Rich Prick – Tijan Page 0,115

was expected of me. I lived alone, enjoying to keep my own place free of distractions like when others were studying or partying. Now that I was back playing soccer, I needed to be razor sharp on my focus. Aspen. Zeke. Soccer. School. Those were my priorities, for the most part. There were other annoying distractions, like Cross, but that was neither here nor there right now. So far I hadn’t run into them too much, though I knew they’d attended my games a few times. Cross sent a couple texts congratulating me.

That’d been a different surprise. I still didn’t know if I liked it or not. So far, it was a ‘stay tuned’ sort of deal.

“There’s a guy that was macking on someone he shouldn’t have.”

I knew who he was talking about. I saw him, saw the girl too.

He was eyeing me.

Yeah. We both knew the girl.

He asked, “Are you going to say anything?”

I let out a breath. Fuck. I’d kept clear from any drama since starting school. Getting involved with my brother’s crew, not something I wanted to voluntarily step into. I lifted up a shoulder. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, Harper’s causing problems since.”

I didn’t normally see Zeke like this. He was mostly smiling, albeit sometimes his smiles were dirty and aimed at scoping out females, but he was mostly in a good mood since coming to college. I rather thought he enjoyed the break from school, or the pressure of our last school. He was already known on campus, but it wasn’t the same deal as it’d been at Fallen Crest Academy. Zeke was able to be like any other fraternity brother. Partying. Enjoying life. Women. He’d also changed since his ‘punishment’ from his dad. He was more cautious with things, so hearing his concern now, my stomach dipped.

Anger was starting to rumble.

I wasn’t just protective of my girl.

“What kind of problems?”

Zeke’s jaw clenched. He shoved his phone in his pocket, reaching for his keys. “Throwing his weight around.” He shook his head, eyeing me again. “I gotta tell you something and you’re going to lose it when I do.”

I frowned. “What?” Alarm slithered down my spine.

I really did not like that look from him. Zeke was never scared to tell me something, and he was hesitating now.

“You know Aspen’s in my bio class.”

Fuck. I was really not liking this now.

My teeth were starting to grind against each other. “Finish it. Just fucking tell me.”

“Harper’s in that class, and he was saying a few things about Aspen yesterday.”

“You’re just now telling me this shit?”

What. The. Fuck?

He grimaced. “I know. I know! But, shit. I had words with him. I thought it was done, except…” His phone buzzed from his pocket.

And buzzed again.

And again.

Again.

It kept buzzing.

Zeke didn’t move to look at it. He wasn’t moving to look at me either. He was frozen, staring out my window, his jaw clenching over and over again.

A dark feeling took root in me.

It was low, and it was spreading.

Alarm was spiking all through me.

“Let me see your phone.”

Zeke didn’t answer. He also didn’t move to get his phone.

“Zeke.” I showed him my teeth. They were clenched too. “Your fucking phone. Now.”

His eyes closed, and he cursed under his breath, reaching for his phone. He handed it over, and I put his password in. Yeah. He didn’t know I saw him put it in, but too bad.

I was pulling up the messages, seeing it was all coming from a group text.

Scrolling up, I was ignoring what the others were saying, looking for the origin, and then I got it.

The world went black. Murderous.

My vision was fraying at the edges and I was locked in, right in. I was staring at an image of one of Aspen’s early modeling gigs.

HarpAss: fucking hot, bro! Your boy gets to plow this bitch whenever he wants to? Sign me up!

Deke: I want a turn.

Abe: Get in line!

Hankinson: Meow.

Doehing: I want that pussy.

I was gone. Done. Every fucking one of these guys was going to hurt, and not giving one shit about Zeke, I clicked the video call.

I held the phone up, letting them see my face. Zeke saw what I was doing and lunged for me. “No!”

I waved him off, then someone accepted my call.

Harper. I remembered his smarmy little face now.

“Hey, asshole.”

His eyes got big, but he tried to cover. “Phone said Zeke was calling—”

My tone went low and I wanted him to see what I was going to do. I wanted all of them