What We Pretend Not to See
DOWN THE HALL – PART III
In the last installment of Down the Hall…
R. Adrian Thorne
I didn’t sleep. Not really. Just sort of… laid there.
One sock on. Sweatpants half-pulled back up. Heart still knocking around like it hadn’t realized the fire drill was over.
I didn’t even lock the door after he left. I just stood there like an idiot, listening for footsteps down the hall. For a pause. A return. A knock that never came.
By morning, my room felt too small.
The walls still smelled like him. Like his hoodie. Like his breath.
I threw the window open and let the cold morning air do what it could.
At 10:15 a.m., I saw him.
Wes.
In the lobby.
Laughing at something. Head tilted back, hand on the shoulder of a guy I didn’t recognize. Hoodie swapped out for a fitted tee. Like it was just another Thursday and he hadn’t spent the night with his hand down my pants.
He didn’t look up.
Or if he did, he timed it perfectly so I wouldn’t notice.
I kept walking.
I didn’t expect him to talk to me.
But part of me thought maybe… he’d at least look like something had happened.
That something had shifted.
Instead, he looked like gravity didn’t touch him the same way it did the rest of us.
Back in my room, I laid on my back and stared at the ceiling. My body buzzed in that hollow, frustrated way—like I’d been holding my breath since he left.
I replayed it.
The kiss.
The way he grabbed my face like he didn’t trust himself to stop.
The scrape of his stubble against my skin.
That low, involuntary sound he made when I moaned.
And then his hand—sliding down.
Not hesitant. Not unsure. Just there. Claiming.
His palm was warm. Confident. Like he’d touched other people before, but maybe not like this.
His fingers curled around me — not tentative, not testing — just pressure and rhythm and heat. His thumb grazed where I was already aching, and it wasn’t careful. It was intentional.
I could still hear his breath in my ear.
“You don’t have to be quiet.”
I didn’t know if he actually said that. But in the version I replayed in my head, he did.
In that version, he didn’t stop. He didn’t pull away. He stayed. He wrecked me properly.
My hand slid beneath my waistband.
Eyes closed. Breath shallow.
I curled my fingers around myself, already half-hard and aching, and let Wes fill the empty space beside me—not the version who left, but the version I wanted. The one who stayed.
I stroked slow, deliberate. Matching what I imagined his hand had started—just enough friction to build, not enough to satisfy. My hips shifted up to meet it, like my body knew something my brain wasn’t ready to say out loud.
In my head, he was over me. Braced with one hand beside my head, his body pressed against mine, mouth hovering at my neck.
“You feel that?”
A soft moan escaped.
I picked up the rhythm. Tightened my grip. The heat behind my eyes grew sharp.
He’d say it like a dare. Like a promise.
“You’re so fucking hard for me.”
My breath caught. My legs tensed.
In the fantasy, he rocked against me, hips grinding, voice low and wrecked.
My back arched. I bit my lip. I was so close—
“Say my name.”
It was a whisper. A command. A prayer.
My lips parted. I was right there. Right—
BANG BANG BANG.
“309! HALL MEETING. FIVE MINUTES!”
I jerked upright so hard I nearly smacked my head on the wall.
Outside, the voice didn’t stop.
“I SEE YOUR LIGHT’S ON. DON’T MAKE ME USE THE WHITEBOARD.”
My hand tore out of my pants like it had been caught stealing. My chest heaved. My dignity fell somewhere near the floor lamp.
There is no greater buzzkill than an underpaid sophomore named Dakota yelling about floor policies while you’re seconds away from your first full-blown dorm fantasy climax.
I lay there for a second, humiliated and still hard, staring at the ceiling like it owed me an apology.
Then I rolled out of bed, yanked on a hoodie, and tried to smooth out my face like it hadn’t just almost cracked wide open.
When I opened the door, the hallway was full of half-awake guys in socks and sweatpants, blinking at the world like it had betrayed them too.
Wes wasn’t there.
Of course he wasn’t.
TO BE CONTINUED…
