“Shit,” I whisper.
No one moves. No one speaks.
But something deep down tells me that I just bit off more than I can chew.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ALEX
I’ve barely spoken to Sam since my idiotic move after practice. But now, I’m standing outside her dorm waiting for her to open up.
The door swings open just as I raise my fist to knock one more time.
“Alex.” Gracie frowns at me. “What are you doing here?”
I shove the rolled-up pages in my left hand into my pocket. “Sam. Is she here?”
A second later, Sam exits their bathroom. She isn’t looking up, her attention focused on the bracelet she’s attempting to slap into place.
“Gracie. I need to run off campus for a few—” Sam pauses the moment she looks up and her eyes land on me. “Alex?”
With her brows knitted tight, she glances from me to Gracie.
“What are you doing here?”
Gracie watches us, a suggestive grin slowly forming on her lips. “I’m going to give you two a minute.”
Gracie and I turn and slip past each other, trading places at the threshold. I catch a glimpse of Gracie pinning Sam with a very animated questioning look before she walks off. When I look back at Sam, she’s still holding on to the unclasped bracelet.
I step farther into the room, closing the door behind me without taking my eyes off her. As we stare at each other, I step forward. Every instinct in my body tells me that being in her space is the kind of intimacy that’ll only get me in trouble.
The last time I got too close, the last time I breathed in her scent, I ended up with a constant hard-on for a girl who’s made it very clear she’d never let me touch her again unless I begged. The same girl I caught practically riding my very shy, very brutish best friend’s thigh.In my house, mind you.
Seeing that affected me more than I care to admit. Sam is the only girl who has ever gotten in my head, the first girl to truly reject me. And I don’t mean the kind of denial where you play hard to get to not seem so easy. She genuinely seems to despise me. But she likes Bryden, though?
Honestly, I’m not even all that mad, because I get it. She gets to you, and once you’ve let her in, involuntarily or not, that’s it. She’s a fucking siren. Didn’t care to have it right in my face under my own roof, but I get it.
Kane didn’t seem too keen on it either. He didn’t say anything, but with how tight his jaw was, I’d say she’s gotten to him, too. But before Mountain told us to get out, I noticed the way Kane looked at her. He stared like he wanted to bite her and fuck her at the same time.
Get in line, bro.
I step closer, no words between us as I reach out and take her wrist into my hands. Sam keeps her eyes trained on me while I work to fasten the hook for her.
“I thought I was meeting you in the parking lot?” she asks, forcing me out of my daze.
Pulling the scroll from my pocket, I hold it out to her. Sam stares at it, confusion forming. “I figured it’s better that I talkabout this here rather than out in public. You said you couldn’t find out why my dad’s name was on your scholarship stuff, so I looked into it.”
“You didn’t have to do this.”
I smile. “I know. But I wanted to, and it’s the least I can do.”
“Alex—” she starts, but I hold up a hand to stop her.
“Sam. I was a dick before, and you didn’t deserve that.”
The lines around her eyes seem to soften with that, a silent appreciation. She focuses back on the page, and hers grow wide.
“You were right.” I pause and Sam paces. “My dad definitely had something to do with it. Scholarships, award letters, anything that pertains to that, come from the financial department, but not yours. There wasn’t much that I could find, not on his work computer. I’d have to sneak into his home office. Check his personal computer.”
