The Rent Boy (EDITING)

Chapter Seventeen: Know Your Competition-

    I sighed, heaving myself up from my horizontal position and said, “I gotta go, Logan,” stretching my legs along the length of the bed, feeling all of my muscles tighten as I did.

    I'd spent the whole day at his house, lounging around in his room which, surprisingly, hadn't gotten boring once. We barely did anything, except talk. At one point, he did start to play me a song on his guitar but ended up getting nervous and shy barely a quarter way through.

    “Really? You just got here, can't you stay a little longer?”

    I arched my left brow and pointed up at the window behind us, where the just-viewable moon was peeking out from behind a few trees, lighting up the darkness of the sky. “Did you forget you had to put the lamp on because of how late it was getting?” I mocked. Logan pressed his lips together in a smile.

    “Damn, time really flies when you're having fun,” he chuckled. “So, I guess you have somewhere to be then, huh?” the question was spoken with a sadness to it, that reached as far as the look in his eyes, staring down at his hands that were playing with the duvet he was wrapped up in.

    “I guess,” I muttered, wishing the words weren't true, so that I could stay here because here was where things felt right. I knew I couldn't, and so did Logan. His face melted from reluctant understanding to complete disappointment. It felt nice, to be wanted and not in the usual ways guys paid me for, but to be genuinely wanted for my company. It felt nice.

    As I stood up to put my shoes back on, I heard Logan mumble something under his breath. “What was that?” I asked, staring down at him with a crease in my forehead.

    He peered up at me with wide, guilty eyes, “Uh, I, nothing, I just made a comment about that Nate guy. You know, because I'm not jealous or anything,”

    “You don't need to be jealous,” I assured, kneeling on the edge of the bed, over Logan's legs from where he'd sat upright and shuffled forward. My fingers played with the collar of his grey tee, a predatory smirk on my lips.

    “No?” he questioned, eyes sparkling with a mixture of amusement and lust. I shook my head slowly in reply, hooking my index finger over the collar of his shirt and pulling him forward.

    He raised his chin just enough so that our lips could meet in a closed-mouth kiss, and as he pulled back his teeth caught my bottom lip. When we finally parted, I cleared my throat to direct the attention away from my blush, and stood back up.

    There was a moment of silence before, “Why don't you go back to school?” Logan's voice reached barely above a whisper as he asked, indicating the fact that he knew I wouldn't like the question. I stared at his face for a moment, at the downcast of his eyes on the dark blue carpet and the subtle frown to his lips. He clearly wasn't expecting a good reaction.

    “Because I can't,” I sighed. His eyes shot up to mine, a look of fierce determination in them.

    “Of course you can!” He practically shouted, as if he thought by telling me that, I'd snap out of my stupidness and realise that, yes, yes I could go back to school, oh you're so right! But it wasn't as simple as that. Were all rich people this naïve? He went on to say, “And you should, seriously. You have so much that you're just throwing away, Ash,”

    I turned my back to him, fists balled up by my sides. I could feel my anger starting to climb my ribcage, eagerly approaching the gateway to my voice box and as soon as they arrived, my mouth opened to release a loud and frustrated, “You don't even get it, Logan!” The stunned look on his face brought my volume back to a soft level as I continued, “Besides, I already told you that renting is the only thing I'm good at, so can you just leave it?”