"I choose you over everyone."

~Rainbow Rowell

Alex

Before we knew it, the winter break came. To a religious household like mine, the holidays were very sacred. From the 23rd of December up until the 27th we all met up and had to spend 'quality family time' together. There was no way getting out of it, so I just bit my tongue and promised Hunter to meet up with him on the morning of the 28th. But because whatever was out there hated us, Hunter got sick. In the end, we decided on spending New Year's Eve together. My parents were planning on going to a work party with my father's and so they let me alone with Chris.

"So, I'll be heading out now. I'm going to meet up with Becky," he told me grabbing his keys and leaning against the doorway of the living room. "Are you planning on spending New Year's on the couch?" he asked me with some sort of disappointment in his voice.

"Maybe. Why do you care?" I asked him.

"Why aren't you doing something with your friends?" he asked back, ignoring my question.

"I'm probably going to meet up with Don," I said with a wave of my hand and changed the program that was playing.

"Great. Don't make me feel bad about leaving you alone".

"That's what's making you feel bad?" I questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" he asked me confused. I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"Where's Anna, Chris?" I said, folding my arms before my chest. He shook his head.

"Out with her friends. But that's none of your business," he replied and turned around. "I'm leaving".

I waited a few moments after I heard the door close behind him and then I shut off the TV. My head fell back and I laughed to myself.

"Everyone left. I'm alone. Come over," I told Hunter through our bond.

"I'll be there in ten," he replied and I stood up.

Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and I opened up, welcoming Hunter. This was the first time he came over at my place so I let him wander around, examining the place.

"It's pretty big... and kinda cold, metaphorically," he said with a frown. I nodded agreeing.

Most of our furniture was dark-colored with little decorations around. We had a few paintings on the walls, most looking as if they belonged in a museum. We didn't have much of our own pictures hung, not as they did at his place. The living room was connected to the kitchen with a big dining table to separate them. At the end of the living room was a grand piano, which belonged to my family for the past twenty years.

After Hunter had gawked at the piano for a few minutes I took him to my room. My room was the first one in a hallway of five rooms. The other ones were my parents, Chris', a guestroom and my father's office, which was right opposite of mine.

My room was roughly the size of Hunter's, perhaps a little bit bigger. I had a double bed, making him raise his eyebrow at it. On the wall opposite my bed was my desk, on which my acoustic guitar lied. My room was also in the shades of dark and light gray, with a few streaks of green in some furniture.

"Let me guess, green is your favorite color," he said, running his fingertips over my emerald bed sheets.

"It used to be. Now my favorite is blue," I replied catching his gaze. His blue eyes rolled at the comment and he sat down on my bed.

"If I had known you had a double bed, I would have insisted on coming here more often..." he muttered and fell back on the soft mattress. I couldn't help but grin.

"Well, now that you know..." I said and sat down next to him. Our lips met and I ended up halfway on top of him.

As the kiss got deeper I pulled off my T-shirt and helped him remove his jacket and shirt. I sat up on his lap and kissed my way over his naked chest. He was heaving and from where I was sitting I could feel how I affected him. There was a roaring coming from upstairs and I pulled my head up. We listened in on the countdown and when the cheering got louder and brought my lips to his.

"Happy New Year, Hunt," I told him and watched as his eye twinkled.

"Happy New Year," he whispered back.

He climbed higher on the bed and I fumbled with the zipper on his jeans. A bit later, when he was close to reaching his climax, we both froze at the sound of the front door closing violently.

"Who...?" he mouthed but I didn't get the chance to speak.

"Oh, Chris!" a loud moan echoed from the hallway and I almost gagged. Quickly, we both got dressed and stood up from the bed. Before we could react there was a loud thud from the other side of my door. Our breaths came to a halt as we hoped that Chris wasn't drunk enough to open my door by mistake.

"No, this is my brother's room. He'll kill me if I have sex in his room again," I heard Chris say with a hoarse voice. Hunter turned to me with eyes like saucers.

"Again?!" I mouthed inaudibly. There was another thud and then we heard Chris' door snap closed.

"Let's get out of here," Hunter whispered to me. "We'll do this another time," he added and pulled me out. With fast and quiet steps we got out of my house and into Hunter's car.

"Where to?" I asked him with a twisted smile. I seriously had to do a deep cleaning of my room, maybe get a priest there too. But right now all my attention was back to Hunter.

"Hm... Calla is throwing this New Year's party with her softball team, but I'm pretty sure Beth's there so I doubt you want to go there. Noah is spending today with his folks. My father and Laura are spending it together, Aurora is asleep... we could... oh," he said thinking of something and pushing his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose. "We can go to a friend of mine who is throwing a party a couple out of Los Angeles".

"Los... won't the trip take like hours?" I asked back with a frown.

"You really think the party won't last until sunrise?" he asked back and checked his phone for the time. "From what she told me, it's getting starting just now".

"Okay... What friend?" I asked. "What kind of party?"

"That woman from my paintings, Youngae. It's a thing she's doing with her model agency".

"You want to go to a party filled with models?" I asked with one raised eyebrow.

"Their parties are rad. And there are also male models there. Not that my attention will be to someone who's not you," he replied and came to press a kiss against my lips.

"Fine, let's go," I said with a shrug and a half-smile.

According to Hunter, the party was at an old warehouse, which Youngae's agency had bought and renewed. Now they used it for a lot of their photo shootings. They had even built in a swimming pool. But since it was winter the party took place in the main area. As soon as we got in, loud music and flashes of lights blinded us. A lot of people were dancing along with the music and Hunter looked around the crowd. Suddenly, a group of four women came up to us.

"Hello boys," one of them mused, looking at us, but dancing along with the music anyways.

"Are you lost?" another asked, not in the slightest way disturbed at the thought that we might be.

"We're looking for Youngae. I'm a friend of hers," Hunter told them.

"Oh, Youngae didn't tell us she had friends like you..." one said with a giggle, twisting a lock of her hairs with her fingers.

"Sorry, ladies. We don't play that way," I told them with a smile and draped a hand over Hunter's shoulder.

They actually seemed more interested now. Ew. The first girl who had spoken finally nodded towards the buffet.

"I saw Youngae stuffing her face like a couple of minutes ago. Then she did a shot of Tequila and I haven't seen her since".

"Maybe she's finally hooking up with that model who is constantly all over her," another one called out. They all laughed.

"Okay, we'll see if we can find her. Thanks," Hunter told them and tugged me along. "She's definitely not hooking up with a guy," he told me with a smile.

"Why?" I asked.

"She's a lesbian, but no one here knows," he told me through our bond, so I could hear him clearly. "It would ruin her career".

"Really?!"

"Why does that surprise you? Her job consists of hanging out with other beautiful women. You really think she wouldn't be labeled a predator if word got out?"

"I guess I never thought about it..." I finally said and lowered my gaze. "It makes my problems seem stupid". He immediately shook his head.

"Nah, your problems don't change their severity just because others also have problems. If people found out about you; if your parents did, you said it yourself, they could send you to a conversion camp. That's not stupid. Hell, even if they don't do that... people are affected by things differently. Something that seems easy for you might be the death of someone else," he said out loud, cupping my face.

"Fuck, I love it when you talk all logic to me," I replied with a grin and gave him a hard kiss.

"Hunter!" a loud scream came to our left and we both jumped. A woman walked up to us, wearing a short red dress. I had seen so many paintings of hers from Hunter that I knew this was Youngae. Hunter pulled away from me and gave her a hug. "I thought you said you couldn't show up?!" she exclaimed.

"We had plans, but they got... interrupted," he replied and gave me a glance.

"Who are you?" Youngae asked, eating me up with her eyes.

"Youngae, this is Alex. My soulmate".

"Oh, the rebel with the Leviticus 18:22 parents?" she asked and I turned to Hunter with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, him," he said, giving me a guilty gaze.

"Well, nice to meet you, honey. Neither of you say you're under eighteen or I'm dead. Have fun," she quickly said before being dragged off by another girl to the dance floor.

"Grab a drink and dance?" Hunter asked me and I nodded.

"I didn't even get the chance to say a word to her..." I muttered to myself, aware that Hunter wouldn't be able to hear me even if he wanted to.

After we both finished the drinks, I pulled Hunter towards the mass of people who were dancing. Our bodies collided and we starting moving to the rhythm of the music. Our lips met and suddenly we couldn't get close enough. One of my hands was tangled in his hair, pressing our lips against each other to the point of pain. My other hand was by his waist slipping underneath his shirt, and feeling his cool skin. His teeth gnawed my lower lip, letting me moan for a moment.

Surprisingly, we were still dancing, but if we kept this up I wasn't aware of how long we would keep on just dancing. I whipped my head for a moment and my eyes wandered to two guys who were standing a couple of feet behind Hunter. They were both looking at us and talking, making me frown.

"What is it?" Hunter yelled at me and turned around. As soon as he saw them his body went rigid.

"Do you know them?" I asked him through our bond since he wouldn't have been able to hear me otherwise.

"I hooked up once with the guy on the right. Come on, let's go," he replied, something in his voice, though, rubbed me the wrong way.

"What happened?" I wondered, following Hunter as he walked out of the crowd and to the second floor of the building.

"We were making out. And he tried to do more, even though I didn't want to". Now I was the one who went rigid. We were halfway up the stair when I stopped walking, making Hunter stop and turn to look at me.

"Did he...? Did he rape you?" I said, not wanting to hear the answer, yet at the same time needing to hear it. He shook his head and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

"No, but after I told him no and he didn't stop, I punched him and ran. He didn't rape me, but..."

"He would have," I finished for him. He lowered his gaze and pressed his back against the wall, taking a few deep breaths. I was so pissed I began to shake. "Do you want to leave?"

"No, I just hadn't seen him for so long... I don't know, I freaked".

"When did that happen?" I asked, taking a step closer to him. I didn't want to pressure him into telling me, but I felt as if talking would help both of us at this point.

"The summer after my mother died," he replied.

"When you were fifteen?" He nodded and took another deep breath.

"He was barely seventeen then". I shook my head not sure what to say.

"Why did you never tell anyone? Why didn't you report it?" I asked him. He just raised one eyebrow.

"In what country are you living? He was a senior with a football scholarship. It wouldn't have mattered if I reported it..."

"You still should have".

"You sound like my Dad..." Hunter muttered with a bitter laugh.

"Wait, Aaron knows about this? And he didn't make you report it?"

"He tried. But after we talked through it -" he shrugged- "I don't know, I chose not to".

"Yeah, but not reporting him taught him nothing. You realize he could do the same thing with another guy or girl. And they might not be as lucky as you were," I told him, sounding more pissed than I felt.

"Yes, I get that Alex. You know what I also get? That if I came out and told the world a golden star football player tried to rape me it would be his word against mine. And every fucking homophobe would get on my throat about this".

"This night's a mess," I muttered and leaned back next to him. He just laughed.

"So, will this year also be a mess?" he wondered.

"Well, I'll probably come out to my parents this year, so yeah..." I answered. He turned to look at me surprised.

"Are you serious?"

"After graduation, I'm moving out and then after November I'll be a legal adult and they won't have a say in my life. Besides, the less I spend hiding you the more time we will spend together," I told him with a warm smile. He leaned in to kiss me and I smiled. "Are you feeling better?"

"With you, always".