Even though we’d drifted apart and barely talked, we didn’t hate each other. We just weren’t friends anymore. And when the dance and cheerleading teams were forced to merge and form the pep squad, we were cordial. But when my housing assignment got messed up due to a financial aid error, I didn’t have many options. I was going to have to either get a job to rent an off-campus apartment or stay in my car until I could get housing straightened out. But my coach convinced me to take the available bed at the squad house until I could get permanent housing. I initially said no, but later agreed when Carter convinced me to take the available bed in her room.
Staring at the ceiling, my eyes filled with tears and my mind raced.
I was hurt. I was confused. I was emotional. My mind, body, and soul were exhausted.
I turned the water on with my toes to create more bubbles and used my arms to ensure maximum breast coverage. I heard him put the toilet seat down before sitting. With my head reclined against the shower wall, I was in perfect position to see him and with the shower curtain drawn, he could see my face but couldn’t see my body.
Leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands laced in front of him, Jay stared straight ahead. I could tell he was trying to restrain himself and reel in his anger.
“What happened?” he asked, his deep voice low. “It’s five o’clock in the morning and you’re banging on my door looking like someone... You have bruises all over you. You’re dirty. You’re bleeding—your legs, your feet. You collapsed in the middle of my living room.” He took a long pause. “You have to tell me what happened.”
Struggling to articulate how my night went from bad to worse, I opened my mouth and then closed it a few times. I stared at him helplessly for a second before my eyes filled with tears again. I blinked slowly and turned my head away. My thoughts were rushing around because nothing made sense. I’d been thinking about it for hours and I couldn’t piece together what happened or why.
“Who did this to you?” he barked, startling me.
I gasped, shifting in the water. My eyes darted to his and while his body language teemed with anger, his dark brown eyes were brimming with sadness.
I shook my head. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Then tell me what happened. Complete honesty. No bullshit.” He paused, fidgeting uncomfortably. “Now, Brook!”
“Okay, I—I don’t know…it’s just that I don’t even understand it.” I turned the water on again with my toe. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
My face was so damp from the bath that I didn’t realize tears were streaming down my cheeks until I noticed Jay’s expression changed.
Wiping my face, I turned my head. “Give me ten minutes to wash the dirt off me and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll start at the beginning. I just want to wash this night off me.”
“You weren’t…sexually—”
“No, no.” I shook my head as I made eye contact with him. “I swear, it’s nothing like that.”
His body deflated as my words hit his ears. He exhaled audibly and his shoulders slumped. “Thank God.”
“I know I’m worrying you and I promise I’ll tell you everything. Just give me ten minutes. I promise.”
He stared at me with narrowed eyes. “You have ten minutes.”
I knew he would seriously be back in ten minutes by the way he stormed out of the bathroom. But I just needed some time to get my thoughts to slow down.
Pushing a different button with my toe, making the water pour into the tub louder and faster, I allowed myself to give in to the tears that had been threatening to come for hours. My whole body shook as I silently sobbed. I was in pain from head-to-toe, but nothing compared to the emotional pain I felt.
As I replayed the events of the night in my head, the only thing that made sense broke my heart into a million pieces.
Carter was in on it.
…
Chapter Two
I had two big pillows behind me as I stretched my legs out in Jay’s bed. Wearing one of Jay’s t-shirts and a pair of his boxers, I not only smelled like him, I was dressed like him, too. I eyed my legs, covered in bandages and my ankles wrapped in gauze. I touched the mass on my thigh gingerly. The normal dark copper coloring of my skin was discolored—red and swollen in some places, dark and bruised in others.
Looks like I’m wearing pants for the rest of the semester.
I heard his footsteps walking down the hall and I inhaled deeply. Holding it in, I locked away any of the remaining emotions that didn’t come out during my cry in the tub. I exhaled as he walked in.
Handing me a bottle of water, he sat on the side of the bed. “Talk to me, Brook.”
“Where to even start?” I was speaking more to myself than to him.
His eyes narrowed as if he questioned if I was going to tell him at all. “The beginning,” he snapped dryly.
I tried to let out a little laugh, but I winced instead.
My ribs hurt. The pain medicine hadn’t quite kicked in yet. I was so concerned with how bad my legs looked and how bad my feet hurt; I didn’t even remember my ribs were giving me issues. I sighed.
“You’re going to be fine,” Jay promised, reaching out for my hand.
I squeezed his hand back before letting it drop. “Even though Carter’s different, living with her this last month has been nice. We weren’t friends again, but at least we were friendly.” I paused. “But living in that house has been a challenge.”
He nodded sympathetically.
“Things in the house started off rocky. I thought it got a little better though because they stopped giving me the cold shoulder. For the first time, when an impromptu pep squad meeting was called last week, I was actually included on the group text. Usually Dakota and her minions would conveniently forget to text me and Kim. Once Carter saw we weren’t there, she’d text us. But we were already late and missed half of the—”
Jay stifled a yawn as he interrupted, “What does this have to do with the bruises? I already know that Dakota is the head cheerleader from hell. I don’t give a damn about her. I need to know what happened to you.”
“It goes with the story, I promise.”
Stretching out across the foot of his bed, Jay got comfortable as he nodded for me to continue.
“At the meeting, Dakota talked about unity and bringing the team together. She said she wanted the new girls to fit in and for us all to be one,” I mimicked the bleached blonde’s high-pitched voice. I closed my eyes and shook my head. “She laid it on thick, too. And from that point forward, everyone was friendly to me and Kim. It felt fake from most of them, but it was better than how we were being treated prior to.” I gave a slight shrug. “So, at the next meeting, a couple of days ago, we all went, and everything was cool. Dakota said that Pi Rho Omicron pranked our house so as a bonding activity, we were going to prank them back. We were all given a job. My job was to distract one of the guys. Kim was doing the same thing.”
He gave me a look. “Distract them how?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know good and damn well I don’t have sex with men I don’t have real feelings for—especially not in some frat house. What do you take me for?”
He held up his hands. “I didn’t say sex. You did.”
“Do you want to hear my story or not?”
He gave me a smile. “Yes. Please. Continue.”
“So anyway,” I started again, playfully glaring at him. “We were supposed to just make sure they stayed on the first floor by playing a game, telling a story, anything.”
“What did you end up doing?”
“Talked. Had a conversation.” I curled my lip and had I not been in pain, I would’ve thrown a pillow at him. “But I know what you’re insinuating.”
“I’m not insinuating anything.” A smile played on his lips and I knew what he was thinking. Before I could continue my story, he added under his breath. “But you do have a thing for the PROs.”
“Oh my God�
� I went on one date with that Matt guy over a year ago!” Despite my indignant tone, I felt my lips curling into a small smile.
“Matt last year. Aiden Black this year…”
I rolled my eyes, but my lips tugged upward even more definitively. Just hearing Jay say Aiden’s name made my skin flush.
“PROs are assholes and you’re way too good for them.” Jay held my gaze for a long, contemplative moment. “But it’s good to see a smile on your face.”
Jay didn’t have a problem with all the fraternities on campus, but he hated the PROs. From the beginning of our college career, he’d said they embodied everything that was wrong with our society—spoiled, entitled rich kids who were never held accountable for their actions.
And he wasn’t wrong.
The fraternity had about thirty-two members and each of their parents were worth millions of dollars. Some of them entered campus as condescending and pompous jerks, but some of them only became that way once they joined with their PRO brothers. And together, it was as if they were untouchable because the administration allowed them to get away with expellable offenses since PRO parents accounted for eighty-seven percent of university donations.
But while most of the PROs lived up to the reputation, not all of them were bad guys. Matt was one of the nice ones. We just didn’t have any chemistry. And Aiden wasn’t a bad guy. Even though his family was wealthy, he didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the PROs. He didn’t seem comfortable with their level of opulence and bullshit.
“And I see the smile getting even bigger,” Jay joked, a smirk on his face.
Ignoring the way his prying eyes seemed to try to read my thoughts, I cleared my throat. “Whatever,” I mumbled dismissively. “Anyway, I knew we were supposed to keep the guys distracted while Dakota looked for the keys to Trevor’s boat. And a few others stood lookout while Vivian retrieved whatever Trevor stole from Dakota during his prank on her. I didn’t really understand the point of why we were doing it, but it was supposed to be a bonding thing.” I took a second and considered how everything went down. “Even though she made it seem like it was house versus house, now that I’m thinking about it, everything we were doing revolved around Trevor.”
“Oh, I didn’t think Trevor was seeing Dakota anymore.”
“Dakota talks about that man and what sweet thing he does for her every single day. For the last couple of weeks, she’s been laying it on thick. Even while we were getting dressed to go to the party tonight, she told everyone how he had planned some romantic weekend for them next week.”
“Oh.” He shrugged as a confused look passed over his features.
My eyebrows furrowed. “What is that look? What do you know about UFIT’s reigning elite couple?” I was sure my sarcastic tone matched the look on my face. I already couldn’t stand Dakota, but after what happened earlier, I hated her.
He groaned and turned on his side, propping his head up with one hand. “Elitist, definitely. But there’s nothing elite about either of them.”
“Thank you!” I lifted my arms as high as I could. “Living with people who kiss Dakota’s ass has had me questioning mankind every day for a month. But what do you know?”
“I don’t know what’s going on with them for real. I just know that Trevor was at the gym screaming that it was over.”
My eyebrows flew up. “What?!”
“I was on the ground stretching so I don’t think they even knew I was there when they came in. They were already talking so I didn’t catch the beginning of the conversation, but”—he shook his head— “he told her that he was going to fuck whoever he wanted to fuck and there wasn’t a damn thing she was going to do about it. He accused her of being interested in someone in his fraternity and then he told her that he was done with her—”
“What?”
My mouth hung open as what Jay said conflicted with Dakota’s version of events. It wasn’t unusual for someone to embellish and make their relationship seem better than it was. But if they were broken up then what she had us go there to do wasn’t a prank—it was revenge.
“—and that he was fucking a better member of the squad anyway.”
“What?!” I screeched, doing my best to sit up straight. My body quickly reminded me of my night, and I slumped back against the pillows. Conversations swirled in my mind and I felt dizzy.
Jay pushed himself up quickly, reaching for my arm. “Hey, hey, careful.” His eyes looked like two dark brown pools of worry. “Are you okay?”
“When did this happen?” I asked quickly, my words tumbling out of my mouth. An unsettled feeling spiked my heartrate and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “When was this?”
“A couple of weeks ago.” Carefully, he moved to the head of the bed, never taking his eyes off me. “What’s going on?”
“I’m just…trying to wrap my mind around…” My sentence trailed off as I brought my hands to my temples and rubbed in a circular motion. “If Trevor broke up with Dakota, what happened wasn’t a prank gone wrong. It was on purpose.” I closed my eyes. “This shit is bad.”
“What happened?” Jay gently moved my head, turning it toward him.
I opened my eyes and exhaled shakily. My mind was already spinning and being that close to him didn’t help. But I couldn’t turn away without exerting energy I didn’t have. “I don’t know what happened.”
He sighed. “Brook…”
“No, I’m serious. I don’t know. We went to the PRO house around ten and we were all supposed to do our part at midnight because the guys would be mostly drunk by then. And then we were supposed to all meet on the front steps at one thirty. I didn’t drink because I was…” My sentence trailed off as I looked into his eyes.
I was nervous about talking to Aiden and I didn’t want to say anything stupid, so I just drank Coke from a red solo cup, I admitted silently.
Jay didn’t need to know that.
“I just didn’t drink,” I finished. “Aiden’s back was to the basement door, so he didn’t see it when Dakota appeared in the doorway holding up some keys before running off. I didn’t think anything of it because she was one of the three people who drove. But maybe five minutes later, there was a loud crash. Aiden and I ignored it and kept talking, but a few minutes later, we heard Dakota screaming. And then we smelled smoke, and everyone was screaming.”
“Smoke? As in the house was on fire?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe? We thought it was someone smoking in the house. But Dakota was screaming about how she hoped it was worth it and that Trevor was going to pay. Then she yelled ‘Now!’ and it sounded like total chaos. I heard other women laughing and then the door slammed. I told Aiden I didn’t like the sound of what was going on. I asked if things ever got violent there and he didn’t give me a direct answer. But he said he was going to check it out because some of the guys got rowdy when they were drinking. Aiden went upstairs, and I stood at the bottom of the stairs listening. Trevor told Dakota to grow up and he could buy new sheets. He said that even though it was dumb that she lit his sheets on fire, it wasn’t as dumb as she was. I could tell things had gone too far so I was just about to go upstairs when I heard her say, ‘and you can thank Brooklyn for this’ as she laughed.”
Jay jerked forward, moving his face in front of mine to catch my eye. “She said it was you?”
I nodded, closing my eyes and recalling the events from hours before. “Then I heard a couple of guys yelling that some of their stuff was missing too. I don’t know what. Then I think someone ran down the stairs and out the front door because I heard it open and slam shut. That guy with the thick southern accent told Aiden to move out the way and then that became an argument.”
Jay’s jaw clenched and I could see the hatred in his eyes, but he remained silent.
I continued, “Someone else yelled ‘They stole the fucking notebook! All of them are gone and they have the notebook!’ Another guy said if they put a few dicks in our mouths it would shut
us up. Too many other voices agreed. And then someone, I’m pretty sure it was Trevor, sounded like a lion ready to attack. He told everyone to hide whatever drugs they had because he was calling the fire department and didn’t know if the cops were going to come as well. It sounded like a stampede—complete madness—and I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on, so I slipped into the laundry room and climbed out the basement window. That’s when I saw what Dakota did. I saw what they did. I wasn’t even all the way out the window when I saw it.”
Jay’s eyes were big as he waited for me to clarify. “Saw what?”
“Trevor’s boat floating in the middle of the lake—on fire.”
“Fuck…”
“There was more screaming, and I just took off running. I couldn’t stay there.”
“And they didn’t see you? No one chased you?”
I shook my head. “Aiden and I were the only ones in the basement and when he left, I was alone. The party was mostly on the first floor and I went out the window to avoid being seen. Once I got out, I ran through the woods.”
“Around the lake?”
I nodded. “I took the bridge as a shortcut.”
“That bridge is a deathtrap.” Jay whistled lowly as his eyes moved from my face to my feet. He stared at my feet for a long, quiet minute. “They lit that man’s boat on fire and set you up to take the fall.”
“I know. And I honestly had nothing to do with any of that. I was with Aiden the entire time. But just hearing Dakota throw me under the bus and then the drunk assholes talk about the ways they should shut us up, I didn’t feel safe staying there.”
Jay wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest. I resisted at first and then I allowed myself to relax in his embrace. It was as if the combination of his warmth and the pain medicine hit me simultaneously.
“You did the right thing. You didn’t feel safe, so you left,” he assured me.
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