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And then there were the nightmares.

Three times in the past five weeks, his whimpers had woken me up, and his body had only relaxed when I’d put a hand on him and whispered reassurances in the dark. Those nights, his unconscious body had betrayed him to me, confirming he wasn’t as put together as he wanted people to think.

And that I was someone his body trusted.

The knowledge ate at me. Chewed right through my longtime disdain for him and made me question who the fuck Bett McNeely really was.

I had too much knowledge of him now.

Enough to have more curiosity than spite toward him, especially since Grace had almost made it through school without the fucking Hawthorne Fellowship.

And now that I’d seen cracks in the pretty boy’s Ken-doll facade, I couldn’t unsee them.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Dalton shouted from under the hood of a Ford F-150. “Great stop. Fucking beast.”

My jaw had been clenched all day since I’d forgotten my headphones. Instead of losing myself in music as I always did when working in the garage, I’d been forced to listen to the Demere Blues go up against TLU. The team was up in Nashville today, playing in the Titans’ stadium as part of some big festival weekend. So far, we seemed to be winning easily, but Dalton had spent the afternoon shouting as if we were on the verge of losing the Super Bowl.

McNeely had hit every kick he’d come out for today, and his only missed field goal for the season was the one from the season opener. Every commentator said our star kicker was on fire.

But I noticed there was rarely a reference to the guy without someone adding a comment about his father’s upcoming Senate race.

There’d been two more times in the past month when he’d had to leave for a campaign event with his family. And both times had been followed by the nightmares to the point I’d wondered if I should say something to the guy.

But I wasn’t even sure he was aware he was having the bad dreams, so I stayed out of it. He’d only be even more pissed at me than he was, and who needed that shit? Not me.

“What’s going on with McNeely?” Dalton asked me half an hour later when the radio had blessedly changed back to classic country. He focused on wiping grease off his hands while the slanted rays of the setting sun found streaks of dark red in his brown hair and beard. The color of it reminded me of my mother.

“What do you mean? His kicking’s on fire. You said so yourself.”

He waved a shop rag in the air before tossing it into a nearby bin. “No, I mean, have you asked him to spread the word to his friends about the fights? That’s the whole reason you’re rooming with the guy.”

I rolled out from under the old Chevy Malibu and stared at him. “What?”

Dalton’s muscular forearms popped from the tight NASCAR T-shirt he wore as he crossed his arms in front of his broad chest. “I agreed to put four new tires on Penny Kimball’s minivan if she hooked you up with a rich roommate. McNeely wasn’t my first choice because of the media on the kid, but I figure he’s got plenty of rich friends who want to put action on the fights.”

My mom’s friend Penny worked in the housing office at Demere. Why had it never occurred to me that Dalton would engineer this?

“I can’t believe you fucking did that, man.”

He grinned. “I know, right? Genius.”

I dropped my chin to my chest and blew out a breath to keep from jumping up and throttling the guy. “You don’t want that kid at the Pit, Dalton. Are you kidding? Imagine the press.”

“You’re not hearing me. Not him. His friends. I want them at the Pit.”

“That’s not how it works. How am I supposed to get him to bring his friends but not himself, asshole?”

“Hey. Watch it.” He uncrossed his arms and scratched his neck under his beard. He was starting to get gray hairs here and there. “I don’t know, maybe… maybe say something like, ‘Hey, if you ever want to put action on the fights, let me know. I know you can’t get caught at the Pit, but I can hook your friends up.’ Something like that?”

I pressed my lips together to keep from barking out a laugh. “Not happening. That’s like waving a red flag in front of this asshole. He’d show up alone just to spite me. And I’m not taking his bets. You know I don’t have anything to do with the money. That’s part of the deal.”

He rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know who raised you to be such a church lady, because it sure as shit wasn’t me.”

Neither one of us stated the obvious. That my mother would have smacked the crap out of him for involving me in his cage fight scheme in the first place.

But then again, if Mom had still been alive, Grace and I would have gotten discounted tuition for kids of staff and faculty.

It was something I knew Dalton felt bad about, but not so bad he wasn’t willing to find a solution that was a win-win for him as much as Gracie and me.