The door leading downstairs is just off the kitchen. The smell hits me as soon as I take the first step. Weed and sex.
The basement of 1919 Hemphill is known as the Den of Misdeeds. It is also home to the legendary scoreboard. In a logical sense, I know that what Clover does with her body is none of my business. Maybe I wish it was my business or maybe it’s archaic or maybe I’m just a bad person, but I can’t stand the thought of anyone else’s hands on her, especially Tate’s. I can’t stand the thought of her down here in this basement with the kind of guys who always get exactly what they want.
It’s dark and hazy. An old Wexley Bears baseball scoreboard rests against the main wall, and where the innings would be listed are six names, two of which I don’t recognize. Beneath each name is a number, and Tate seems to be in the lead.
There are people on couches in half stages of undress. The Garcia kid watches two drunk girls wrapped in caution tape make out with a hand gripping his crotch, and just beyond him is Tate with a girl straddling his lap while another is passed out beside them both. I’m relieved to see that the girl’s hair is long, dark, and curly.
“Hey,” he says upon noticing me, the girl in his lap lazily licking at his neck. “Bennett Andrew Graves. I thought you were too good for 1919 Hemphill these days.”
“I’m looking for someone who came here tonight.”
“Lots of people in and out this evening,” he tells me as he bats the girl’s hand away from his chest. “Got a name? A picture?”
“You know who I’m here for. Clover. Where is she?”
The way his grin turns wolfish makes my stomach drop.
My hands clench into fists at my side. “You fucking shitbag. Has anyone ever told you how punchable your face is?” I ask him as I take a few steps closer. “Where is she?”
“Clover? She’s a real sweet one,” he tells me. “I’d never had a fat chick before and she’s pretty cute.”
I lunge toward him, and the girl on his lap clumsily slithers off just in time for me to gather his collar in my fist and yank him toward me.
He grins down at my left hand. “I thought her yappy little friend was kidding about the marriage thing. But look at you. A married man. I gotta admit, I’m shocked. You keep her on a pretty long leash, don’t you?”
I let go of his shirt with enough force to throw him back against the sofa. Tossing him around should make me feel better, but it does nothing to stop the anxiety clawing up my throat.
Tate makes a move to stand up, but I’m too close and towering over him. If I put a hand on him again, I can’t promise I won’t do something that will require legal representation. He leans back into the couch with his arms spread out across the tops of the cushions. “Does your little wifey know that you’ve slept around on campus so many times your dick might as well be communal property?”
He’s trying to bait me, but I’m not falling for it. “I swear to god, if you touched her, I will ruin you. Don’t think I won’t. The kind of money I have to play with makes your mother’s Silicon Valley divorce settlements look like pocket change. Now, where is she?”
He rolls his eyes. “Upstairs in my room.”
I leave him there and race up the steps, dodging a few lazy drunk bodies on the ground floor, and then up the dramatic staircase at the center of the house. Tate’s room is the third on the left and when I open the door, I find Clover sleeping on her stomach. Her foil outfit is in poor shape and it’s hard to say if that’s from wear or from Tate’s grubby-ass hands.
She’s wearing a pink set with little red cherries, and because I have absolute perversion for her, I can’t help but catalog that fact.
“Chill out, man,” Tate says from behind me. “She passed out up here like thirty minutes ago. I was going to let her sleep it off for a while.”
I turn on him and slam his body against the wall just outside his door with my forearm pressing into his neck.
He tries to roll his eyes, but he can hardly mask his panic as he sputters, his cheeks turning red, and so I push even harder into his throat. “We danced,” he coughs out. “Probably would have gotten further if I’d had more time with her.”
“That won’t be happening again.” I pin him with a grunt, the back of his head cracking against the wall, before letting him fall. “How did you meet her?”
He rings a hand around his neck while he catches his breath. “We have pottery together.”
“Not anymore. Drop the class. Get into another section. I don’t fucking care.”
“Yeah, not gonna happen.”
“Listen, you fucking piece of shit, I’m sure you plan on applying for the Bailey & Parsons prelaw internship next summer.”
He says nothing, which tells me all I need to know. The Bailey & Parsons internship is the ultimate get for Wexley prelaw students,and the Graves family also keeps them on retainer. “Should I call Bailey or Parsons?” I ask, holding my phone up. “I have both of them right here in my contacts. Or you know what? I could just wait to see them at my mother’s New Year’s Eve party.”
His lips purse, and he’s unable to hide that he’s seething.
“You think I’m bluffing?” I ask. “Try me. I would fucking love that.”
