Her voice cracks as she fights the urge to cry. “If we were, you wouldn’t keep lying to me.”
“I’m not.” I insist.
“Bullshit. You’re in a race suit. They obviously not only told you, they gave you a bike so that you could race too.”
I can see why she would think that’s the case. “They didn’t, Heather. Chance and Lev had no idea that I knew they were racing.”
“But you obviously knew they were.” Ares says. “From the sound of it, this wasn’t Smith’s first race in Star Cove. Morellimust have seen you race before if he was so keen on having you race for him.”
There’s no reason not to tell the truth at this point. “Yeah. I raced twice before tonight.”
“So Chance and Lev told you,” Heather accuses me. “As usual, I was the only one who got left out.”
“They didn’t tell me.”
Chance’s blue eyes meet mine. “Heather, Zara is telling the truth. We kept the race a secret from her and from anyone who wasn’t involved. At first because this all started as a Gamma Delta Tau initiation task, so it was supposed to stay secret. Then, because we got blackmailed into racing and we didn’t want Zara or you to be any near people like Fox or Morelli.”
Lev backs him up. “Fox threatened to divulge our initiation video if we didn’t show up to race. It was a shitty enough situation. We didn’t want them to possibly have something else to threaten us with. But since Chance and I didn’t tell you,” he turns to look at me. “How did you know? Did you buy a ticket? JJ showed up pretty much immediately after our initiation night, so where did you get a bike?”
My eyes drift to my feet. I’m a little embarrassed. “I followed you. On initiation night, I was at the Zeta house. The Zeta president had us all camping out in the living room; everyone had pink sleeping bags.”
“I can only imagine.” Chance grins. “Did you girls get into a pillow fight and play ‘Never Have I Ever?’ and watch cheesy rom-coms?”
“How do you know about the pillow fight?” I ask, surprised by the accuracy of his description of Rush Night at the Zeta house.
Chance shakes his head, a chuckle rumbling from his chest. “I don’t. I was just thinking about every sorority movie Heatherhas forced us to watch over the years whenever she got to pick the movie on our movie nights.”
Heather isn’t in the mood for Chance’s ribbing tonight. She flips him off.
“Will the two of you knock it off?” Ares scolds them. “So, Zara, you were at the Zeta house sleepover on initiation night…”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went to the kitchen to grab something to eat but then changed my mind and decided to step out in the backyard for some fresh air. I heard some noises and hushed voices coming from the fence, and I saw a few men leaving the neighbors’ yard. I would have turned around and gone back to the sleepover, but I recognized Chance and Lev, so… I followed them.”
The guys look a little shocked. “You followed us through campus in the middle of the night?” Lev gasps. “We never saw anyone. We thought we were the only ones out at that time on a school night.”
“I just stayed a few steps behind; it wasn’t hard to hide in the darkness. But the point is, I saw what happened. I knew that Cal was blackmailing you, and I decided to race because I wanted to be there just in case you needed help.”
The tension in Heather’s shoulders eases off a little. “I get that. But why didn’t you tell me? You know you can trust me.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” I sigh. “Like Lev just said, I thought that if you didn’t know and our parents or anyone else asked you about it, you wouldn’t have to lie.”
Chance takes my hand in his, squeezing it to comfort me. “I understand. Lev and I aren’t mad at you, but I wish you had told us you were JJ.”
I pull my hand out of his hold when I notice that Heather is looking at us.
“Yes,” Lev agrees. “If you had told us that you were Smith, we would have never made that deal with Morelli. We would have protected you.”
“That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want you to have to worry about me, and I decided to race to make sure I could intervene if things went wrong.”
My boyfriend’s gaze softens. “You were trying to protect us?”
When he pulls me into his arms, I go willingly. “I would do anything for you.”
“You two are so cute.” Heather smiles. “Ok, since I wasn’t the only one you were keeping secrets from, you’re all forgiven. But don’t let that happen again, I mean it.”
Guilt twists my insides at the thought that we still aren’t being totally honest with her about our relationship.
I know we should tell her, and I think it would be received better if it came from me. But this isn’t the time or place to talk about it; and besides, I don’t know where I stand with Ares. We haven’t had a moment to talk after the fight we had earlier, and I’m sure that tonight’s events made the situation worse rather than better.
