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The question had been bugging me all day.

“None of your fucking business.” The words came out pillow-muffled. “And don’t worry. It was a mistake. I won’t be here after tomorrow.”

I shrugged, disappointed but not surprised. “Good. More privacy for me.”

He sat up in an instant, pushing the pillow aside, and glared at me. “As if you need it. Didn’t seem to keep you from fucking your girlfriend right in front of me.”

I scoffed before spitting into the sink. “Girlfriend. You’re funny.”

“God, you suck.” He huffed and threw himself back down.

I rinsed my mouth and the sink before yanking off my pants and sliding into bed in my boxer briefs. “Sometimes. If you’re lucky. ’Night, princess.”

“Fuck off.”

Just for that, I left the lamp on.

All night long.

3

BETT

Almost two weeks later, I was still sharing a room with the menace.

The situation had gotten so bad, I’d tried wheedling my teammates into giving up their beds for a night, but that was a bust.

“You can’t crash in our rooms, bro. There are, like, rules about overnight guests. In the lease, I mean.” Garrett eyed Marcus. “Right?”

“Yeah. That’s the rule.” Marcus gave me a sorry, what can you do shrug. “What the fuck was your dad thinking, huh? This sucks for you.”

I bit my tongue to keep from snapping, No shit.

I understood my friends not wanting to fuck up their lease, but I also wanted to scream that I was the one who’d gotten us this rental just behind the frat house. I was the one who’d convinced the landlord to rent to us, when every student on campus was dying to live on Calhoun Street. It had been my fucking idea.

And no one seemed to care about respecting the terms of the lease when it came to the clause about quiet hours, since our brothers seemed to come and go from the frat house constantly, like the place was a nonstop party.

Two nights ago, when Vaughn had brought not one but two people back to our room to fuck, I’d gotten up and walked out. Came straight here and made a nest for myself in the living room recliner while the party raged around me. No one had even noticed.

But I couldn’t do that tonight. The common areas here were never quiet, and I was already sleep-deprived from last night, when Vaughn had brought a guy home and fucked him on all fours for what seemed like hours.

His bisexuality hadn’t been nearly as surprising as my reaction.

“Take it,” he’d growled. “Fucking take my cock. Just like that. Good boy.”

The sound of his grunting and the way the smaller guy underneath him had whimpered and begged for more had been like ants under my skin.

Fire ants.

Or the South American bullet ants I’d once had to do a paper on in middle school. The kind whose sting caused intense, long-lasting pain and even paralysis.

I’d frozen in shock, unable to stop hearing the ways Vaughn had taken that poor kid apart until he was sobbing and begging.

“Fuck!” I snapped for the millionth time this week, pressing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets to disrupt the mental tape playing on a continuous, dirty loop. “My father is an asshole.”

“So call him,” Garrett suggested.

“Yes!” Marcus pointed his game controller at me. “Apologize. Beg if you have to. I once crashed my Lambo, and my dad made me drive his assistant’s Prius for two whole months. But I manned up, said sorry, took my mom to lunch, and he gave it back. Maybe try that.”