Ten Ways | ✓

way three

(show him what trust is)

* * *

The following morning, I woke to the sound of someone banging on the door.

With a groan, I pulled my comforter over my head, willing whoever was outside to go away. The heavy fabric dulled the noise, but not enough to let me go back to sleep. After how late we'd been out last night, I'd been counting on sleeping until noon today—maybe even later, if I couldn't bring myself to go to class.

Clearly, the universe seemed to have different plans for me.

There was a slight pause in the noise, during which I allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief. Finally. I could go back to sleep.

My joy was only short-lived though, because after a few seconds, the knocking started back up again—this time with more intensity than before, if that was even possible. There was no way I could ignore the sound this time around.

Cracking my eyes open, I looked around, trying to locate my phone. Maybe it was past noon and it was a perfectly reasonable time for someone to be waking us up? That wasn't highly plausible though, considering how dark it was outside.

A quick glance at my phone screen confirmed my suspicions. It was only six in the morning. I couldn't think of anyone who would want to drop by this early, but maybe something serious had happened. That would warrant such an early wake-up call.

So, I forced myself to climb out of bed and drag my feet to the door, all while muttering a string of obscenities that would probably give my mom a heart attack.

"What do you want?" I croaked, swinging the door open. "It's too early for this."

My eyes zeroed in on the person in front of me, and it was as if ice water had been poured on me: I immediately jolted awake, my mind going a thousand miles a minute as it tried to figure out exactly how to handle the situation, which was a surefire recipe for disaster.

Because, standing right in front of me was Chuck. As in James' Chuck, the absolute scum of the earth.

"Mierda. There's no fucking way. I don't have time for this."

At my outburst, I noticed his hands clenching into fists at his side. He really did not come here to fuck around—he meant business. That didn't fare too well for James; Chuck had already been pretty angry, and now he'd come face-to-face with the guy who he was certain his boyfriend was sleeping with. Not good.

"Where is he," Chuck ground out. His voice came out just barely above a whisper, but it was still loud enough for me to notice the edge in it. He wasn't just angry; he was livid. I didn't know the details, but what I did know was that whatever he was feeling had nothing on the frustration I felt at being woken up so early.