A Pack Of His Own (Ch. 02)

Chapter Two

The next week or so, he was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never really did. He figured since Lacey had gotten off with him, she'd fall back into her familiar patterns and distance herself from him as far as possible as quickly as possible. That was what she'd done whenever she'd gotten what she wanted from other boys in the past. Instead, she'd doubled down, and went out of her way to make sure everyone on campus knew they were hooking up on the reg, and exactly how happy she was with her choice.

It felt incredibly strange for Lacey to be showing him off, like she'd won the lottery, but she was also doing everything she could to keep him happy, from waking him up with blowjobs to sneaking in quickies during his lunch break while on shift at the diner. She even made it a point to hang around the diner during her downtime so she could chat with him whenever it was slow, which was more often than Will liked for October, but it gave him and Lacey a chance to get to know one another.

Despite all the first impressions she'd given off, Lacey was trying very hard to be a good girlfriend. She wanted to learn as much about him as she could, but was also completely transparent about who she was, where she'd come from and what she wanted. She was regretful, at least a little bit, about all the guys she'd led on over the past year, but in the end, it had brought her and Will together, so that meant she couldn't be too angry about it.

Once he'd gotten past the veneer of campus sexpot, Lacey had turned out to be a relatively sweet girl. She wanted to be a veterinarian once she graduated, and had a strong love for animals, even though she really hadn't been allowed to have any growing up. One thing she was incredibly excited about that profession was that it gave her freedom to really go anywhere, live anywhere, because wherever Will went, she told him, that was where she wanted to go too.

It all felt incredibly rushed considering how she'd been treating him only a few short weeks ago, but while his paranoia was up that this was too good to be true, Lacey was doing everything she possibly could to ease those fears. Tanner had made some comment that maybe Lacey would be good for something now that she was apparently putting out for anyone, and before Will could even snap back a response, Lacey had beaten him to the punch.

"I only put out for Will, you moron, because he's my boyfriend. Not that your tiny little dick could satisfy anyone anyway," she sassed at him. Tanner had started to get up, like he was going to do something, then Will turned his gaze over and Tanner immediately sat back down again, still fuming with impotent rage, unwilling to take another swing at Will, at least yet. It hadn't surprised him that Lacey had seen Tanner's dick, but it still stung a little bit, knowing he'd probably seen her semi-naked.

All of that quickly passed and was replaced by something else entirely, though. It was the first time she'd referred to him as her boyfriend in public, and it wasn't something they'd talked about, like, at all. But he hadn't corrected her at the time, and he supposed that must've made it official. She enjoyed walking around campus with his arm around her, her body pressed up against his side. The more time he gave her, the more she was slowly peeling away layer after layer to find the things that turned him on and turned him off, even without him explicitly saying so.

She'd also encouraged him to act the wild man with her in bed, to be rough and coarse, not to the point where he would break or damage anything, but she would constantly beg him to slap and spank her ass, to tug on her hair, to make her legs stretch right up to the point where they ached. Not all the time, naturally, because one night Will had asked if they could just cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie, which she'd agreed to. It had turned into a gentle make out session and they'd fucked each other on his couch beneath a blanket like they were back in high school and trying to not get caught by their parents, or whoever was hosting the party. It was tender and affectionate and completely at odds with how they'd normally been fucking, but at the end of it, Lacey had purred and snuggled up against him, falling asleep contently in his arms.

They'd been going out for nearly a month before things started getting weird again, though this time in a totally different way than before.

It was the second week in November, and the snow had started coming down in volumes, meaning that people ventured off campus a lot less during the week, afraid they'd get stuck trying to get to or from somewhere, and remaining closer to the university, where they could get around on foot if worse came to worst. Nobody wanted to be stuck in Denver and unable to get back to classes. It was only 30 miles away, but during the heavy snowstorms, it might as well have been a lifetime's distance.

That meant the demand for the diner was picking up a lot, the place full to the brim with kids all getting meals in between classes, studying over ever refilling pots of coffee and just generally taking shelter from the cold weather and the bitter winds. It also meant that he was getting less time during his work shifts chatting with Lacey, although she was still doing her best to hang around whenever she had a chance.

The fact that attendance to the diner had picked up wasn't all that surprising, because it typically happened during every winter. What made this one marked different was the composition of the people hanging around in the diner.

The past few years, it had consistently been a 3-to-1 ratio of dudes to chicks hanging around the diner, but this year, those numbers were flipped, and it was starting to do Will's head in a little. The manager of the diner had even started ordering supplies differently, based on the last few weeks in October, which was when the trend had started picking up steam.

Now, Will wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the myth of how women would flock to newly unavailable men, but he'd never seen it in such a large scale before. Many of the girls who would come into the diner would try and get seats closest to the counter so they could peek in on Will in the back, or, even more daringly, to try and preen and display themselves for his eyes should he happen to glance out onto the diner itself.

It had gotten so obvious that old Billy, a guy in his early 50s, had specifically asked to work every shift that Will was working, because he said the girls were showing up dressed like they were trying to audition for a strip club. They'd have on these monstrous overcoats when they came in, but as soon as they were settled at a booth or table, they'd peel them off and it would like a rave inside of the diner, with sheer mesh shirts, exposed bras, tiny little tank tops and nipples threatening to gouge through fabric at any moment.

Billy had repeatedly asked Will what his new secret was, and if he minded that he was trying to hit on a girl every now and then. Will had told the guy to go for it, but that if he ever succeeded, he was going to be tagged a dirty old man. Billy had shot back that it was better to be a dirty old man who was getting collegiate pussy than a dirty old man who was pulling his own pud every other night.

During his lunch break, Will would often come out and stand behind the counter while Lacey sat at a stool opposite from him, since they'd gotten caught and politely scolded (in the most hilariously approving way possible) the last time they'd had a quickie in one of the diner's lockable bathrooms. He'd generally eat a sandwich of his own making while Lacey would typically just have a salad and a milkshake. After a couple of nights of this, someone had asked about his sandwich of choice, considering that it seemed like Will was always eating the same thing. Will, in classic snark, had referred to it as his 'Unkosher Reuben' as it was a pastrami with sauerkraut on rye, but also had swiss cheese, bacon and a spicy brown mustard.

As soon as he'd gotten back from that particular lunch break, he'd gotten requests to make the sandwich for patrons. Not just one or two, but several. A few days later, the diner's owner had asked Will to come up with a handful of new items, and put them all on the menu.

'Will's Sandwich.' 'Will's Breakfast.' 'Will's Late Night Snack.'

When Will had jokingly said he felt like he should get a cut of all the new items and the increased business, the owner had agreed that Will was being underpaid, and had raised his salary by $4/hr, which was far more than Will thought was necessary, but he also wasn't about to say no.

That certainly wasn't the only change he had coming down the pipeline.

It was the middle of the month when Lacey asked Will if she could just move in with him, and he found it hard to come up with reasons to say no to her. She'd been spending most nights at his place anyway, and the few times they'd been over to her place, he'd been more aware of what a disaster area it was, something Lacey blamed a lot on her roommate, a girl named Mel, who she'd been friends with at some point, but had lost her connection with long before Will had entered the picture. He'd only met Mel the once, and while she seemed okay, she seemed like she had an entirely different vibe going on than Lacey, more of a hippie dippie flower love and peace attitude. There were several Phish posters on the walls, a black light in one corner and a bong on the coffee table next to a bag of ragweed.

Will spent a good day thinking about Lacey moving in with him, and the changes she'd gone through since they'd first hooked up. Since then he'd found that Lacey had become remarkably patient and understanding, especially considering the speed at which he felt like their relationship was moving forward. Whether he was the cause for the change or not, they got along extremely well. Whoever the self-absorbed, self-centered girl was that she'd been before they hooked up, he'd seen neither hide nor hair of that girl at any point in the six weeks or so they'd been dating.

So the weekend before Thanksgiving, she and Will had taken a day, driven a Uhaul over to her old place, loaded up everything she owned and dragged it all over to Will's house, unloading it and finding places for just about everything, although Will had drawn a line over a couple of posters that Lacey had jokingly said she wanted to have prominent placement. They'd featured hunky men in little to no clothes, walls of muscle flexed and exposed on display. Will had, kidding back at her, told her either the posters went or she did, and she'd been giggling wildly as she tossed them into the dumpster out back of the condo complex, saying her goodbyes to the men featured in the pictures as Will had gone to take the Uhaul back to the lot and pick up his car late into the evening.

Dropping off the truck had been easy - there was a designated parking spot and a drop box for him to slide the keys into since it was after hours. It was when he got back to his car that things took a turn for the strange.

The Uhaul building was sort of on the outskirts of Boulder, surrounded by lots of heavy trees, and as Will got to his car he was fairly certain he could see the outline of a figure standing at the treeline, the light making it only a shadow, a giant coat flapping in the wind off to one side. He was convinced the figure was watching him even as he crawled into his car and closed the door behind him. He tried to get the engine to turn over, the cold air forcing him to take four or five attempts before the engine sputtered to life, and when it finally did, Will glanced up to where the shadow had been and found it gone, an empty space in the void of the night.

Will so wanted to go over and look, just to prove to himself that there were footprints there and that he wasn't imagining the whole thing, but he feared if he turned his car off, it might not start up again, so instead he simply left without validating his fears.

He'd driven carefully on his way home, but couldn't shake the feeling that somehow he was still being watched, still being followed, still under someone's gaze, no matter how many unusual twists and turns he took on his path home, no matter how many times he looked behind him, never once seeing anyone in pursuit.

Some part of him wondered if he'd just been not getting enough sleep lately, between his time in both classes and at work, and now with the added expectations of keeping Lacey sexually sated. The girl was a fucking dynamo. Five or six times a week was the girl's average, and it had started to creep into his sleep time.

When he got back from dropping off the Uhaul, Lacey had wanted to go a few rounds to christen their new living arrangements, but after the first round, Will had begged off, telling her that he truly needed to get some more sleep in, something Lacey had reluctantly relented on. Instead, she'd snuggled up against him, pulling the blankets over them tight and clung her cool body to his for the rest of the night without doing anything to disturb him, letting him get a good nine hours of sleep in before the morning came creeping in. That had been nice, just to not feel so alone in the world.

A few days before Thanksgiving, they'd sort of had their first fight, although the bluster from it had been gone nearly as quickly as it had arrived. Lacey had been trying to convince Will to come with her to her family's house for Thanksgiving dinner, but Will had insisted that he needed to stay on campus because the diner was paying him an extraordinary amount of money for him to work the Thanksgiving Day shift, a tradition as a place for all the kids who couldn't go home for the holiday who spent it there instead. Lacey had then grown cross with him, arguing that she should stay with him so that he wasn't alone for the holiday. Will had laughed, telling her that he was going to be working from mid-day until midnight when the diner closed for the day, and that as soon as he was done, he would come home, crawl into bed and sleep for an eternity

He'd expected the fight to linger longer than it did because only a few minutes later, Lacey was apologizing to him for losing her temper, telling him that she'd just wanted to show him off to her parents and her sisters. She hadn't taken into account his feelings or the sort of weirdness that must creep into his head during any 'family gathering' holiday, especially since he had no family of his own to gather with, what with both of his parents gone, his mother dead and his father, well, who the hell knew who his father even was much less where he was. The last thing she'd wanted to do was to make Will feel worse about it, and she'd started to cry, fearing that she'd hurt him by leaving him alone when she thought he might have needed her most.

Will had sort of laughed about that, told her that he'd long ago acclimated to being alone during the holidays, and that while it had been toughest the first year, now he barely even felt like he was missing much of anything. It wasn't entirely true, as the memory of his mother was always just a blink away, but it didn't hurt like it used to. She should go and spend time with her family for Thanksgiving, and she could show off pictures of them together. If her mother or father asked why he hadn't come with her, she could simply tell them the truth, he said, which was that he was so tight on resources that he needed to work every possible shift that he could, and that he hoped her parents would respect the hustle and the drive to make sure he was always paying his bills on time, and not racking up new ones that he couldn't afford to cover.

The argument was over as quickly as it had started, and despite Lacey offering repeatedly to stay with Will, she'd eventually gone to her folks place for Thanksgiving dinner, sending Will loads of pictures from the night, including some rather racy pictures she'd clearly taken in her bathroom and her old bedroom. He sincerely hoped for Lacey's sake that neither her parents or her sisters had caught her taking any of them.

By contrast, Will had spent almost the entire night of Thanksgiving simply working the grill as the diner had turned out to be packed wall-to-wall, every available seat in the place filled and several dozen orders placed for carry out on top of that. And a bunch of the orders had included names and phone numbers, just in case Will was interested.

Billy, who'd drawn counter duty for the night, had even gotten a few email orders with some rather risque pictures for Will, girls in lingerie inviting him to come over and give them a creampie dessert. Billy had laughed himself silly at all of them, taking time to show Will each time an order like that came in via email, as Will would only roll his eyes and laugh with him, asking Billy if he was going to keep them for later. Billy pleaded the 5^th, but Will could see a note on the email message heading that said 'forwarded' so Will knew that he had.

Lacey had gotten back the next day, and Will had immediately told her all about his crazy night at the diner with girls blind emailing in pictures of their tits or ass, just in some desperate attempt to get his attention, and how old Billy had certainly added more than a fair share of them to his spank bank. Will assured Lacey that he'd given no thought to it other than how crazy it was that since he and Lacey had started dating that suddenly so many women had crawled out of the woodwork to try and get him to notice them. He asked Lacey if maybe she had changed his shampoo or something, laughing about the ludicrousness of the whole thing, writing it off before giving it much thought.

The next day Lacey came home with a surprise for him, a pair of tickets for them to see Rival Sons, a band that Will had very much gotten into over the last few years, who would be playing in Denver in January. He was ecstatic about it, especially since he hadn't even heard the band was going to be on tour, but it turned out word of their new album had just dropped and Lacey had heard about the tickets going on sale on the campus radio station on her way home.

"I feel bad," Will said with a laugh, over a bowl of the chili he'd made for the two of them for dinner. He'd learned that Lacey, despite her Irish heritage, loved spicy good, and so no matter how hot he'd made the chili, she'd always say he could still turn it up a notch. "I didn't get you anything."

"Would you like to?" she said with a mysterious smile. "I know I've tried not to ask you for much, but I've recently thought about something I'd really like to get as a gift from you."

"Name it, and you know if it's within my power, I'll make it happen."

"Oh, it's within your power," she said, licking her lips a little. Will wasn't sure what to make of the look on her face. Was it mischief? Was it amusement? Was it apprehension? "I'm just afraid you're gonna tell me no."

"Why would I tell you no?"

"You're gonna think I'm kidding or that I'm not being genuine when I assure you that I really am and that it's what I really want."

That made Will tilt his head a little in confusion. "If you've been playing the long con, Lacey, setting me up for a couple months now only to pull an epic prank on me, I hate to say it, but at that point, I think I'd have to respect the game so much that I couldn't be mad about it," he laughed. "Why don't you tell me what you want, and I'll tell you if I can make that happen or not."

Lacey grinned, looking down at her bowl of chili for a moment, as if trying to figure out how she wanted to phrase what she said next, before turning her gaze up once more, a wicked twinkle in her eyes. "I want to watch you fuck the shit out of my former BFF."