Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 95019 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95019 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“News? There’s not gonna be any news. There’s nothing there.”
Ash angles his head, glaring at me.
“No, like, she’s hot and fun and cool, but that’s where it ends.”
Do I wish she would go out with me? Absolutely.
Am I deluding myself, thinking that would ever happen? Absolutely not.
“Even worse, now she’s ogling Ryan every time he comes around. Him and his beefy, Hulk-man body. If that’s what she’s into, I can’t compete.”
“That’s true,” Ash says, and Lance and I both glare at him. “I meant, if that’s what she was into, but you don’t know that. And speaking of the frathole, we’ve enjoyed an entire afternoon and you haven’t brought him up, so I take it things aren’t as bad?” The way he inflects that last part, it’s clear he’s hopeful things have improved.
“It’s better,” I confess, though I wish I didn’t have to.
“Oh, really?” Lance says, sounding shocked, but like fake shocked, which makes me suspicious.
“Why?” I ask. “You didn’t tell him I was keeping tabs on all that shit he was doing, did you?”
Ash purses his lips, like he’s keeping a secret for Lance.
“Hey!” I snap.
“I did not tell Ryan anything,” is as much as Lance reveals, which tells me all I need to know—he must’ve blabbed to Ty. Of course he did.
“So this is why he’s better? Well, I guess I don’t have to worry because I’m sure he’ll be back to violating rules by Friday. Probably all sexed up from the girls he had lined up in Orlando.”
“Um…you know we just went to Universal Studios,” Lance says. “We weren’t, like, having orgies at the hotel. Not all of us got Ash and Colin’s vacation.”
“I’m surprised he managed to go a whole week without.”
Lance and Ash exchange looks.
“What? You guys think I’m being overdramatic? After all the stunts he’s pulled?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lance says. “But you said he’s acting better, and you’re still bothered, so…”
“Yeah,” Ash says. “Maybe…keep an open mind and give him a chance.”
I huff. “He’s had more than enough chances.”
We head out to dinner, and when we’re back at the house, I go to my room, where I discover Ryan sitting at my desk. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him there before, especially not in joggers and a tee. Is the asshole trying to hog the desk?
“I don’t have any homework tonight,” I tell him, and he glances over from his laptop and shrugs.
“Well, I do.”
“Oh, just to keep me up late?” I ask, searching for the ulterior motive.
He shakes his head. “Nope. Just to get it done before class tomorrow.” He turns back to his screen and keys away.
I search around my room uneasily. Things have been too calm recently. And tonight things are eerily calm, in a way that only concerns me that much more.
I approach my bed cautiously, pulling back the sheets to see if he has some horrible prank waiting for me—like he’s slipped Payton’s python under the sheets. It hasn’t happened to me, but it’s an easy enough prank to pull off, and I fucking hate snakes.
“If you want,” he says, “I can finish in, like, five and do the rest tomorrow morning.”
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He spins the swivel chair toward me. “I told you: my homework.”
Finally something clicks into place. I know what’s up!
“Do you have someone in here?” I check under the bed, then the closet.
His forehead creases as his brows knit together. “Do you think I would hide them in the closet?”
“You didn’t put the door hanger out, so you’d be violating one of the rules Sigma Alpha agreed to. Maybe you forgot since you never honored them anyway.”
“And I just jumped into these clothes when I realized you were coming up here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one of the guys texted you. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I see there’s no one else in here. And no snake…that I’ve seen.”
“Why would there be a snake?”
“As if you don’t know.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost it. Maybe I have.
“I’m trying to work out why you’ve been acting weird lately,” I explain.
“You’re searching the closet for girls and I’m the one acting weird?” he says as though he’s the shining example of a roommate.
“Okay, this is entering full-on gaslighting territory.”
He grins. “How is that gaslighting?”
“Gaslighting means trying to make a person question their reality, which you are doing by acting like it’s this far-fetched idea that you’d do these things that you are entirely capable of doing, especially with how pissed you’ve been at me.”
Ryan’s gaze wanders as he considers this. “Is that what gaslighting is? Huh, who knew?”
“Is that a confession?”
“Nah, man. I’ve had a change of heart recently. And I actually kind of need your help.”
“My help?”
I know this is somehow gonna end in a prank where he fools my ass, and tonight is not the night, motherfucker.