by C. Morgan
“I don’t need a drink.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stopped walking too, turning to face me in the middle of the sidewalk.
It was the first time I was seeing her head-on, and there was something strangely familiar about her. Unfortunately for me, my vision was still swimming too much to see her completely clearly.
“All I need is to get back to my dorm room,” she said, her gaze darting to the sorority house we were in front of. “Is this your house?”
“Nope. Unless I grew a vagina tonight and didn’t know it, I don’t have the equipment required to get into this one.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least I’m sure one or more of its inhabitants will take you up on your offer. Why don’t you go ask someone in there to help you the rest of the way home?”
As her gaze moved back to the sorority house, I could’ve sworn I saw moisture in her eyes. Are those tears? Is she crying?
My mouth had been drying up for the duration of our walk, but it suddenly felt like the goddamn desert in there. “Are you upset with me or something? You don’t have to come back to my room with me if you don’t want to—”
“Obviously,” she interjected, but I put a finger in front of her mouth to show she’d keep quiet when I arched a brow at her.
“What I’m saying is that you don’t have to come back to my room. I won’t force you. Trust me, I’ve got more than enough willing takers and even if I didn’t, well, that’s not really what we’re talking about right now.” I blew out a breath and wished my fucking head would stop spinning. “My point is that you don’t have to cry about it. It was just an offer.”
Her head jerked back, her mouth forming a hard line as she brought her gaze back to mine to stare at me without flinching. “I’m not crying, but if I was, it wouldn’t have been about that.”
Contrary to her words, more tears gathered in her eyes while she spoke. Her voice was surprisingly even, but it was very clear that she was upset.
“I know I’m not the most memorable person in the world, Dax,” she said, calling me by my nickname like she knew me. “But I figured that you’d remember me because we were friends or, at the very least, that you’d know who I was after what I did.”
Gaze sweeping over every inch of her heart-shaped face—twice since I was still seeing double—I tried to figure out why she seemed so familiar. I came up totally empty. “Who are you and what did you do?”
“I’m Hadley Sage,” she said, glittering, teary eyes locked on mine. “Last time I saw you, you came to me because you thought I was your friend. Kids were picking on you because of what happened, and instead of having your back, I told you that I wanted nothing to do with you. I really thought you’d at least have remembered that part.”
Hadley fucking Sage. Just hearing her name felt like getting hit by a train.
There were so many things I wanted to say to that bitch, but before I could say any of them, she spun around and left me there in the street. I couldn’t believe I’d just spent the last few minutes hitting on her instead of giving her a piece of my mind, but I really hadn’t recognized her.
She’d changed a lot over the last four years, but I still liked to think that I’d have known who she was immediately if I hadn’t been sloshed out of my mind. That girl… That fucking girl…
As I watched her short ass marching itself away from me, I chuckled softly and took in her ratty blue jeans and the same olive-green jacket she’d gotten in the eighth grade if I wasn’t mistaken. How the fuck had she even gotten in here? Her folks were dirt poor and they had no connections.
Hadley used to study and work hard, but she must’ve really dug in her heels to have gotten in here on the kind of scholarship she’d have needed to get. Whatever had brought her here, however, I could only thank the universe for putting her back in my path.
She’d done me wrong, and my father had always taught me that if I wanted to be successful in this world, I had to remind people where they belonged—in relevance to my own position, of course. I was going to make sure that Haddie knew her place, and I was going to do my damnedest to scorn her the way that she’d scorned me.
Once that was done, I’d show her that she didn’t belong here. She’d remain at Edgewater for now because having her here suited me. But as soon as that stopped being the case, I was going to have her kicked out just as brutally as she’d yanked my world out from underneath me back in the day.
There would be no mercy for her. Not after she’d humiliated me in front of the entire student body at the lowest point in my life. Hadley Sage was going to suffer just like I had, and I was going to be the one who made sure it happened.
Chapter 6
HADLEY
My first lecture for the semester was Business 101. For the time being, I was dabbling in a bit of everything to figure out what I really wanted to do. A broad background education in business would be useful in whatever field I ended up picking, so a few of my core modules were based in business.
Edgewater didn’t require us to declare our majors in our freshman year. We worked on a similar model to Harvard’s, where we could register our focus area of study—our major, even though we didn’t call it that here—into our sophomore years.
All my life, I’d been working toward certain goals. It felt strange not to know for sure which program I was going to choose, but there were a lot of things to take into consideration before I made my final decision.
For now, I was trying to keep my mind and my options open. After seeing Dax last week, I hadn’t gone on any more late-night adventures. I didn’t need another run-in with him before classes had even started.
Our campus wasn’t that big, meaning that the odds of seeing him around were huge. It’d stung more than I wanted to admit when I’d realized he didn’t have a clue who I was. The tears had crept up on me, and I’d been mortified when he’d noticed them.
While I still didn’t know where we stood, I was hoping that he was willing to let bygones be bygones. I wasn’t proud of having turned my back on him. Especially not when I knew he’d already been having such a hard time.
Daxton had gone from being Mr. Popular, the rich kid with the world at his feet, to being the son of an accused criminal in no time at all. His friends and followers scattered, his family had their assets frozen, and his reputation had gone down the drain.
The day that I’d denounced him as well had been far from my finest hour, but at the time, it had seemed paramount to protect my own reputation. I’d been on the student council and I figured that if I wanted to stay there, I had to follow the masses.
The length of my service on the student council had looked great on my college applications and might even have been the deciding factor that’d gotten me accepted here, but I’d always wondered if the risk of not being elected to it again had been worth shunning my friend.
In my head, I’d always justified it by reminding myself that I hadn’t been his best friend. Sadly, he’d been mine but I’d always doubted he’d have thought about me the same way I had about him. Objectively speaking, we’d been close but not super close. Friendly but not to the point of making friendship bracelets or talking every day.
A girl like me shouldn’t even have been in his orbit. My family was poor where his was uber rich. I wasn’t unpopular, but I didn’t quite fit into any of the cliques either. Daxton, on the other hand, had been the leader of the pack until the pack had turned on him. Where he’d always been athletic and had been one of the stars of the football team, I’d never met a ball I could catch or a game I was even halfway decent at.
We were complete opposites, and if I hadn’t been assigned as his English tutor, he never would’ve known I existed. When he’d approached me that day in the gym while his world had been burning down around him, I’d been setting up for an event with the rest of the student council.
I’d been fifteen years old at the time and all eyes had been on me. Much to my regret as I’d grown older, I hadn’t though
t twice about telling him off—in front of everybody.
By the time I’d realized it had been a mistake, it had been too late. Dax had left and I’d had no way of getting in touch with him to apologize.
It was something I still felt bad about, since it really hadn’t been like me and still wasn’t, but I just hoped that he’d let it go in the meantime. From all the time we’d spent together, I knew he had a nasty streak.
Popular people, the kings and queens of any school, didn’t often remain that way because of their benevolent, compassionate natures, and Dax was no exception. If he wanted to take revenge on me for embarrassing him way back when, I was going to be in a world of trouble.
Choosing to believe we’d both risen above what’d happened when we’d been kids, I pulled my shoulders back as I entered my first lecture hall. Despite knowing he had a nasty streak, I also knew that he had a warm, huge heart. I was hoping that it would win out over any urges to give me shit about the past.
There was nothing I could do about it either way. I’d have to see how it played out, and while I did, I had to focus on my studies. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by a boy from the word go.
Since I’d always been an eager student, I liked sitting in the front row of any class. I’d arrived early enough that I had my pick of seats, and I zeroed in on one front and center.
Smiling as I sat down, I unpacked my notebook, colored pens, and sticky notes, then started recording the class and date at the top of a fresh sheet of paper. I was so absorbed in preparing for my very first class that I didn’t notice him at first.
“Well, well, well,” Daxton’s voice said from right behind me. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
I shifted in my seat to glance over my shoulder, then closed my eyes when I saw he was sitting down in the chair behind mine. Just that one glance before I turned around again was enough for me to know that my suspicions had been correct. With his skin as tanned as it was, his bright blue eyes really did seem to sparkle.
The other thing I gleaned with only that one glance was the clear malice in those sparkling eyes when it was me he was looking at. There was a dark-haired guy sitting beside him who frowned a little as a look passed between us, but the friend didn’t say anything until I was facing forward again.
“What did the cat drag in?” the other guy asked. There was a twang to his accent that made me want him to be wearing a cowboy hat but, of course, he wasn’t. “Am I missing something?”
“Nah, man,” Dax drawled. “You’re not missing a thing, unless you count the trash the cat seems to have left lying around in here.”
I sighed inwardly. Guess he hasn’t risen above, then.
It wasn’t my first time being snickered about or mocked for being trash, though. The town I’d grown up in had more people in it of Daxton’s financial circumstances than my own. My dad had bought the computer repair store there for a song just before I’d been born. He always said that he’d gotten it for a steal because none of the locals would ever be interested in owning something that involved making repairs for their peers.
With the town being filled with the kind of people that it was, it meant that even the public school there was miles ahead of even some of the private schools in other areas. If it hadn’t been for that, I had no doubt that Dax and I never would’ve gone to the same school.
Trying my best to ignore the jibes, I faced forward and waited for the lecturer to make his appearance. Just because I wasn’t reacting to what Dax and his friend were saying didn’t mean I didn’t hear it, though.
“I thought I smelled something,” the friend said. “Trash, huh? I thought this place had higher standards than that.”
“Yeah, so did I,” Dax replied with that same arrogant haughtiness I’d heard in his voice when he’d spoken to the guard. “I heard they wanted to expand on their philanthropy programs, though. It’s too bad that charity cases always smell like shit.”
Really? That’s the best he can come up with? I was almost disappointed in his lack of originality, even as I ground my teeth together to keep from snapping back at him.
Thankfully, our lecturer came in after that and the boys had to shut up for a few minutes while Dr. Hastings introduced himself and gave a basic introduction to the course. Daxton and his buddy kept messing around, sometimes still about me, but I was doing my best to shut them out.
Paying attention to the lecturer and taking notes made it easier, but I still felt embarrassed and small when I heard Dax whispering loudly about how my shirt was so worn he could practically see through it. He also lamented the cost of living on campus on my behalf, and the tips of my ears started burning when he mentioned that I’d probably be getting all of my food on a meal plan.
Daxton was a lot more intelligent and perceptive than people tended to give him credit for. I hadn’t even put much thought into my food situation, but he was right. I wouldn’t be able to afford eating just anywhere.
My scholarship included a meal plan at the cafeteria which provided me with three meals a day. So far, the food had been pretty good and the cafeteria seemed popular enough as an option, but it stung that he was pointing out the situation with so much derision.
After an hour of gritting my teeth and bearing it, I was more than ready to get out of there. It sucked that he was going to be in the same class as me first thing every Monday morning this semester, but I refused to drop the class just because of him.
When Dr. Hastings dismissed us for the day, I packed up and hurried out as fast as I could. I was about to breathe out a sigh of relief when I hit the corridor outside, but it turned out I hadn’t been fast enough.
Daxton’s snobby drawl and his friend’s twang rang out not far behind me. I just hoped to everything that was holy that I wouldn’t be sharing more than one class with them. Increasing my pace as much as I could in the crowded halls, I shook them loose and cut into the ladies’ room to make sure they couldn’t follow me.
Mother. Fluffing. Fluffer. Out of all of the universities in the whole damn world, why the heck had my first love and the only person in the world I’d ever been mean to have to choose the same one as me?
Chapter 7
DAXTON
“What was your deal with that cute chick in Business 101?” Ryker asked with an amused smile on his lips as we headed out of the building after class. “I didn’t take you as one who favored the pigtail-pulling approach when you want to get with someone. Sure explains why you haven’t been hooking up at the parties, though.”
“I have been,” I said, every muscle in my body tense and wired after sitting that close to her for an entire hour. “I just choose not to fuck with an audience. What’s it to you anyway? Are you into watching or something?”
He laughed and smacked a hand on my back. “Nah, bro. The only person I want to see getting off is my girlfriend. Thank God for video-calling. It was just an observation, but you didn’t answer my actual question.”
My jaw hardened in response, my eyes narrowing on instinct for a fraction of a second. “She’s just someone from my past. No one to concern yourself with. I’m definitely not trying to get with her. I left the pigtail-pulling approach back in elementary school where it belongs. That’s not what that was about.”
“What was it about then?” he asked, cocking his head as his dark gaze scanned my profile from the side. “Why do you look like you’re about to clock me for suggesting you might want to hook up with her? She’s hot in her own way.”
“She’s not as nice as she looks or as what she wants people to think,” I spat, my stomach churning with memories of her tumbling through my brain.
Just as they had been since I’d seen her on my first night here. I hadn’t even seen her since, but she was already fucking with my head. And with my game. That brief encounter with her last week was the reason why Ryker was right.
I was a hot commodity—to quote my friend—a freshman with a room in the best house on campus, and I hadn’t gotten any since
I’d arrived. When I told him I had, it had been a complete lie. I just didn’t want him thinking that I was abstaining because of some chick, but especially not because of Hadley.
We still had our bet about me being in a relationship by the end of the year, and I didn’t want to get his hopes up. Moreover, I fucking hated Hadley Sage. The only reason she was in my head was because I was trying to come up with adequate ways to punish her.
“I didn’t say that it looks like she’s nice,” Ryker said, pulling me out of my thoughts and back to our conversation. “I said that she was hot. She doesn’t have to be nice to be hot. The mean ones fuck like tigers sometimes, but I’m sure you know that.”
I grunted. “I don’t know if she fucks like a tiger and I’m not planning on finding out. That girl is bad news. Trust me.”
A smirk I was learning was Ryker’s trademark appeared on his smug fucking face. “You still haven’t told me that I’m wrong about her being hot. Admit it. You’d tap that ass.”
There was a time when that ass had taken up far too much of my mental real estate. Jesus, I’d spent a year fantasizing about exactly what he’d just said. Fucking her had been my number one dream once upon a time.
As much as I’d have liked to think that I wouldn’t stick my dick in her for a billion dollars, I knew it wasn’t true. I’d still fuck her if the opportunity presented itself. Hell, I’d probably even enjoy it, but I’d still hate her. I’d also try to find a way to use it against her. She deserved every last bit of retribution I chose to dish out.
I shrugged in response to Ryker’s comment. “Unlike you, I’m free to tap any ass I want. There are others I’d much rather have instead, so I’m going to start with those. Hadley is a manipulative bully who doesn’t have a mind of her own. She follows the crowd, even if she knows they’re wrong. I like a bit more backbone than that in my girls.”