the display. Jacob would've taken solace in that if not for the fact that the two weren't already a couple and would no doubt be at it the very same way tonight.

He wasn't pursuing Tasha, he rationalized. He was simply curious.

Though if, hypothetically speaking, she were to approach him, come onto him the same way she did with Tim, show any interest whatsoever...

"Where's your plus one, J?"

Tim's words shocked him out of the nonsense fantasy -- as if it could've ever been real.

"She goes to DeVaughn," he replied. He always replied that way. He had a girlfriend, too. More beautiful than Tasha ever could be.

Tim gave him something between a chuckle and scoff, probably coming across as more callous than he meant to. It was the alcohol which was making him gloat, surely. His neighbor seemed like a great guy, and he was even in the same position in life: clueless, having coincidentally landed in the same hodgepodge of random classes Jacob had thrown himself at during registration. He was the one to invite him here. It was Tasha who was the problem. Tasha, who had no doubt picked up on Jacob's looks and reveled in the attention, though she clearly had no intention of reciprocating.

Then again, she had seemed nice when he first met her in DND club, too. He thought she was interested.

He looked to the other two for support but wasn't surprised to see their blank faces. None of them here believed him, of course. He was the fifth guy. The sore loser who made up a fake idol girlfriend to make himself feel better.

That was fine. Let them think that.

Recline. Drink. Burn. Watch. Try not to feel.

He had reached the bottom of his cup again by the time he realized the tears were coming whether he liked it or not. He stood abruptly like a rubber band drawn taut.

"I'm gonna call it a night, y'all. G'night."

The acquaintances-called-friends pretended to be surprised.

"See ya later, J," Tim reassured.

"Don't throw up on the stairs," Vern chastised.

"Was good seeing you, Jake! That was a great campaign!" Tasha lied.

"Be careful getting back..." Riley consoled.

Only Riley seemed the least bit worried. Jacob wanted to appreciate it, but he stopped himself. Vern already had a reminding arm around his chubby girlfriend, and she shuffled nervously in her seat. None of them would actually see him back to his room in the end.

He did make it back alright, physically. The shoddy tiles and humming fluorescent lights disappeared as he stumbled up the stairs, as did the echoes of the party going on without him. He carried himself to the elevator once he was out of the basement -- the damn thing didn't run down to that musty old place -- and collapsed onto bed almost as soon as he was through his door. There, finally, he cried silently into his pillow in the dark, doing his best not to wake his roommate.

Pathetic.

Even through the tears, he tried to tell himself it was only the drinks. It no longer worked. The alcohol worked nefariously. Now that he no longer had it, it couldn't burn away the thoughts as they flowed freely. He thought of everyone at that table, about how much fun they'd all been having until he messed it all up. About how obviously he'd ogled Tasha, and how obviously everyone knew. He remembered Tim chatting her up so naturally as they all played cards. Even Vern, dressed up in elven cosplay, was more in his element there than Jacob.

Tim the playboy. Tasha the bubbly tomboy. Vern the nerd. Riley the shy girl. In hindsight, they all seemed so simple, but that wasn't it. They were just confident in who they were.

And what was Jacob?

Eighteen and frustrated and horny. He wanted to have sex, damn it all. For months, that had been all he could think about.

He twisted his heavy head to his phone sitting on the dresser. He was desperate to know what and how she was doing, but he still couldn't bring himself to see her contact. Not as he was. Chances were she was still furious at him for missing church. He doubted anyone even at this university could rival the devoutness of April Crocket.

Everything he'd told her about his time at BYU so far had been a lie, or at least not a full truth. He'd come here for the same reason he did everything: because it was easy. Because, on paper, he was Mormon and had an easy inroad, although he'd stopped believing long ago, if he'd ever started at all.

Though he was only three weeks into college life, every day that passed here just reminded him of how directionless he was, how much he'd already missed out on by letting the world simply push him around like that. He didn't know how to make real friends, and he couldn't see himself finding his way at a place like this. The view of the Rockies was nice, but even they couldn't make up for how hot and dry and brown everything else was. As for DND, that had long since been something he only did because he used to truly love it, as though if he stopped, he'd lose a vital part of himself.

The only real, lasting pillar he had was April. The light of his life.

And he'd gone down to the basement with Tasha on his mind anyway, knowing drinks would be involved, knowing he just didn't have the willpower to resist a fat ass and pair of tits.

Though nothing happened in the end, the resulting guilt was endless and unbearable. He didn't truly believe in God, but he was guilty for being so weak to lust. At the same time, he envied Tim for getting Tasha, which only made him more guilty for feeling any envy. If he just waited, he would have April one day, and she would have him. It didn't need to be such a big deal.

For some reason, however, the thought of waiting was starting to give him a pit in his stomach.

It wouldn't have been so bad if April just wasn't interested in sex. At least then, he'd have a concrete boundary. But he knew she was despite her words and faith. Their phone sex had been a testament to that. He relived graduation night every time he closed his eyes, saw her shining, burning hot eyes in the dark of his room, felt the warmth of her bare skin against his on his childhood bed. Even now, rock hard against his college dorm mattress, he could still feel her warmth teasing his cock through those two flimsy layers of fabric. They were all that had separated them from complete intimacy.

He'd been there.

And yet he hadn't. Because she'd stopped him. Because though he could clearly see how much she wanted him, how easy it would've been to tempt her over the edge and take her anyway, he wanted to hear her say it with her own lips. Only then would the act be real. That was what he'd been taught his whole life: pressure a girl into consent, and you were scum.

Still, because he hadn't taken the initiative, he'd lost perhaps the best chance he had with her. It ate him up more and more every day. They were miles apart now, with her building a life so alien from his own he couldn't help but worry. She was already so busy they barely called. Sex was only sex -- that was what his rational side kept telling him, and he wanted more than anything to believe it. He missed the old days of their relationship, back when they first reunited and that level of intimacy was barely even a concern. But as they grew older and their desires grew heavier, he could feel the rift between them widen little by little each time she stonewalled him. The fact that she was saving her chastity had frankly begun to terrify him.

Because he already knew he wasn't worthy of her. Because at this rate, one day she would realize this and choose someone else, someone who would have her in ways he had only ever been on the cusp of. Because he would be left behind, never to be loved again, as he didn't have it in him to truly find another.

No light. No future. No April.

Melodramatic hypocrite. You're only upset now because tonight didn't go how you wanted it to.

He cried himself into a drunken half-sleep of self pity and loathing that night, recriminating himself in his dreams. Only when he woke up the next morning, through the agony of his first hangover, did he finally notice the eight missed calls from his girlfriend in need.

===

April could tell he drank because of his voice. That slur, that terrible, swaying cadence which possessed her roommate last night, now spoke through her phone speaker in her boyfriend's voice, not quite as heavy but just as recognizable.

"I'm so sorry, love! I... I didn't have my phone on me, and... ugh, I fell asleep... God, I'm so stupid... What's up? Are you okay?" Jacob sounded pained, somehow. A hangover, probably.

On Sunday morning.

Lily was going to have one, too. Amidst other things.

April opened her mouth but didn't even know where to begin. She felt some anger, but it seemed so puny in the face of all that had happened yesterday. Her brain was still thoroughly rattled. It hadn't gotten enough sleep to catch up. The party. Lily. What the girl had done. Who she'd done it with. Who might still be in that bed in the other room as April sat up sluggishly from her own, sore everywhere for no particular reason.

That was to say nothing of her own experiences last night -- the solitude in that basement, the sheer unbelonging she felt.

The bathroom. The shower.

She shivered all over, uncontrollably, as the same thought repeated in her head. A divine reminder.

It was Sunday morning.

"It's... nothing," she finally answered. "I just wanted to hear your voice."

A silence came, unavoidable, at her blatant half-lie. She felt Jacob's judgement, his deep thought over how to call her out. It was why she hadn't lashed out despite that being what she would've always done. Perhaps she still should've. Right now, though, she needed an anchor back to reality, a way to forget what she'd seen and done. Her normally lenient and understanding boyfriend reprimanding her would undoubtedly be just that.

Besides, it was a half-lie. She had wanted to hear his voice last night -- as she came over, and over, and over again. She still wanted to hear him now.

"April, please tell me what's going on. I know you're not telling me everything. You wouldn't call me that much if it wasn't serious."

His words, though beautiful, weren't what she hoped for. Even when calling her out, he was being nice as usual. And in being nice and trying to understand her, he was making her think when she wanted nothing of it.

The sound of running water echoed in her head. She saw Dominik again in a flash of memory -- that shape, so alien yet distinct, shimmering wet from the shower...

It's... It's so big...

She remembered Lily's muffled, gasping voice beyond the wall, what it must've looked like for something like that to be her first time. Surely, Adan was not as... as...

Her jaw hung open in awed rumination, still trying to reply to her boyfriend but failing spectacularly. In the end, before she could bring herself to say anything, Jacob spoke again.

"I got drunk last night, love."

She let out a shaky breath like steam escaping a boiler. It had been obvious. She shouldn't have needed this honesty. Yet, in a way, though the admission upset her greatly, and though it didn't purge all that happened yesterday from her mind, it did put her at ease somehow. It felt as though she'd heard something real for the first time in three weeks, or maybe more.

Jacob went on. "I was with friends. I knew you wouldn't like it, but I chose to go do it anyway. I was scared of how you would react, so I left my phone behind. I wasn't there to answer you because I was a coward. I'm so sorry."

They both sat on the line, silent and miles and miles away. April prepared herself for what felt minutes before responding with an honesty of her own.

"There was a party. Yesterday. I went."

Another silence, another judgement. This time, she didn't let him finish it.

"Nothing serious happened. I think. I don't know. I can't find the words. It's not what you're thinking, though, I promise. Please just trust me for now. Please."

"Okay," he relented softly.

She was glad he didn't question her. Her confession had come out quickly before her mind could regulate or dwell on anything. Frankly, she didn't even have a prolonged conversation in her right now. Not after waking up like this.

She spoke again after the third silence, an honesty they both already knew -- the most important of all. "I miss you. I really, really do."

"I miss you too."

"Jake," she spat. "Fall break is in two weeks. I need to see you."

"I-"

"I mean it."

She hung up and fell back on her bed, losing herself in the sunlit ceiling. Muscle memory did eventually get her up, into the shower, and then her Sunday dress. She would reassure her boyfriend later over text that she did, indeed, love him. And she would call him eventually, after all was said and done, to explain properly what had happened. For now, though, she clasped her hands together for a quick devotional prayer like she wanted to just get it over with.

It was Sunday morning.

===

April's roommate was gone by the time she opened the door, as was Adan.

She didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed about that. On one hand, those two were perhaps the last people in the world she wanted to confront. But deep down, she knew that eventually, she would have to, and putting it off would just make the moment worse.

She opted to cling to comfort for the time being as she passed the living room and kitchen by, locking the apartment door behind her. It didn't even last a step as a thought of her upstairs neighbor invaded her mind -- another flash of memory, instant yet infinitely stunning. What would she do when she had to see him again? Now that she thought of it, why was he even in the shower in the first place? Did he come back to Langley after...?

She pushed through the invasive thoughts valiantly and kept her pace down the stairs. The morning sun grazed her skin when she opened the front door like a reassuring hand. Church would bring answers. Not those kinds of answers, but the kinds she needed. It always did.

God's eye was wide open today, piercing straight through her above, searing and at the last of His patience. She'd forgotten sunscreen, maybe on purpose, as if walking willingly into her judgement would somehow make it better. It didn't. The heat targeted her differently from the other times she'd gone down the hill in weeks prior, back when her only problem was desperate, licentious thoughts of her boyfriend -- and the occasional, needy masturbation session. His gaze singled her out now over all the other churchgoers. He felt what had happened last night, the connection between them severing.

He knew that, just for a moment, she'd wavered.

Inside the chapel, Lily and Adan were still nowhere to be seen. April did spot Sadie, however, smiling demurely with her clique in her Sunday dress as if she hadn't been sinning all night. April expected to be angrier, but frankly, the sight only furthered her detachment from it all.

She hardly listened to any of the sermons during service. Her thoughts and prayers were solely devoted to handling her current predicament, hands clasped together with her eyes closed for basically the whole hour as she begged the Heavenly Father to show her the way forward, to purge that filthy image from her head. He did neither. For today, He solemnly reminded her how it felt to be alone -- a lesson, harsh and simple, to never put herself in the way of sin again.

She sobbed quietly to herself in the pews, her peers none the wiser.

I'm sorry. Please don't leave me. I'll be good.

The pleas came frantically, no better to God than a swarm of gnats. She didn't know if they were even aimed at Him anymore. Or Jacob. Or her own conviction. Whatever kept her here, whatever anchor gave her purpose, she needed it to stay. And that had to be God because He was what saved her.

Finally came the gentle touch, the relief of forgiveness. She felt the stern, silent gaze upon her break at her devotion like the soft smile after a hard scolding. He didn't spare her from her thoughts of last night as she prayed for, but she wasn't disappointed. He simply knew that she could overcome them with her own strength and will. He was, as he always was, right. Both her physical and spiritual chastity were still intact, if damaged. Even if she'd faltered, let her mind and hands wander to places they shouldn't, those temptations were only temporary if she only allowed them to be.

Besides, last night wasn't really her fault, was it? She had no way of knowing who... what was in that bathroom. She was just unfortunate.

She would've loved for the service to end on that uplifting note. Sadly, Adan's voice ambushed her mind right as it ended.

Forgiving is just in His nature.

She frowned, anger flaring up over the numbness for the first time since waking. She couldn't believe she'd trusted that liar. She'd even started to think he was a friend. In the end, he just used God as an excuse like Lily, like Sadie, like everyone sitting alongside her.

April's logic was not the same as his. It wasn't.

"In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

She mumbled it along with the rest of the church before getting out of there as fast as she had the party.

Instinct to think about something else drove her to check her phone. Despite their heartfelt honesty earlier, the first notification she saw wasn't from her boyfriend.

[I'm sorry about last night. Hope you're doing alright.]

A smile, brief and weak, graced her face. Though it came from Raleigh, it was still a kind sentiment. She wished she could believe it.

The rest of the day went by in a kind of fog, a limbo between denial and acceptance. After scarfing down a bagel at the cafe without so much as pausing for conversation, she focused all her energy on preparing for her fourth week. Architecture was hard. Structural engineering was hard. God save her, even the smattering of required core curriculum courses were hard, and they were just distractions at the end of the day. She managed the assignments nonetheless, and by the time she looked out her dorm window, the sun was halfway beneath the mountains, and she had gone a full day without a single in-person interaction.

She came across Lily at last when going out into the kitchen to grab dinner. It was only Lily in the living room -- no Adan or whoever she'd been with -- and the girl looked her way for a blip of a moment before her head jolted down as if the sight had zapped her. April paid her no mind, or at least pretended not to, as she put a pot of ramen on. The silence simmered, then boiled.

Only when April had poured her serving into a bowl to take back to her room did Lily finally find the courage to speak. "Hey, April...?"

Great. Here it was. "Yes?"

"I... I just wanted to... apologize. For the party."

"You're fine," April said. Bit was probably more accurate. "You're an adult. I can't tell you what to do."

She heard Lily's open mouth, her inhale as she thought up responses only to draw a blank. The hot bowl of ramen singed April's fingers, and she checked her grip, ignoring the pain.

"I'm just glad it's over now. You remember our deal, right?" She turned her head and saw the girl's confused face. "About the noise?"

Lily went beet red, crumpling in on herself as she nodded.

"Awesome. I'll try to be more quiet from now on, too. Homework's already getting pretty bad and all."

April felt the passive-aggressiveness on her lips like the burn of a red pepper. She hated the feeling, but the louder part of her mind, the part that was still furious and heartbroken at the girl who had so casually ignored her over that slut who played the upstanding churchgoer, didn't let her second guess her words. If Lily was a believer -- and she was, April truly thought that even now -- the guilt, the inevitable knowing of what she had done and broken would set her back on the right path. That's how it should've been, at least.

As she left her wallowing in the living room, however, the spite began to rot, and it was April who kept feeling guilty. Since when had she been so insufferably judgemental? Was she always this way? Worse yet, was she only now realizing it? Lily had apologized, acknowledged she'd done wrong. Her mind was undoubtedly in no better state than April's. Instead of acknowledging that, of talking things out like a mature person, she'd chosen this. It wasn't normal. It didn't feel normal. Already, though, it felt too late to turn around and take it all back.

It was April's own failure more than anything that still hurt. Despite all her best efforts, despite everything starting out so well in the beginning, despite all they had in common, and perhaps because of her anxiety now, living with her roommate had become awkward.

She finished her ramen quickly in her room but found, infuriatingly, that she could no longer get any work done. Holding her head on her desk, a single, terrible thought broke through all the mental defenses, all the faith she'd spent a lifetime cultivating:

Perhaps she should have just let Jacob have her back then.

That night, she turned in early and defeated. She put Raleigh's earmuffs on preemptively, expecting the same onslaught of sounds from above as always. However, for the first time since moving in, they never did. Even the steady vibrations that she usually felt in the air were absent.

She used to pray for this moment. Now, it didn't even give her relief. The new image in her mind made no noise, but it was no less quiet than the trial which had come before it.

Before turning over in bed, she checked her phone once and saw Jacob still hadn't reached out. He was probably giving her time to recover from their talk. The considerate dork had done stuff like that before. She followed through on her earlier promise anyway, typing just one letter before the well-worn autofill did the rest.

[I love you]

Once again, she was asleep before any replies came.

===

Jacob was in her room again that night.

April knew it was a dream at first sight. His shirt was already off, toned upper body shimmering under the fairy lights as he approached her bed. Too forward to be him. Too much like the Jacob in her dreams, the one who ignored her pesky chastity and took what he wanted.

He was the Jacob she knew she would hate if he existed. Right now, at her most animal, he was also the one she wanted to go on.

A slow blink later, he was on top of her, face breathing inched from her own. She remembered the feel, the taste of his kiss like they had just done it yesterday, like he had never left. When she looked down, her pajamas were already off as if responding to her heat, as were his pants.

And where there was usually only shadow, she could now see it.

Hanging there. Heavy. Thick. A map of veins spread over the surface of his cock, just barely illuminated by the moonlight from the window framed behind his naked legs. It throbbed steadily, almost in time with her own heartbeats, wet and beastly and ready...

... Wet?

Her face snapped back up. The body her eyes traced was now more muscular, more toned than the boyfriend she knew. When she met his face again, not a shred of the kind, dorky, horny Jacob she knew stared back.

Only that monstrous grin.

She awoke with a gasp. Heaving in bed, she reached between her legs and found herself wet as usual, but thankfully untouched. She'd never done the act itself, so her mind hadn't been able to replicate anything.

Yes, of course. It was a dream. It meant nothing.

===

The moment April most dreaded came not long enough after she woke.

She and Lily hadn't accompanied each other on their way to their first morning classes. The sting of yesterday's confrontation still hung heavy between them, and April didn't want to add anything else onto the mess she was walking into. In the ARCH 101 lecture hall, she sat in the same spot as always -- back in the corner next to Mary, who had arrived even earlier than her -- but it didn't feel as safe as usual. She was still visible. Still exposed.

"You alright?" said Mary. "You look a little pale."

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine. Just stayed up a little too late is all. I thought I'd still have a little more time by now..."

"Ah. I know the feeling..."

April sighed to herself as her attempt to gently suppress further inquiry succeeded. Not soon after, at the front of the room, Dominik walked into class.

She swore, in that moment, that just the sight of him made her whole being lock up. Her breath caught, her brain stuttered, and her heart hitched. Immediately she looked away from his masculine figure, but just a moment was enough for the memory of him in the shower to resurface. She shut her eyes tight as if it would shut it out alongside them, but the darkness only pronounced the image of his soft, wet length of his cock in her mind.

She pursed her lips when she returned back to reality. It was the first time the thought had come to her in deliberate detail -- in the waking world, at least.

As usual, she felt his gaze on her before she made the mistake of checking for it. It was, unsurprisingly, different today. Even a few rows of seats apart, she spotted the grin blighting the intensity of his stare, cheeky and knowing. She had hoped beyond reason that the moment in the bathroom had gone by fast enough for him to not recognize who had walked in on him. Clearly, that hope had been in vain.

Class began promptly after Dr. Thias arrived, and April was relieved to find the resilience she'd built up in the weeks before the party still functioned, at least. No matter how many times Dominik's eyes so obviously wandered in her direction, she ignored him for the most part and kept taking notes on her laptop. Already it was far along enough in the semester to start thinking about finals, and this course's would be the worst of the bunch. She couldn't afford distractions. Even if it was a group project, a full three floor house plan in just over two months -- in a 101 course, no less -- was just the kind of ridiculous DeVaughn workload her research had warned her of.

"I've gone ahead and made your final project partners visible on the dashboard," Dr. Thias said as class ended. April, itching to leave like everyone else, clicked on the tab absentmindedly, planning to think about it later.

Panic forced her to think about it now.

"Shoot. I was hoping I'd get you for my partner..." Mary muttered at her own laptop. "Who's yours?"

April could only stutter. "U-um... I, uh..."

Raising an eyebrow, Mary looked over her shoulder and gasped. "No."

"I-I need to talk to the professor."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

April waded straight through the flow of leaving students in the direction of Dr. Thias, giving Mary a halfhearted wave goodbye. She hated leaving her friend in such a hurry, but it couldn't be helped. Glancing at the front of the room, she winced as though she'd touched a hot stove.

Dominik's smile had only deepened.

Standing at his podium, Dr. Thias hummed to himself none the wiser to her plight. He was a wiry, almost unkempt old man, the type who radiated knowledge despite his unseemly appearance for a professor. Being so accomplished for so long, that soft expression had little reason to change. Somehow, that made him way harder to approach. April felt guilty for having to ask anything of him.

He looked at her innocently as she approached. "Ah. April, was it? Good job again on your quick sketch. You really do have a knack for this."

"Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks." She let the gratitude hang in the air, but no further response came. He just stared at her patiently, assuming she had an inquiry by the fact that she had stepped on his podium in the first place. "I just, um... I wanted to talk about our final project partners."

"What about them?"

"Well... I was wondering if it might be possible for me to change mine."

Dr. Thias pondered her words for a lapse. "Why?"

April bit her lip, ignoring another flash of Dominik in the shower. It was quickly replaced by frustration. Sure, the syllabus said partners would be randomly assigned, but only in the case you didn't request one first. She and Mary had been nothing but prompt about doing so given the class's heavy gender bias. There was no way Dr. Thias didn't know this. He had been the most understanding of her professors by far when she made the rounds before the semester started.

What went wrong?

"Dominik and I don't really 'get along,' is what I'm trying to say. And, um... with all due respect, he's made me uncomfortable since I started your class."

She scanned the room again, sighing in relief at its emptiness only to feel the pit in her stomach return when she spotted Dominik now smirking at her from the door.

"Ah. I see..." Dr. Thias hummed, stroking his chin. "I doubt he means ill, April. He's more studious than he looks. Second in class so far behind you, believe it or not. And just between you and me... If you want to be in this space, you'll sometimes have to collaborate with some... unsavory characters. Believe me. But if you're under a contract, you have to find a way."

April clutched her dress. This man was defending Dominik. The one who had done nothing but harass her since the first day of the semester. There was no way she could believe such a superficial, brazen person cared even a little about what went on in this class. Someone who did nothing but chase women, present himself to them like a statue, seduce them...

Her professor's kind gaze snapped her out of her brief trance again -- what gall to look at her kindly! Yet, she didn't see a shred of insincerity in his eyes, as though he were really trying to help her. The longer she looked at him, the more she understood his words.

Would Dominik really be the first and only person like this she encountered in the field?

She couldn't deny she saw the logic in it. She still hated it more than anything, and she wanted to reject it, but she still saw it.

"Well, if that's really how you feel, it can't be helped," Dr. Thias sighed. "I'll rearrange things--"

"I'll do it."

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'll work with Dominik. I'm sorry for taking up your time."

And that was that.

April turned to the door, trying to flee the embarrassment that would come from continuing the conversation any further. Dr Thias' voice still followed after her.

"Let me know if anything changes! I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

How dare he sound worried?

Despite her quiet fury, she didn't turn, nor did she change her rash decision. She had no right to blame the professor entirely. After all, it had only taken a decent argument, her only weakness, to make her crumble.

Dominik was still waiting for her by the time she made it to the hallway. He joined her side with that same grin as she walked home, and for once, she had no excuse to avoid him.

"Looking forward to working with you, partner."