“Got it.” He brushed his hair off his forehead. “Hey, by the way, remember the Eurovision party I threw last week? The one everyone said was our best theme yet?”
She nodded, staring at her shoes. “Sorry I couldn’t come.”
“Remind me where you were again. I forgot.”
Jess met his eyes. She looked so innocent, so guileless, that the suspicion washed out of Mint’s heart, replaced by guilt.
“I was with Caro. Girls’ night. Just wine and popcorn and Buffy. You know how she’s always going on about spending more time together.”
Mint kissed her forehead. “Totally. The usual. Well, I have to run.” He hopped up and brushed off his jeans. “But I’ll see you Friday, if not before then, yeah? I’ll be the one in the pink bow tie.”
She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “See you there.”
***
“Tiny, wait up!”
Mint pushed through the lunch crowd outside the dining hall, heading for the short, dark-haired girl a few paces ahead.
Caro turned and unwound her scarf from where it was looped around her face. “Minty. What’s up? Why you chasing me?”
He threw his arm around her, the height difference so extreme it was almost comical. “Last Friday, girls’ night, you and Jess. Hit me with your favorite Buffy episode.”
“Easy—‘Hush.’ It’s genius.” Caro elbowed him. “But last Friday Jess was with you at that Euro party, remember? Must have been a good time if you don’t.”
Mint stopped walking, causing Caro to snap back to him. “Are you one hundred percent sure?”
Caro rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I’d have to crack open the history books to figure out the last time we had a girls’ night. Haven’t you noticed Jess and I have barely hung out this semester? And don’t even get me started on Heather. Besides, we finished Buffy freshman year. I wasn’t going to sleep on sexy vampires.” She looked thoughtful. “I actually get why my parents forbid that show, in retrospect—”
The fire inside Mint was back, quick and bright and deadly. Jessica had lied. She’d sat across from him, looked him in the face, and fed him bullshit. Which meant Trevor was right. She really had betrayed him. And if Mint knew anything about tattletale Trevor, soon everyone would know.
“I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about Jess, and what happened over Christmas break.” Caro said the words carefully, as if they were a test. “I assume you know more about her family than I do, but ever since, she’s been really—”
Caro wanted to talk about Jessica’s family right now? “Not now, Caro. Later. I’ve got to go.”
Mint pulled his arm back and rushed away, feeling Caro’s shocked eyes tracking him until he slipped around the corner.
***
He stood in the middle of the Phi Delt foyer, surrounded by brothers, all of them taping red tinsel and Valentine’s hearts to the walls, and knew he was seconds away from screaming. First the market crash—Minter Group stock tanking, investors pulling out, his mother and the board in a panic, and his father—the coward—missing in action. Old friends from high school were emailing him to say they were sorry to hear his family was burning out so spectacularly, and he could bum a room, or some money, if he needed.
And now Jessica, sleeping with her professor, going out to dinner where that slimy, loose-lipped Trevor and who knows who else could see. Essentially a public declaration that Mint was a loser, a chump, not worthy of respect. How dare she. He wanted to put his hands around her neck.
But this was no time to have a meltdown. He had to hold it together, even the score, undo the damage she’d done to him. Tonight, at the Sweetheart party, he’d confront Jessica, make her confess. Maybe he would do it in front of everyone, so they’d see. Maybe he would make her cry, beg him on her knees. He thought of his father begging to be let into their dinner party, standing just on the other side of the window as Mint and his mother and their friends watched and shook their heads. People had met Mint’s eyes after that, letting him be one of them again. No longer the butt of the joke.
He felt a deep satisfaction settle over him as he imagined how he would catch people’s eyes tonight and shake his head sadly, looking down at a crying Jessica. The humiliation hers, not his.
He just had to hold it together until then—pull the shreds of his sanity back into a calm mask. He leaned forward and taped a cutout cupid to the wall—not a simpering, cartoon baby but a gray-haired angel, a joke cupid with jaunty wings.
“Yo, Minty. That cupid looks like the old dude your girlfriend’s banging.”
Mint froze midtape, and the easy chatter in the foyer fell silent. When he turned, he found the brothers wearing hungry, excited expressions. Trevor was planted in the middle of them, trying and failing not to smirk.
Mint’s voice turned deadly cold. “Who said that?”
“Dude, chill.” Charles, wearing a stupid lacrosse hoodie like always, grinned lazily at him. “Or does getting owned by a sixty-year-old make you a little uptight? Bet it sucks knowing your girl likes old dick better than yours.”
Mint dropped the tape dispenser. “Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
All the brothers laughed. They were enjoying this, enjoying the sight of him laid low. They were wolves circling, eager to see the alpha ripped to shreds.
“I’ve gotta say, Garvey might have more game than Mint.” Trevor’s eyes sparkled. “He’s actually got a few girls on rotation.”
“Damn,” said Palmer, a fucking pledge. “Mint’s getting sloppy seconds from a teacher.”
Everyone laughed, a few of them so hard they dropped their decorations. Trevor pounded on the wall.
The fire inside Mint burst open, shooting him forward, but then his phone rang. It was his mom. He eyed it. Normally he wouldn’t pick up while he was with the guys, but lately every time she called it was some new emergency. And it was probably best to get the fuck out of here anyway.
He spun on his heels and flew out the front door, slamming it behind him, cutting off the sound of their laughter.
“Yeah, Mom,” he bit out. “I’m here.”
“Mark.” Instantly he knew something had happened. His mom’s voice was charged. He stopped in his tracks, in the middle of the street outside the frat house.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your father.” She took a deep breath. “We finally found him and told him about the takeover. He took it hard—”
“What takeover?”
“I’m taking control of the Minter Group. Me and Boone.” Boone—not the board member she’d cheated on his father with. There was no way this man would be allowed to take his father’s wife and his company. “The board passed a vote of no confidence in your father and ousted him this morning. It’s for the best. But—”
“When were you going to tell me?” Mint wasn’t proud of the way his voice cracked, but this couldn’t be happening.
His mother’s voice turned cold. “I’m telling you now, Mark. This is the apocalypse. You want a company to run one day? You want to inherit some goddamn money? Then you need me and Boone in charge. We’re the only ones who can fix the royal fuckup your father left us.”
“What happened to Dad? You said he took it hard.”
It was strange, really, how your entire life could change just like that, from one second to the next. And there was no fireworks show, no dramatic tilting of the world on its axis to signify how everything had suddenly flipped upside down, and nothing would ever be the same.
“I won’t sugarcoat it. Your father tried to kill himself last night. He took the coward’s way out.”
Mint was vaguely aware that he’d dropped to his knees in the street. That a car had swerved to avoid him, honking.
“How?” he whispered.
“An old-fashioned throw-yourself-out-the
-window.” Her voice was grim. “Like a goddamn investment banker in the Depression. So dramatic. Don’t worry, he survived. Couldn’t even get that right.”
The world, spinning and spinning.
“You’re being quiet, Mark. Say something.”
He tried to speak but couldn’t get words out past the utter destruction, the firestorm of anger collapsing his chest.
“You can visit your father starting a week from now,” his mother said. “He’s in Mount Sinai. Send my assistant an email if you want to go, and she’ll book you a ticket—”
Mint snapped his phone shut and dropped it on the pavement.
He died right there on his knees, in the street in front of Phi Delt. The tidal wave of rage he’d been holding burned him to ashes, from the inside out. And so the person who staggered to his feet, who strode through the front door of the frat house, who grabbed Trevor Daly by the collar and lifted him nearly off the floor, who hit him, over and over, feeling the skin split under his knuckles, the bone snap, who ignored the hands pulling at his shirt, the raised voices, the shrill scream of the freshman pledge—that person was someone else, someone new, a creature born from fire.
Chapter 39
Now
The strike was swift and sure, straight to Caro’s heart. I watched her accept the truth of what I’d said in slow motion, time stretching out unbearably, though in reality it must have been seconds: First the shock, her eyes widening, giving way to understanding, an intake of breath. And then the betrayal, the anger, her face hardening. I stood there and watched it unfold, the small tick of time that undid nearly two decades of friendship.
“You and Coop?” Mint’s jaw dropped, crimson flooding his face.
Caro turned to Coop. “Is it true? In college, you and Jess?”
Coop nodded, jaw tight.
The room was so quiet you could hear the music of the parade, the steady beat of drums, right below us.
Courtney broke the silence with a bubble of laughter. “You have got to be kidding me. You were dating Mint and cheating with Coop? And you never told Caro, your best friend? I knew that East House Seven loyal-friends-forever thing was a crock of shit.”
Tears welled in Caro’s eyes, which were still locked on Coop. “You never told me because it wasn’t over, was it? It wasn’t something in the past. Otherwise you wouldn’t have cared if I knew.”
Caro, too perceptive, too late.
But I knew Coop would deny it. I wanted the floor to swallow me before he did, so I’d never have to hear him say I was in the past, only a college crush, and she was his future.
“Caro, please,” Coop said, but then Frankie moved, lunging forward to throw his arm over Mint’s chest, seeing something in him the rest of us hadn’t been paying attention to.
Mint yanked away from Frankie and took two giant steps toward me. I moved back out of instinct, the chill breeze on my back telling me I was getting too close to the shattered window.
“It wasn’t enough, was it?” His face had lost any pretense of control. It was past red, now purple with fury. I’d never seen anything like it, not on Mint, not even on my father in his lowest lows.
“It wasn’t enough to fuck the professor, go to dinner with him out in public? You had to screw one of my best friends, too?”
“Mint,” Frankie said, giving me an unsure look.
“You were a whore”—Mint laughed—“the entire time. Do you know how bad you humiliated me with Garvey? Do you even get what I went through? And that was just the tip of the iceberg, wasn’t it? How long were you fucking Coop? And who else? Who else was laughing at me behind my back?”
“Don’t call her a whore,” Caro said, her best friend auto-programming kicking in despite herself.
Mint was standing close. The short distance between us wasn’t inert but alive, threatening, a warning. A warning, a warning. A clue.
“How did you know I went to dinner with Garvey?” My voice was taut with dread. “Are you saying you knew about him in college?”
Mint took another step toward me, shoving a couch aside, his blue eyes no longer cold but blazing with anger. My pounding heart screamed, Move, get away from him. But it was Mint.
“Of course I knew. That’s how it works when your fucking wife cheats on you—everyone finds out.”
“Wife? You mean your girlfriend, Mint,” Frankie said. “And calm down.”
“Yeah, Mint, take a step back,” Coop said. “You have the right to be mad at us, but you’re pushing it.”
“No.” Mint only had eyes for me, and I couldn’t look away, trapped between the cold, open sky at my back and the man who wanted to burn me, the man who was inching closer. “You were going to ruin my life, and you didn’t care. You want to know what happened? Garvey’s TA told me you fucked him, but he didn’t just tell me—he spread it to everyone. All the brothers were laughing at me. Just like people did to my father. You made me weak.”
“Mint,” Courtney said, horror dawning on her face, “I don’t get what you’re talking about. You’re not making any sense.”
His father. Mint’s confession from freshman year came back to me, the first time he’d ever opened up:
Tell me something shameful.
He was so weak. He didn’t even fight it. He let her walk all over him.
I hate him. Everyone at home talked behind my back… It’s all his fault…
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like your father,” I said, taking another step back, feeling glass crunch under my feet.
“Mint, back down,” Coop said, trying to step between us.
Mint made a choking sound and lunged, not at me but at Coop, shoving him hard. Coop tripped over a chair leg and struck the wall headfirst. Caro screamed.
Frankie darted forward to tackle Mint, but Mint thrust out his hand in warning. “Don’t you dare touch me, Frankie.”
Frankie—every towering inch of him—went rigid as a board, years of following Mint’s lead instinctively taking over.
“Mint,” I said, trying to stay calm, “I’m sorry for betraying you, and everything that happened to your dad. But I don’t think—”
He spun to me. “My father didn’t fight back. He was a coward. But not me.”
“You’re right.” I watched over Mint’s shoulder as Caro struggled to pull Coop to his feet. “You’re not him.”
“You’re doing it again,” Mint spat out, seething. “Emasculating me. Just like senior year. You know I shattered Trevor’s face in front of everyone because he disrespected me? Garvey’s fucking TA. He couldn’t talk for months.”
Trevor Daly had worked for Dr. Garvey? And Mint hurt him? I’d never heard a whisper of it. It must have been hushed up, muted in the aftermath of Heather’s death.
“But you were so much worse than him,” Mint said. “I wanted to break your fucking neck.”
“But you didn’t, did you?” Eric stepped from the back of the room, where he’d been silent and unmoving, watching everything unfold with glittering eyes. He strode to Mint and shoved him by the shoulders, causing Mint to stagger back. “You did it to Heather instead, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
Mint glared at Eric, his face flaming as he struggled to hold something back. He looked at Coop, then at me, and suddenly the dam broke—the last thing keeping him tethered. As I watched him unravel into another person—a creature of rage, of fire—the surprise I’d felt earlier transformed into something wholly different.
My body knew it first—my limbs went rigid, heart freezing in my chest. Inch by inch, the knowing filtered into my brain.
You recognize this person, a voice whispered.
Danger, it hissed. Wake up.
“I thought she was you!” Mint screamed, pointing at me, eyes blazing. “I thought I was hurting you!”
Chapter 40
February, senior year
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Mint
It was better now, with his split knuckles sending a constant thrum of pain through his right hand. With none of the brothers who’d been in the foyer able to look at him, all of them cowering in fear, taking the long route to the keg, sticking to the corners of the Phi Delt basement as everyone pregamed for Sweetheart. Much better with the way Courtney Kennedy was eyeing him, as if she’d like nothing better than to depose Jessica, take her place by his side.
What he’d done to Trevor proved Mint wasn’t a coward, wasn’t his father, as much as it choked him to even think of his father—his stupid childhood hero, now a broken shell in a hospital bed, too weak for the world. But Mint wasn’t weak. Mint was back on top, he was king, he was alpha.
No one had mentioned anything about his father or his family’s company all day, so either the Phi Delts didn’t read the news or his mother’s PR team was doing a good job of keeping the disaster out of the press. Of course, it was in everyone’s best interest that what his father had done—his mother’s voice drifted back, hard and cold, the coward’s way out—should never see the light of day. Mint himself vowed to never breathe a word of it.
Ever since he’d given it an outlet, the fire inside him was under control. No longer a raging storm but a simmer in the center of him, hungry and waiting, biding its time.
Sweetheart was going to be Mint’s crowning glory. Thanks to money his parents had thrown into the party fund—a check cashed before the market crashed, thank Christ—this year’s Sweetheart was bigger and better than ever. The best band booked, Party Pics ready to snap their pictures like a crowd of paparazzi, pledges dressed in humiliating cupid costumes, handles of whiskey for every couple. All of it evidence of Mint’s generosity, his power as Phi Delt president.
Even better: Jessica would be here soon, all dolled up. She’d be expecting romance—it was Valentine’s Day, after all. She’d be soft and pliant, and at the perfect moment, when they were in the very center of the crowd, he’d hit her with it: he knew. He’d make her beg to be taken back, make her cry in front of the whole party, and then he’d turn his back and tell her it was over, that she disgusted him. It would be the perfect drama, something to show everyone Mint was strong and unyielding, no chump. No, he was a prize lost at great cost. No one would be able to laugh at him again.
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