Page 60 of Notorious Man on Campus

“Can I ask you for a dance.”

“Yes, absolutely. I mean, Brick won’t mind, will you?” she barely darts a glance at me.

“Go for it.” Jimmy doesn’t acknowledge me as he takes her to the dance floor and seemingly swallows my date up whole. “Shit.” My grin is automatic and irrepressible. I turn to Nyla. She along with everyone else is watching Jimmy entrance Willow as if he has some magical power.

“He’s going to carry it off,” she says.

“I’m fucking glad he’s gay,” I say. Fuck. It was loud enough for everyone to hear. Dylan snaps his head around and everyone in our cluster turns to me. Nyla moves close and holds onto my arm. I don’t feel the urge to shake her off the way I did with Willow and every other girl I ever knew. I feel a different kind of urge and I’m not talking about the kind directed by my dick.

“What did you just say?” Dylan stares, insisting on an answer, an explanation and I hope to fuck that Jimmy is cool with this. Except I realize in a sudden lightbulb moment that his plan, which is now obvious to me, won’t work if Willow finds out. I talk in a low urgent voice.

“My brother is gay, but don’t you dare breathe a word. He needs to seduce Willow and—”

“I need to catch it all on video,” Dooley says, whipping his phone from his pocket as if it’s a six shooter. “Excuse me now while I get to work.”

Dylan is the first to burst into a howl of laughter, followed by Trey and Roman. Nyla giggles and holds tighter onto my arm.

“I need to play the injured girl to be consoled by the injured boy,” she says, spilling part two of the plan. “And then ultimately, when Jimmy takes off to Pennsylvania never to return, Dooley has clean up duty. He’s going to spin a story that will catch fire and go viral with such force that Willow won’t be able to undo the damage or re-write herself as the injured party.”

“You come up with all this in the last half hour?”

“No. True confession. Jimmy thought it all up. He wanted to… help you out of your spot.”

“Some big brother you have there,” Trey says.

“Yeah. You don’t know the half of it.” I give Dylan a wink and he nods. No one is going to know the other half of the big brother story. The one where I betrayed him by sleeping with his girl—although in truth all we did is sleep. And the one where he betrayed me by keeping from me for four years the fact that he’s gay and didn’t care if I did sleep with her.

Seriously messed up shit. But the thing is, I don’t feel messed up anymore. The fog of uncertainty and confusion about my place in the family is gone. And Nyla… there are possibilities for us I would never have considered before. I’m still hesitant after long years of ingrained distrust, but she’s different, isn’t she?

When Jimmy finally escorts Willow off the dance floor, he has a firm grasp on her and Nyla goes to work in her role, pretending to be outraged. I give Willow a glare and she unapologetically glares right back.

“I thought you said you wanted to go to the party with me?” I shout whisper in mock annoyance.

“Oh come on, don’t pretend you care,” she says. She has a point.

“I don’t care but it looks bad.”

“I don’t care how it looks,” she says, hands on hips as she turns away from me.

Bingo. I wink at Jimmy behind her back. He stays in character except for a tiny twitch in one corner of his mouth acknowledging the game.

“Let’s go for a walk, Willow. I want to get to know you better. Brick won’t mind. I get the feeling he doesn’t appreciate you.”

“What about me?” Nyla tries pushing aside Willow. Willow laughs at her and they both look to Jimmy for his answer. All of us watch him, waiting for what he’s going to say, knowing without a doubt it’s going to be dramatic and game changing.

“You? You’re the help, Nyla. That’s all you ever were really. Pretty, but hardly worthy of more than a fling.” He pauses a beat, giving her a convincing arrogant glare. “Maybe Brick is open to a fling. I have a feeling his date is going to be with me from now on.” Then with his arm wrapped firmly around Willow, her smile impossibly smug and wide, they take off heading for the back door of the building to the patio area. Nyla holds her look of hurt outrage until they’re out of sight and then burst into laughter.

I wrap my arms around her in a grateful hug.

“That was outstanding,” I kiss her hair as she hugs me back and I find my dick is equally outstanding. Shit. Get control. We’re in public.

Dooley rushes over to us, breathless. “I got it all on video. Now we need to stand by for part three.”

“What the fuck, Dooley?” Dylan slaps him on the back. “Isn’t this enough?” Dooley shakes his head.

“Not hardly. We can’t leave Jimmy holding the bag—literally—can we? We have an escape plan for him. He needs to find out about the video and pretend to be upset and tell her they need to leave. He says he’ll get his car and come around to pick her up.” He stops and I’m waiting like the others for the rest of it.

“That’s it?”