~x~ Chapter 46 ~x~

Christian shifted again. "You don't come across as someone who cares much about what outsiders think."

"You're not really an outsider though, unless you'd prefer to keep it that way." I told him pointedly.

He stared at me for a good long moment before he smiled. "No, you're a very interesting person, Kylie. Life with you would never be boring."

"Pfft, anyone can tell you that." I snorted.

"You're someone who doesn't take any bullshit. Evidently, you don't take insults about people you like and would sooner beat the shit out of them than take a moment to control your temper."

"Hey, they deserve the beating."

"I didn't say they didn't. You are very strange, Kylie, and you're very different. I can't place it but from the times I have seen you around, you seem strangely at home here even though it's only been a week. It's almost as if you were always meant to belong here."

"Well, you sure do know how to make someone feel like they've really settled in."

"You don't need words to tell you that you've settled in perfectly." I just gave him a wide grin. "It's probably partly due to your protective nature that you seem to fit in so well. You've definitely made it widely known that messing with you is a terrible idea."

"Clearly that message didn't set in properly for some people."

"Nick, right?"

"Who else? He's been a total jackass right from the start."

"Strangely enough, you seemed to have had it in for him since day one."

"I don't like his attitude."

"You didn't know his attitude enough to have an opinion."

"I saw him at breakfast, then I saw him in class. Both times he made enough of a bad impression for me to form an opinion." I told him bluntly. "I mean, seriously, who goes and sits by a new girl acting all like he owned me on her first day of school?"

"Nick likes to move fast to know who's available and who isn't at the first chance he gets."

"I've noticed that. He didn't take no for an answer, he gets hit. Simple as that."

"Being a hot girl you must've been used to guys hitting on you straight away by now."

"Guys tend to know to back away pretty quickly once they know I wasn't interested. Not to mention, he just seemed to naturally make me pissed off. Until he changes his attitude, that's unlikely to change."

"It's a little strange but he seems oddly attached to you. He can't explain it very well but he said that there was something about you that draws you to him."

"That's really weird… Normally, if someone wants to stay close to another, they don't do and say all the wrong things that places them on their shit-list." I drawled. "Considering you're friends with him and all, I'm sure that he must have a nice side that won't make me want to hit him every time I see him."

"No one's ever really challenged him the way you do, Kylie. Usually, not even the royals step in. They just take it in stride as his personality and stays out of it."

"Yeah, apparently they walk right out when it gets too much."

"Yeah." Christian agreed. "Nick's like that because of his father, I reckon. He's always raised Nick to behave like he's the most important person in the world and that he should think of himself as above others."

I frowned at that. "That doesn't make any sense though… I mean, considering the system they have going here, surely the King is the most important, then the royal families. O'Connor isn't a royal name."

"No it isn't, but his father is weird like that. Trust me when I say that Nick isn't always like a dick. He's just been around the wrong types of people for far too long and never quite grew up."

"I'll believe you." I told him with a sigh. "I mean, everyone has their backgrounds and circumstances, but until he stops insulting my friends and family, I can't stop beating the crap out of him for being a douche."

"Maybe he'll finally start learning to stop putting up a front."

"Putting up a front? Is that what you call his prattish attitude?"

Christian looked a little embarrassed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah."

"I'd say that it's more than just putting up a front." I scoffed, thinking back to when we were just kids and Nick O'Connor had been almost the same as he was now, only less crude since we were younger. "I hope you don't mind me asking, Christian, but why do you know his not to jerkish side? I mean, with his front, I would've thought that he'd be like all the other jerks that pretend to feel repulsed by your sexual preference."

"You're pretty blunt."

"Sorry, it's a habit of mine."

"I'm still surprised that you don't even bat an eyelash at the fact that I'm gay."

"Like I said, I have a good friend who's gay. The gender of the person you prefer to have sex with has nothing to do with me." I scoffed. "In theory it shouldn't be any one else's business either but hey the world isn't perfect."

"But I'm a stranger."

"Like that makes any difference."

Christian gave me another smile before answering my question. "He doesn't seem like it, but he doesn't care about that kind of thing."

I whistled and a little bit of me eased. So Nick O'Connor isn't a total jerkwad after all. "Now that is a surprise."

"I know. It surprised the hell out of everyone else too. They were expecting him to be the worst but he wasn't. Even I was surprised."

"I'll bet."

"It started when the cat was out of the bag." Christian sighed as he looked down at his hands. "It happened about a year or two ago. It was at a party and a girl tried to kiss me in a flirtatious way and I refused. That wasn't the only time it's happened."

"Well you are attractive so I'm not surprised. It's obvious that some of the girls here are pretty forward about sexual advances."

"You think I'm attractive?"

"Well, yeah. If you weren't gay, I might have thought about dating you, but you are so it's my loss." I shrugged, giving him a kind smile. He looked a little awkward and I smacked him. "I said might, not definitely. I have yet to really get to know your personality and that counts more."

"Oh really?" he retorted dubiously. "You and Eric got together pretty quickly."

"I don't know how that happened."

"How can you not know how it happened?"

"Just what I said. Anyway, this isn't about me so let's get back on track and we can talk about my oddities later."

"I'm persistent. I should let you know that now."

"I'm not saying I won't tell you, I'm just saying not right this second."

"Well, anyway. Because I'd refused so many girls and never flirted with them, she got angry and demanded why I'd refused her. I felt really awkward and tried to leave, but some of the nearby guys and girls heard and turned to look. Then they joined in, saying that it was weird that I'd never flirted with the girls."

"Maybe you just found them repulsive and thought that they were skanks."

"Well, I wouldn't say that I found girls repulsive, I just don't get sexually attracted by you guys."

"And that's perfectly fine."

"Well, for her it wasn't. She didn't like being rejected at all and then they pieced it together. They didn't actually expect it to be true, but since I had no way of denying it, I just confirmed their suspicion. Before it got bad, Nick stepped in and said that everyone was being stupid and that the girl was just being a sore loser just because I wouldn't kiss her."

"Did he believe it at the party?"

"I doubt it." Christian scoffed. "He can be a little slow sometimes. But then after the party, he asked me about it. He snuck into my room which actually scared the shit out of me. I mean, we weren't exactly friends back then so it was a surprise. Anyway, he asked me flat out and I just admitted it. I wasn't sure why I did it. I think it might have had the straightforward gleam in his eyes."

"Straightforward gleam?"

"It sounds a little weird, doesn't it?"

"A little, but I think that might be because it's to do with O'Connor." I admitted sheepishly. "I tend to be rather biased when it comes to him."

"He paused for a while when I admitted it. Then he blew out a breath and said that life was going to get a rather shit for me with some people at the Academy. Then, without saying anything, he just left my room. The next day, I was surprised when he started acting like we'd been best friends for years and cut in whenever anyone said anything. Usually, he responded with an insult."

"That sounds like him."

"Then from then on, we got talking and really did become good friends. He'd confide in me, something that he finds hard with others, and I'd listen to him patiently, sometimes giving him advice when I can but others I'll just listen."

I smiled and patted his shoulder. "Sometimes, listening is all they need. Pretty words, even heartfelt ones, aren't always right. It usually depends on the situation and the people involved."

"Nick's the type to need verbal reassurance. For someone who usually acts like that, he seriously lacks self-confidence."

"Well then, I can see why he cozied up to you. He saw a little bit of you in him."

Christian gave me a surprised stare and I just stared levelly back at him. I wasn't really sure what he was looking for as he stared at me like that. He was looking for something, and whatever it was, he seemed to have found it because then he smiled. He gave a full smile and it was beautiful. Normally, I wouldn't use the word beautiful to describe guys, but that was the only word for it. It was my turn to be surprised when he reached out, leaned forward and gave me a soft kiss on the lips.

"You are pretty all-knowing. You know that?"

"I'm not." I breathed out, confused as to how we went from hardly knowing each other to suddenly kissing. "I just understand it because I was like that."

"You? Lacking self-confidence? No way."

"Usually, it is the people who seem to be assertive that lack the most self-confidence. I got over it eventually but it did take me years. Until after my parents passed away in fact when I had to grow some balls and learn to be more confident to survive in the world."

"Not all people are like that though."

"Of course not. Most people are caught in between. They're confident but everyone has their weak points that make their confidence falter. No one is wholly confident without worries."

"What are you? A counsellor in disguise to help boost student confidence?"

"For this place? We don't need that sort of thing. I'd say we have enough overly confident people in our school."

He gave a small laugh. "You're probably right about that."

"O'Connor is lucky to have you by his side." I told him earnestly. "Without you, his life would probably be a total mess."

"Probably not."

"Everyone needs someone to confide in. You are that person for him. Without you, he'd implode and go off the rails. Welcome to high school life."

"I couldn't agree with you more about that." Christian chuckled, tucking a strand of loose hair behind my ear. "So, about you and Eric. Explain that because you were being very confusing."

I gave a small sigh and pulled at my hair tie so that my hair fell out of its messy bun. I brushed the knots out with my fingers and thought about it. "It's confusing because it's a confusing situation. I mean, it's unlike me to just jump into it like that. We're not going out."

"You're not? You certainly made it look like you guys were."

"I didn't do anything." I told him firmly. "Eric was the one who kissed me on Monday."

"If you're not going out, then what is going on between you two?"

"We're seeing each other. I refused to go out with him because I don't know him."

"Kylie… Everyone is saying that you guys are going out. They think that you're off limits."

"We're not exclusive. Eric and I agreed on that."

"Eric doesn't do anything half assed. It's a little hard to believe that he settled for that."

"He wanted to kiss me, the only way he was going to get to do that was settling for half way. I don't give meaningless kisses."

"Oh? Sorry about earlier then," he said so hastily that it made me laughed.

"I said meaningless kisses. Somehow, I get the feeling that our kiss earlier wasn't meaningless."

"Kylie, I'm gay."

"I know that." I rolled my eyes at him for his cautious tone. No doubt he was thinking that I'd misunderstood. "Seriously, you really don't know enough people who can be normal about the fact that you're gay. I know you're gay, man. Get that into your thick skull first. What I meant was, I know that you kissed me for a reason, not because you felt sexually attracted to do it, but there was a reason, no?"

"How do you know that?"

"Because I've kissed Tyce, my gay friend out of school, far too many times to count. Sometimes it's when we're drunk and just messing around, but more often than not, it's either a kiss of gratitude, reassurance or demonstration of sincerity. You gays are a little strange like that. A simple hug doesn't work well enough to hammer the emotion through."

"I have to say, I haven't met another gay person so I wouldn't know if it was normal or not. I just moved on instinct to be honest."

"So, which was it? Was it one of the three aforementioned reasons or have I got to add another one?"

"If I had to choose a word for it…" he paused to think for a moment. "Either awe, adoration, marvel or respect."

"Those words suck." I blanched. "What the hell were you feeling those for?"

"Kylie?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you getting embarrassed?"

"I'm not."

"Your cheeks are reddening."

"Shut up, Christian."

"It was a mixture of awe and adoration. I was surprised that you'd understood so well and just didn't know how to show that so I just moved."

"Thanks, now I do have another reason to add to the list."

"I'm glad to be of help," he teased. "So, back to the conversation."

"We're definitely not dating, whatever anyone else says. We just have an arrangement, that's all. Anyway, I'm seriously starting to think that agreeing to his idea was a really bad move."

"Really?"

"He's not right. There's something about it that's not right. I mean, I've seen my fair share of guys in my life, Christian, and I've never felt this way before. It's a really strange sense of wrongness. It's almost like I know I don't want to be with him, and yet for some strange reason, I am. I mean, I've gone out with guys before with no strings attached, partly to get them off my back, but also because I knew that doing so wouldn't change anything without relationship, instead, it would take the strain off it."

"Guys like that exist?"

"You'd be surprised." I scoffed. "Anyway, I'm not exactly inexperienced with dating. I know when it feels wrong."

"And it feels wrong now?"

"He's just… I don't know." I groaned, thrusting my hands into my hair in frustration. I didn't really think about it before, mainly because I didn't need to since it's only been a day and a half. But now that I did, none of it made sense at all. Eric wasn't my type and although I appreciated a nice kiss now and then this just didn't feel right.

"So end it."

"Christian, what kind of guy does Eric seem like to you?"

"A persistent one who always gets what he wants and it seems that he really does." Christian looked pointedly at me.

"He hasn't got me yet, buddy." I retorted. "Anyway, I think I know partly why I said yes to the agreement. Our agreement was that I wouldn't refuse his advances so long as I haven't found someone I do like."

"Hence, you're seeing each other but not in an exclusive relationship."

"Yeah. It sounds a little strange, but it was the only way to stop his hounding. I recognised that kind of character straight away when I was helping Jensen take the Senior training session. I think that was why I agreed to the agreement. It was so that I could at least set some kind of boundary."

"How is seeing him setting a boundary? If anything, wouldn't it make it worse?"

"Usually, it works, because the guys back at my old school got over the initial desire of just wanting to score me. They never got worse, they only got better and we always fell into a normal friendship afterwards. But with Eric, it's not working because I won't give him what he wants."

"I know you're not a slut, Kylie, because it's not in your character, but why not?"

"Because it'll be an act of submission, Christian. That's what he wants. He wants my submission. He wants the satisfaction that he can reduce me to nothing and make me beg. I won't let him do that to me. I won't let anyone do that to me."

"Kylie… you're kind of making him sound like some kind of a monster."

"That's because to me, at the moment, that's what he resembles." I grumbled.

"Isn't that a little farfetched?"

"Maybe, but I like to exaggerate things sometimes."

"If it's making you feel like this, then why not end it?"

"It's our agreement. We've already established that he's persistent. He won't just accept it unless I give him a reason."

"Tell him he's being a creep."

"Like that's going to get him off my back."

"There's more to it, isn't there, Kylie?"

"Now you're the one being awfully perceptive." I scoffed.

He was right. There was more to it. It wasn't just that I knew he wouldn't leave me alone. Now that I thought about it, I was scared of what he would do if I tried to confront him about it. It was becoming exceedingly obvious that I was useless against him and I knew that if he really tried, he could do anything to me and I wouldn't be able to fend him off. Eric liked me too much as his prize. He wouldn't just let me go like that even if it had only been a day and a bit since our agreement.

"Are you going to answer that?"

"This might sound really arrogant."

"Go ahead, it can't be more arrogant than most of the things that Marissa used to say."

"If you put it like that…" I grinned at him. "I think Eric sees me more as an object, as a prize, more than anything else. Could you imagine just letting go of a prize once you had it just because it said that you creeped it out?"

Christian thought about it for a moment before he gave a slow nod. "You're being pretty harsh to yourself."

"But it's true, don't you think? I doubt that Eric actually has any sincere feelings towards me besides wanting to get in my pants."

"And?"

"What?"

"You had that kind of tone that implied there was more to it. Not to mention, you mentioned something about submission. Just sleeping with you wouldn't make you feel like that."

Now that made me hesitate. I'd been pretty forthcoming with the details so far and I was surprised at that. I scrutinised Christian for a moment and decided that that was why Nick O'Connor liked him so much. Christian was a really nice and easy person to talk to. He was the type of person who gave of an air of loyalty and secrecy. You could feel totally safe telling him anything and know that he wouldn't go blag it to the world.

I looked around, making sure that no one else was around. I hadn't noticed anyone approach, but it was better to be sure. I dropped my voice down a few notches and leaned closer to him.

"He wants to bite me, Christian. He wants me as food, not as a human being."