Trouble's What You're In

by Danielle Allen

  My eyes slowly closed. “I didn’t feel safe,” I murmured as I drifted to sleep.

  …

  Chapter Three

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Jay asked as I stared out of the passenger side window of his car.

  “I’m sure.” I turned to look at him. “Most of my stuff is in storage so it’s just clothes and books. And besides, I want to talk to them first.”

  “Well I’ll give you fifteen minutes to say whatever you have to say and then I’m coming in. I don’t want you carrying anything. Your feet are still jacked up.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m okay. They don’t feel so bad right now.”

  “You never listen.”

  “And it’s a good thing I don’t! I left these sneakers at your place months ago after practice and if I would’ve listened to you and picked them up, I’d have nothing to wear today.”

  He smirked. “You always have something extra to say.”

  “Always.”

  I opened the car door and stepped out gingerly. My feet felt so much better than they had twelve hours earlier when I’d arrived at Jay’s door. But still, I was in pain with each step I took.

  I pushed the heavy wooden door open just as Sonya Li happened to exit the kitchen area.

  “Hey…” Sonya greeted me, averting her eyes and tucking her jet-black hair behind her ears. She looked around nervously. “Um… what are you doing here?”

  “Where’s Dakota?” I kept my voice as calm as possible.

  “I-I don’t know,” she stammered as she backed away with her hands up. “She left earlier. And I had nothing to do with what happened last night.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You left me there to take the fall.”

  “I didn’t leave you there. I wasn’t driving and I didn’t know—I didn’t know Dakota was going to do it, but what did you expect? She found out about you.”

  My face scrunched up in a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “What are you talking about?”

  The phone started ringing. It was odd for the landline to ring, so it caught us both by surprise.

  Sonya walked backward to the kitchen. “She found out about you and him.” She picked up the kitchen phone. “Hello? Hey! Yeah, my phone died. What’s up?”

  What? Dakota found out about me and who? Me and Aiden? What did it matter if I had a crush on Aiden?

  Even though I knew her loyalty was to Dakota and the team, I waited for a minute to see if she was going to end her call and explain to me what she meant. But when I heard her sit down and giggle, I knew I wasn’t going to get more out of her.

  I had only climbed three steps when I heard the front door opening. I turned, bracing myself to pounce on Dakota’s smug face as soon as I saw her. My hand gripped the bannister and I tensed, waiting for her to show herself so I could demand answers.

  The door opened slowly but creaked loudly.

  “Jay!” I exhaled his name as my body deflated.

  “I told you I’d wait, but fifteen minutes felt like too long and the house was too quiet. I didn’t know if you’d killed her or not,” he replied with a smirk. Looking around, he closed the door behind him. “Did I miss it?”

  “She’s not here.” I gestured toward the kitchen. “Sonya said she went out.”

  He shook his head as if he were thinking of something that amused him. “You know Sonya has a thing for me, right?”

  Rolling my eyes, I turned to move up the steps. “Surprise, surprise.”

  James Williams was an athlete and a scholar. He wasn’t just good-looking, he looked good on paper, too. Sonya had a way of knowing everything before everyone else—especially the names of all the good-looking men, their grade point averages, their majors, their earning potential, and their shoe size. So, it was no surprise Sonya had a crush on him. He was a catch.

  “Don’t be like that,” he teased. “You know I would never sleep with anyone on the squad. You’d never forgive me.”

  “You got that right,” I muttered, pushing open the door to the bedroom I shared with Carter.

  Jay snickered as he saddled up beside me. “Aw. Don’t be jealous.”

  I flipped on the light and scoffed. “I am not jealous.”

  “You know you want me all to yourself.” He tickled my sides, causing me to squirm as I walked.

  I swatted at his hands. “Stop it.” I turned a little too fast and winced.

  “Oh! Brook, I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I responded, exhaling through the pain. “It’s okay.”

  Even though my ribs were still tender and my muscles sore, I felt a lot better. But the move I’d made was a little too much too soon and I instantly regretted it.

  Jay scooped me up in his arms and gently pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  I folded into his embrace before I heard a pointed clearing of the throat from the hallway.

  “James, I thought you said you didn’t date cheerleaders? Didn’t you say Carter was the only exception you made?” Sonya asked pointedly, her head cocked to the side. “And Brooklyn, I thought you were still trying to hold on to your fledgling friendship with Carter? Dating her ex doesn’t seem like the best way to do that.”

  With a sigh, I turned my back to her and grabbed my luggage from the closet. Her comments didn’t deserve a response.

  “Actually,” Jay started. “What I said was I wasn’t interested in dating you because you’re a cheerleader.”

  I turned around just in time to see her face flush.

  Masking her embarrassment, she asked, “So, if I wasn’t a cheerleader, you and I would have a shot?”

  “My heart belongs to this one right here.” He gestured to me with his head. “So, it’s still a no.”

  “She’s a cheerleader, too,” Sonya complained.

  “She’s a dancer,” Jay countered.

  I turned so my back was to them both, and I smiled.

  “There is no dance team anymore. She’s a cheerleader,” she reiterated.

  “Goodbye, Sonya,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Well once you realize she’s giving it to any and every PRO who asks, you’ll move on,” she said tauntingly. “And when that happens, call me.”

  Turning around, I walked over to the door and slammed it in her face.

  The room was silent as Sonya yelled for Jay to call her through the door.

  I shook my head in annoyance as I returned to my luggage and continued to pack.

  “So… it looks like I’m not the only one who has noticed your PRO love—”

  “Oh my God!” I groaned, pushing his shoulder. The intention was to bump him out of the way, but his solid body stayed put. “Just shut your mouth and pack! Always being a jerk!”

  Jay chuckled and I kept my back to him so he couldn’t see me smiling.

  “I just think it’s funny that I’m not the only one who noticed.”

  Tossing an icy glare over my shoulder, I growled. “If I wasn’t sore, I’d fight you where you stand. I swear to God. One more word and it’s over for you.”

  Laughing even harder, Jay lifted his hands in surrender. “You’re so scrappy. Okay, fine. I give up. What can I do?”

  “Yeah you better.” The smile pulled at the corner of my lips. “You can pack up everything on the right side of the closet please.”

  He gestured to the divider. “So… the side that says Carter’s isn’t yours?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Jay started grabbing clothes from the closet while I pulled out the clothes, bras, and underwear from the dresser drawers.

  “I wonder where Carter is? It doesn’t look like her bed has been slept in,” he remarked after we’d been diligently working in silence for a while.

  “I’m not sure. I need to get my phone back from her. And I was hoping she was going to be here so we could talk. I just…” My eyes stung just thinking about it. I put my last bra into the bag and turned to loo
k at him. “Ever since she started hanging with these bitches, she’s been different. It’s like she changed into everything she said she hated. I just don’t understand.”

  “You want these books, too?”

  I didn’t bother to turn around. “Yes, everything on my side of the top of the closet can go in that crate.”

  “Okay, cool.” He paused. “Carter hasn’t fucked with us like that for a long time now. It is what it is. So I hear you when you say she’s changed. But honestly, she’s been showing you who she is for the last year and a half. At some point, you have to take it for what it is.”

  “I know. I just thought it was starting to get better. And then…” I shrugged as I zipped my duffle bag. “This happened.” Shaking my head, I muttered to myself. “I just don’t understand.”

  I stared at her neatly made bed. My eyes moved over the soft pink comforter to the glass nightstand with a pink and white book, a small lamp, and a picture of her and her parents. It was bizarre. It was like it was her… but at the same time, it wasn’t her.

  When we’d met, she was aware of her wealth and privilege and channeled that into her poetry. She wore dark colors, dyed her dark reddish-brown hair a vibrant red, and swore like a sailor. When we shared a dorm room our freshman and sophomore years, she hated pink and anything that made her look like the princess she was. But all that changed when she tried out for the cheerleading squad.

  The cheerleaders embraced Carter with open arms and turned her into one of them. I’d gone home for two weeks during summer break and came back to Carter ditching our plan to share a dorm room. She broke the news that she planned to move to Athletics Way with the squad in a text message.

  When I returned, her hair was her natural shade of brown coupled with extensions. Her normally bare face was coated with makeup. Her dark clothing was replaced by lighter, name brand fashions. Her already petite frame had lost an additional fifteen pounds. Even with all that physical change that slapped me in the face, it was the personality change that was the most shocking.

  I wanted to believe that the girl I’d been best friends with for three years was the real Carter. I kept fighting the thought that the cheerleaders didn’t change her—they revealed her. It was hard for me to accept that the Carter I knew was a phase and cheerleader Carter was the real deal. But after living with her for a month, I saw less and less of the girl I once knew. And that was a hard pill to swallow.

  “You had to have seen it coming,” Jay said gently, pulling me out of my thoughts. “We met her during her rebellious years. She dated me as an act of rebellion.”

  I sighed as I looked over at him. “That’s not true. She loved you.”

  He checked the zipper on the bags before hoisting the crate up onto the desk. “She loved the idea of me. I was different than anyone she’d ever dated and I’m sexy as hell—have you seen me naked?”

  I laughed at his cockiness. “Has she?”

  He chuckled along with me. “That’s not the point. I’m sexy, dammit.”

  Rolling my eyes, I slid the strap of the duffle bag over my shoulder. “If you say so.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t act like you don’t think I’m sexy. It’s beneath you.”

  “You wish I was beneath you,” I retorted, sticking my tongue out.

  “Don’t go there with me, Brook. I’ll say some shit you won’t be able to stop thinking about for days.”

  The way he ogled me as he said it made heat creep up my neck toward my face.

  I changed the direction of the conversation. “Thank you for growing up and evolving for the better through our years here. You’re not the same seventeen-year-old Bronx kid who kept a basketball in his bookbag all summer long.”

  Grabbing my two oversized suitcases, he smirked. “Well, you’re an older version of the girl I met four years ago. And even though you’re still strong, put down that crate. I’ll come back up and get it.”

  “No, I can take a duffle and a cra—”

  “Brook.” He said my name firmly and with an authoritative tone that he only took when he was serious. The look on his face told me he was not playing around with me. “You’re hurt. Stop trying to do everything yourself. I got you.”

  I exhaled hard and noisily, sitting down on the edge of my bed. “Fine.”

  “Now don’t move a muscle. Or else,” he threatened jokingly, turning the lights off and leaving me in the darkened room. “You’re on timeout.”

  I smiled, shaking my head.

  A wave of nostalgia hit me. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had plenty of people I could call to go to a party, but I didn’t have many people that I could really call when I needed them—not back home and definitely not at UFIT. James Williams and Carter Yates were my people. And even though Carter and I weren’t friends anymore, we weren’t enemies.

  She wouldn’t have let Dakota and them set me up… would she?

  I needed to talk to Carter. I needed answers.

  When the glass from the back door opened and banged loudly, a bunch of giggles and loud talking burst through the stillness of the almost empty house. As soon as I heard heels clicking on the staircase, my hands turned into fists. I prepared to see either Carter or Dakota. Although I was furious with Dakota, Carter was the only person in the house who could hurt me. Even though I was physically in pain, I knew if it came down to it, I would kick Dakota’s ass. But emotionally, no matter how tough I pretended to be, I wasn’t prepared to have Carter say she was in on the set up. That was a betrayal I wasn’t ready for.

  Sonya and three other cheerleaders scurried to the bedroom across the hall never looking my way. They didn’t bother to close the door all the way before they started talking shit.

  Sonya began, “Brooklyn came by with James just before you guys got back. She was packing. I think she’s leaving the house. By the way, even though he doesn’t come from money, I would climb James Williams like a tree.”

  “I know! Even though he’s probably having sex with that ho, I’d still do him,” a voice I didn’t recognize agreed.

  “I will have him by the end of the year. He claims that his heart belongs to Brooklyn,” Sonya spoke up, making a noise and causing the other girls to laugh. “But look at me. I’ve never not gotten what I wanted.”

  “And doesn’t she have enough dick to worry about?! I can’t believe she even showed her face around here,” another one of the cheerleaders quipped loudly. “Did she really think Dakota wasn’t going to find out?”

  “I know right! But now that she’s leaving the house, everything will just be a lot better. We don’t need that energy here. There’s no loyalty with trash like that. And after whoring herself out for the PROs, I say good riddance to whoring rubbish!”

  “Vivian!” Sonya scolded her with a hint of amusement in her voice. “You took it too far. Let’s not slut shame. We’ve all been around the block a time or two. And like I was saying earlier, after James drops her off, my hope is that he comes back so I can take him around the block a couple more times.”

  “What do you think the PROs did to her?” a softer voice that I couldn’t quite place wondered. “Sonya, did she say anything?”

  Is that Olive? I wondered.

  “Who cares?” Vivian spoke up. “It’s her word against ours. And whatever was done, she brought it on herself. She betrayed girl code when she went against Dakota. And besides… she’s not one of us.”

  “I agree that sleeping with someone else’s man is a violation of girl code,” Olive placated, her voice shaking. “But I don’t want the girl to get suspended from school. Especially in her senior year.”

  “Well, that’s why Dakota took something for insurance,” Vivian mentioned cryptically. “She’s not a monster! The PROs won’t press charges and won’t mention names. Dakota thought of everything.”

  “Press charges?” Olive squeaked. “For lighting some stuff on fire in the bathtub? Seriously? There’s no reason for police involvement. It was a prank!”

 
“It wasn’t just the bathtub,” Vivian cackled. “Listen, whatever happens, happens. Brooklyn brought this on herself when she moved in on someone else’s territory. She’s not one of us. Carter knew better than to bring her in here and Dakota knew better than to approve it. But Dakota is so preoccupied with making Carter her number two that she approved the Brooklyn situation without thinking.”

  “Sounds like you’re a little jealous, Viv,” Sonya teased.

  “I’m not jealous,” she snapped. “Brooklyn should’ve never been living here with us. She doesn’t belong here. And she damn sure shouldn’t be sleeping with men that belong to us.”

  “Well the only reason she’s here in the first place is because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Sonya explained. “This semester her financial aid—”

  “I don’t care! She could’ve stayed with that troll Kim! She could’ve slept in a fucking ditch. It doesn’t matter. She’s only been here a month, but there’s so much drama with her that it feels like it’s been longer,” Vivian interjected.

  I rose to my feet and looked around the darkened bedroom incredulously. Drama? I’m the one bringing the drama? Me? What the hell?

  “She’s not one of us,” Vivian insisted harshly leaving the other girls silent. “Like Dakota always says, she’s a broke bitch and broke bitches who violate need to be broken down. Fucking someone else’s man is a violation. She should’ve never been a cheerleader in the first place.”

  Sonya spoke up diplomatically. “To be fair, she’s a really good dancer. And since she’s on scholarship, Dakota couldn’t get the coach to cut her.”

  “Scholarship or no scholarship, she doesn’t belong here! And with everything that happened last night, I don’t see Brooklyn keeping her scholarship or her boy toy either,” Vivian’s snide remark got one other girl to cackle with her. “Today is not Brooklyn’s day.”

  “I feel a little bad for her, honestly,” Sonya cut through their laughter. “I know we all agreed to go along with Dakota’s plan, but you should’ve seen her face when she busted in here. She was...she looked so shocked—and confused. But she also looked like she was going to kill Dakota so it could go either way.”