"The people I sleep with I've been living with for six years. This is the longest relationship I've had with anyone," Alec said gently. He started to thread his fingers through her hair, gently untangling the strands. "What they're not telling you is how awkward randomly sleeping with people is at this school - especially when you're stuck seeing them for eight years. You don't get space from the random drunken hook ups you do. It's like living with a guy you broke up with three years ago. You're stuck going to the same classes with the people you've seen naked. And if sex is awkward...that makes it a hundred times more awkward. I didn't go around fucking everything that moved when I was eighteen, Lenore. I barely talked to anyone when I was eighteen. I punched people a lot too. I get it."
Alec frowned. He didn't necessarily mind how Lenore was describing promiscuity, but what if that was all there was? What if that was all he had? He hated the thought of a relationship, but he hated it so much because he kind of wanted one. A person that was there for him, no matter what, night after night - he kind of wanted that. He just didn't want what he knew would follow it. He would scare that person off eventually. They would finally find out what kind of person he really was, and they wouldn't want him anymore. He didn't care if people didn't want him right now, but if he committed himself to someone... how fucking dare they not want him. But what if that was all there was? These random one night stands with people that - sure they were his friends, but they weren't anything more than that. They merely mutually benefited from this. Mutual orgasms, and then they could part ways. What if he never got more than this? What if he was stuck with himself forever, every night. What if no one wanted him?
Fuck. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?
Alec hadn't realized that he'd fallen silent entirely until Lenore spoke again. "I do sometimes too," he said quietly. "But I've never seen anything better than it. Where else do we have to go but here?"