“Jealous of you?” Lola sneers. “Why would I ever be jealous of you?”
“I don’t know,” I say, moving to pass her again. “Maybe you just can’t stand to see someone else happy—”
This time Lola shoves me hard in the chest so I stumble back a step.
“And why are you so happy, exactly?” she demands. “ ‘Cause of your new boyfriend? You don’t actually think he likes you?”
Now she’s really starting to piss me off. My hands ball into fists, my nails cutting into my palms.
“Just because he likes fucking you doesn’t mean he gives a shit about you . . .” Lola hisses. “I saw you chasing after him like a lost puppy, carrying his books to class . . . He’s using you because you’ll do whatever he says. When he’s tired of you, he’ll throw you away. And you’ll be back to the lonely little loser you always were all along.”
“You don’t know anything about Dean and me,” I spit back at her.
Lola laughs.
“I know everything,” she says. “It’s plain as day. You’re the only one who can’t see it.”
With that, she shoves past me, heading for her room.
I cross campus alone, her words still ringing in my ears.
I do think Lola is jealous. With the exception, perhaps, of the Paris Bratva, Leo Gallo’s group is the most popular at our school. Lola resents my place at their table.
But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.
Dean’s and my relationship started in a highly unorthodox way. How can I be sure how much of our connection is sexual chemistry, and how much is something more?
Dean said he loved me. But he had just heard the news of what happened to his father.
He might only be attached to me because he has no one else.
I climb the cracked stone steps of the Bell Tower, a host of unpleasant thoughts swirling around in my head.
Dean is already waiting for me at the top. He seizes me and kisses me wildly, like it’s been weeks since we saw each other.
Even the kiss fails to comfort me. I don’t know how to discern between passion and love.
I feel low all the following week.
I shouldn’t let Lola get to me, but the more I’m falling for Dean, the more I realize how miserable I’ll be if this thing between us ends.
I’ve put myself in a precarious position.
After being with him, how could I care about anyone else?
Who else could seem handsome, compared to Dean? Who else has a voice that sounds like sandpaper and silk, that vibrates on just the right frequency to make my whole body thrum?
Who could love or hate with his level of passion?
I’m in way over my head.
I’m crazy about Dean, and it terrifies me.
I don’t know how to tell him how I feel, or better yet, how to show him. These are uncharted waters. I’ve never even had a boyfriend before—I skipped the training wheels and went straight to the Harley.
Until I figure it out, I’m trying to avoid Lola so she doesn’t fuck with my head any further.
I’m heading down the stairs of the Keep to our Security Systems class when I hear her coming up from the opposite direction, talking loudly with Dixie Davis. Their derisive laughter rings off the stone walls.
Not wanting to convene with them in the hall, I make an about-face and run up instead, all the way to the top floor.
I had planned to run down the long, carpeted hallway outside the Chancellor’s office, then descend the opposite staircase. Instead, the Chancellor’s door cracks open, and I dart into the nearest niche in the wall, crouching down behind a large and rather ugly Grecian urn.
The move is instinctive, driven by a desire to avoid being seen by Luther Hugo. I don’t realize that he’s accompanied by someone else until I hear a low female voice saying, “You’re the one who let him come here.”
“I had no choice,” Hugo hisses. “It would have looked stranger if I didn’t.”
Peeking around the edge of the urn, I see Miss Robin’s brilliant red hair trailing down the hallway alongside the Chancellor’s broad back.
There’s nothing unusual about the librarian visiting her uncle. Except for the complete lack of affection in either of their voices.
“He doesn’t know anything,” Miss Robin says, haughty and dismissive.
“You’d better hope he doesn’t,” the Chancellor snaps back at her.
“If you honestly think—”
They’re getting too far away for me to hear. I lean out a little further, trying