My options are limited; his are endless.
“Leaving,” he states in that sexily lazy way of his. “That’s a coward’s way out. The Harloe I know wouldn’t give in so easy.”
“I’m not a chicken,” I seethe.
“Really?” He licks his lips and takes the bottom one into his mouth. Dragging his teeth along the surface, he releases it with a smirk and a fuckboy chin jerk. “Fucking prove it.”
He thinks he’s baiting me, but he’s not. I’m luring him. Hunter is nothing if not inquisitive, and what I’m about to say will leave him guessing.
“Innocence has no place in the hell you’ve created.”
Hunter’s brows shunt inward. Clearly, he’s perplexed by my words, but like, all men he refuses to admit it. His gaze is hard and unyielding as if commanding me to explain further.
However, I’m not in the business of giving him what he wants anymore. Falling for his mismatched eyes and sexy tricks got me in a bind last time. I won’t do that anymore. Giving him an empty glower, I turn around and head toward the Dean’s office.
Silencing my cell once more, I curse my older brother under my breath. He just doesn’t freaking get that I don’t want to speak to him. Not now—not ever, if I can get away with it.
Nothing will go back to the way it was before. I’m not going to magically grow close to my family. I haven’t since I found out about Harloe, and I don’t foresee that happening in the future, either. Owen needs to get the hint that if I wanted to speak to him or anyone else in my family, I would reach out to them.
Not like that’d do me anyway, regardless if I was ready to talk or not. But if they want to believe that, that’s okay, too. I’m not going to stop them.
Dropping the towel, I tread toward the glass-encased shower and step underneath the hot spray. Immediately, I groan from the hot water pelting against my sore muscles, relieving the pain from my evening workout. Putting my hands against the wall, I hang my head between my shoulders and simply allow all the stress of the day to roll off my back and down the drain.
Shit’s all messed up. Has been since I had that grand idea to throw a party that ended up backfiring in my goddamn face. Big time. Not for the fact that I got whole ass drunk that night, but because of what happened when I was drinking.
It hardly leaves my mind, and when it does, the smallest thing will trigger it, and here the memory comes running back like crack to a junkie. I can’t escape it, can’t outrun it. Harloe is stuck in my mind where she’s been the last three years. Except, where I was full of hatred before, I’m filled with self-loathing now.
Even though I have options, the only person I think about has emerald eyes, a sassy mouth I can’t even say I wouldn’t enjoy filling, and a temper like no other. Even today, she’s my match in every way, and I hate it being thrown in my face, but powerless to do anything about it.
Fucking Harloe. Always messing shit up for me.
The blaring ringtone alerts me to my brother calling once more. Its piercing wail continues to ring, and ring, and ring out over the sound of water slapping against the marble tile in the co-ed shower.
“Get the goddamn picture already!” I yell out, my muscles tightening and releasing as I try to keep myself from shattering that piece of shit all over the tile floor.
The sight reminds me of the predicament I’m in at the rental as well, angering me even more. Easton, Zeke, Leo, and our other roommate haven’t been in for even two months yet, and it’s already breaking down. Oh, it looks nice, cosmetically, but behind the picture, everything is falling apart. My shower is toast, and so is the guest bathroom. The kitchen disposal doesn’t work, and we’ve been hand washing dishes for a fucking week.
I’m over it. Too much shit is breaking in my life, and I can’t handle it. At any moment now, I’m going to snap and hit the closest thing to me.
Control is what I need and crave. Except, it’s the only thing I don’t have. What’s going to go next? My weight training?
Weightlifting to get ready for next season is kicking my damned ass, and I’m having a hard grasp of keeping up with the older places on the team. Something that’s never happened to me before, and now I’m knee-deep in it.
I’m knee-deep in everything, sludging around in half-ass boots and expecting not to get dirty. Without weed and having to slack down on the drinking, I’m more on edge than I’ve ever been. You’d think I’d learn how to control this anger raging inside me, so I could be in control, but I’m nowhere close.
Instead, my sense of control is like an entity, and it’s micromanaging me. The only thing I want is peace and quiet, no one to bother me while I get my head back on straight. I don’t give a shit what happens afterward, but until then the only thing I want is to collect my thoughts like a rational son of a bitch, possibly jack off because that’s all the action my cock is seeing nowadays, and get my shit straightened out in my head.
Also, I want to figure out Harloe’s reason for coming back to Golden Oaks. Something tells me that she’s not here because she wants to be, but because she has to be. What could make her, the girl who used to eat guys like me for breakfast, change so dramatically?
Oh, trust and believe there is still a fire inside that girl. A blazing inferno that still draws me in, even while I’m clambering to keep my distance. But that’s always how it’s been with her. That’s how it all fucking started between us.
And I’ll be fucked when she showed up in class today, with that fucking laptop and those fucking college brochures … I don’t know. I just—None of that felt right.
As I start shampooing my hair, the main door to the co-ed bathroom opens and shuts. Not paying any attention, I start rinsing out my hair—that is, until my shower door opens. Immediately, I halt my actions. Looking up, I don’t bother covering myself up, because whoever it is must know that it’s me and want something. They’d have muttered their apologies and stepped off, otherwise.
Everyone always does.
No matter who it is, what they want, or where it will take them—that’s all anyone ever sees in a Prince, especially me. I’m nothing more than a steppingstone.
A familiar face blinks at me through the steam, and I find myself stiffening even further, only this time with rage, as I resume rinsing my hair. “What do you want?”
She says nothing but starts undressing like she didn’t lose that right when she almost had her girls drown Lo in the toilet. Like any red-blooded male, my eyes should be skimming down her body as each inch of flesh is revealed. But I can’t be fucked to even pretend to care.
When she’s fully naked, Cass steps into the shower and allows the door to close behind her.
“Saw you come in and figured I’d join you.” She smiles coyly, nibbling on her bottom lip.
I hope she doesn’t expect me to buy that crap. There’s nothing innocent about her. That’s one of the reasons I started this “acquaintance with benefits” arrangement. Can’t say we’re friends because, you know, she’s a bitch.
And we’re definitely not anything now. “Get fucked, Cass. I told you weeks ago I was done with your bullshit.”
That’s also the exact reason I know she’s trying to play me. Cass and I may fight like cats and dogs, but we both know it’s purely physical between us when we were together. Now that we’re not, she has to have ulterior motives.