Luck is never on my side though.
“Don’t even fucking think about it,” Aiden yells as he jumps out of his truck and storms toward me.
Opening the passenger door, I’m bending to get into the pricy set of wheels when a hand snakes around my arm. I snap my head toward the person holding me back. “If you don’t let me go I’ll scream, Aiden.”
He’s openly glaring right back. “Don’t go with him.”
I yank my arm away. “It’s none of your business who I get into a car with. I swear to God if you— Son of a bitch!” My body is being thrown over a broad, muscular shoulder before I know what’s happening.
Another door opens and Remi’s obnoxious voice calls out, “What the fuck, man?”
“Sorry,” Aiden says. “You’re going to have to find another way to get your dick wet tonight.”
I smack his back with my fists. “You asshole! Who said I was going to sleep with him?”
When he opens his truck door and drops me onto the bench seat, I grunt on impact and do my best to show my displeasure with being thrown around. My face goes completely slack when he says, “Isn’t that what you do, Ivy? How you pay them for somewhere to sleep?”
Before I can even think of a reply, he’s moving my legs out of the way and slamming the door. I’m frozen in my seat with gaping lips when he confronts the snobby frat boy by his car. I don’t know what’s said and I’m not sure I want to. All I see is Aiden fishing my bags from the backseat before tossing them into the bed of his truck and climbing in beside me.
My arms hug my knees tightly to my chest, my feet propped on the edge of the seat in a protective stance. “I’m not a whore,” I whisper, failing at patching the internal wall up as a tear slides down my cheek.
He turns the truck on, not looking at me once as he puts it into drive. “No, baby. You’re a survivor.”
Chapter Eleven
Aiden
The guys are all packed in the kitchen, arms crossed, shoulder to shoulder in silence as they stare at me with a mixture of raised brows, stoic faces, and indifference. Nobody has said a word since I told them Ivy is going to stay downstairs with me.
Justin leans against his crutches and reaches for the closest pizza box I brought home as bribery. “I don’t know why you called this meeting. The girlfriends stay here all the time anyway and nobody cares.”
Raine does spend a lot of time here with Caleb, though she’s absent for this conversation because of some school event, and a couple of the other guys have steady girlfriends or consistent hookups that spend the night a few times a week. “Ivy isn’t my girlfriend though.”
DJ hops onto the counter with his go-to energy drink in hand. He has enough energy on his own, but he doesn’t go without one a day at the least. “You know I don’t mind having a chick like that as a roommate, especially if she’s up for dibs.”
A few of the guys try hiding their snickers and choke them down behind their fists when I eye them. “Watch it, 81. I can still take you down on the field.”
He raises a hand, chortling. “Yeah, yeah. Hands off the goods. We got it. Can we eat now? I don’t think any of us are going to bitch about the new addition to the house. Most of us already like her for putting people in their places in class, and now that we know she can bake that means we have our own Martha Stewart living downstairs.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s not here to cook, bake, or do anything for you. Any of you.” My eyes go to each one of them until my point is across.
DJ keeps going. “Plus, it isn’t like any of us are going to start anything with her when you two will be going at it like— Umph.” Caleb smacks him in the chest, causing DJ to glower. “Jesus, dude. Fine. I’ll shut up about it. I was making a point none of you fuckers can refute. Can we eat the pizza now?”
All the others watch with interest, some of them darting between me and the food waiting in front of us, others waiting to see what else I have to say.
Christ. “Eat. I’m going downstairs.”
I push off the counter and turn to leave when Caleb stops me. “At least take some down with you. She might be hungry. Something tells me she won’t be willing to come up and get any herself for a while.”
I cuss and accept a couple pieces before nodding at him. When I make it back down to her, Ivy is sitting on the end of the couch with her legs curled under her and her arms crossed over her chest as she stares at the blank TV.
Dropping a slice of pepperoni pizza on a napkin on the table, I gesture toward the flat screen. “That turns on, you know. It’ll show you magic pictures with a click of a button.”
Slowly, her fierce eyes peel away from it and toward me. She blinks once, the honey tone darkening, then drops her gaze toward the abandoned pizza. “I know what a TV is and how it works, ass. Just because I didn’t have one of my own for years doesn’t mean I forgot how one works.” I try to say something to ease her irritation over the bad joke but before I can, she adds, “And I’m not staying here.”
“The guys don’t care.”
“But I do,” she states, dropping her legs onto the floor. “Christ, don’t you listen? I don’t want your charity or pity. I don’t want your pizza, or your teammates opinions about me t—”
I bark out a laugh, realizing what this is really about. “Think with your head, not your pride. Who the fuck cares about what my teammates think?”
She stands and faces me, our height difference making it hard to find her as intimidating as she probably wants me to. I fight the smirk that wavers my lips, making her scowl harder. “I don’t need your friends thinking that we’re screwing. It’s bad enough I’ve had to hear about you and Sydney, I’d like to be shown some courtesy about who I do or don’t choose to hook up with and who knows it.”
My face twists. “Sydney?”
“My former housemate,” is her dumbfounded response.
When I was directed to her old housemate’s room, I honestly wasn’t sure who’d open the door. All I knew from Raine and Caleb in prior conversation is that Sydney rules the place with her catty commands and spiteful personality. The day she opened her door, I’d been surprised that it was the only girl at LU I’d messed around with to blow off some steam. “I know who she is. I’m wondering what the hell there is to talk about. Her and I aren’t anything.”
“Not according to her.”
Sydney has always been a clinger which is why I should have never agreed to hang with her to begin with. It was DJ who introduced us and Caleb who warned me away. I hadn’t spoken to her in months before knocking on her damn door that day. Whatever she’s been telling people is obviously an exaggeration. “Whatever you heard is bullshit. Don’t let people like her get to you.”
Her eye twitches.
“And,” I add, stepping toward her without breaking eye contact, “don’t let whatever shit my team gives you go to heart. They like to talk smack. It’s nothing. You deal with a few of them in class, so you know that already. Quit making excuses as to why you can’t stay. None of us are asking for rent, or for you to do chores or cook us shit. There are no strings, only a place to sleep. Which, in case you’ve forgotten, you need right now. It isn’t like you haven’t taken me up on the offer before. The pact, remember?”