“Oh shit,” Chanel laughs, her brows flying up as she shuffles over and makes space for me. “You’re going to need all the friends you can get.”
Ilaria smiles as I take the space beside her, clearly pleased that her friends are being so welcoming, and honestly, so am I. Chanel was right, I’m going to need as many friends as I can possibly find. “Tell me about it,” I say. “That guy is intense.”
“Chanel knows all about how intense Tanner Morgan can be,” Arizona laughs. “She had the misfortune of having his interest last year, and trust me when I tell you, it didn’t end well.”
My brows shoot up and I gape at Chanel beside me. “No way, really?” I ask, way too intrigued by the topic. “What did he do?”
Chanel scoffs and takes a bite out of an apple. “What didn’t he do?” she says, a heaviness falling over her shoulders. “I used to be the head cheerleader and most popular girl in school until he came along. He has a kink for ruining people’s lives.”
“Really?” I breathe, nerves swelling in my chest. “He has that much influence over this school?”
Ilaria nods. “What did I tell you?” she says with a smug, knowing grin. “You’re in a world of trouble.”
Well, crap. This is almost worse than waxing off half my meat curtain. My heart races. Colby threatened to make me the outcast of Hope Falls, and now there’s a chance that Tanner could do the very same thing, after crushing me first.
“How did you even get on his radar?” Arizona asks. “It’s only your first day. Either you work fast or something else is going on here.”
Both Arizona and Chanel furrow their brows as Ilaria cringes, recalling the many events that have brought me to this very moment. I turn to Chanel, my brow arching. “You don’t still have a thing for the guy, do you?”
She gapes at me as though I just grew an alien lifeform out of my ass and shakes her head. “Hell no.”
“Good, because I don’t think any of what I’m about to say is going to be very nice, but it all started at that party on the weekend, right after my boyfriend cheated on me.” Both Chanel and Arizona gasp and I glance at Ilaria, wondering how much of this she’s comfortable with me sharing, but just that glance alone has the girls putting the pieces together.
“NOOOOOO,” Chanel laughs, slamming her hand onto the table and meeting Ilaria’s gaze. “The Hope Falls dude you hooked up with was her boyfriend?”
Ilaria rolls her eyes, looking more than ashamed of herself. “Yup,” she says, popping the ‘p’ sound. “I had no idea he was with her, so I want that on record. I’m not a boyfriend-stealing whore … at least, not knowingly.”
Arizona smirks. “Noted.”
“Go on,” Chanel tells me, her gaze slowly narrowing with curiosity. “I don’t see how any of this has anything to do with Tanner.”
“Right, so I’d just sprung my boyfriend going to town on your girl here and naturally, I was a little upset, so I stormed out and accidentally ran into him. I was trying to get out of the house and turned a corner just as he stepped around it, and I knocked the beer right out of his hands. He must have just gotten it or something because the guy was drenched.”
Chanel laughs. “That was you? I heard something going on with Tanner but couldn’t see past all the bodies.”
“Yeah, unfortunately. Anyway, I was a little upset, understandably, and Tanner was all glaring and angry and then his friend came over acting like I was some kind of fresh meat who he could persuade onto her knees, who—”
“That would have been Riley,” Arizona cuts in. “The guy who looks like Thor’s younger, flirtier brother?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s Tanner’s best friend. You don’t need to worry about him. All he’ll try to do is get between your legs, but now that Tanner’s got you in his sights, Riley will back off … at least, he should. He’ll still flirt. I don’t think he’s capable of not chatting up a girl.”
“Great, just what I need,” I laugh. “Anyway, he was being all I wonder if she bites, so I let him know that I wasn’t about to suck his dick, but that if he needed to stick it somewhere, Tanner’s throat seemed like a good place, which apparently made things worse, so then I called him out on his bullshit, which again … worse.”
Ilaria shakes her head. “Literally the worst way you could have possibly handled any type of situation with Tanner Morgan.”
“Yeah, I’m figuring that out,” I tell her, before glancing back at Chanel. “Anyway, I got out of there, went home, and my mom hit me with the whole we’re moving in with my fancy new boyfriend bombshell, and now, I’m somehow Tanner’s new next-door neighbor.”
Her eyes bug out of her head. “WHAT?”
“Yeah, his bedroom looks directly into mine,” I say, pulling the lipstick out of my pocket and slamming it down on the table. “So, he took it upon himself to break into my room in the middle of the night and leave me a message on my mirror in lipstick.”
“The fuck?” Arizona grunts. “That’s messed up.”
“Could have been worse,” Ilaria tells me. “It could have been Jensen.”
“Jensen Channing?” Arizona gasps. “Holy fuck. Don’t tell me you’re involved with that asshole too?”
“Unfortunately. He’s my new roommate. My mom is dating his father.”
Chanel shakes her head. “You’re fucked, so fucking fucked,” she says, glancing toward Ilaria and Arizona across the table. “What the hell are we supposed to do about this? There’s no way she’s going to survive the year living right next door to the guy. Plus, who knows what Jensen is capable of.” She turns back to me. “Does your mom know about him, what he’s like?”
I nod. “Yeah, when I first told her about the vibe I got from him, she seemed horrified, but now that we’re living there, she’s turning a blind eye to it. I don’t know, it’s been one day and she’s already slipping into the role of country club housewife. He already got her to quit her job and start working as his legal secretary, wearing ridiculous pantsuits with hooker heels.”
“Shit.”
I nod and my gaze drops to the lipstick in the middle of the table, my heart heavily thumping in my chest. I thought I could handle all of this but seeing just how concerned they are is alarming. Maybe this whole situation is worse than I’d assumed.
A moment passes as I stew on everything that’s gone down, before finally raising my head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Jensen, but as for Tanner Morgan, I’m not about to sit back and let him railroad my senior year. I’m more than happy to face this alone, but if you guys are down, I’d love some back up.”
Arizona grins, a wicked spark hitting her soft eyes. “Just tell me where you want me.”
I grin right back at her. “Ever broken into someone’s house before?”
Chapter 8
TANNER
“Fuck bro, if you don’t rail that chick soon, I will,” Jax says, slinging his arm over my shoulder and slapping his hand against my chest, all but howling his appreciation for Killjoy as we watch her making her way back down to the student parking lot.