“And I see the smile getting even bigger,” Jay joked, a smirk on his face.
Ignoring the way his prying eyes seemed to try to read my thoughts, I cleared my throat. “Whatever,” I mumbled dismissively. “Anyway, I knew we were supposed to keep the guys distracted while Dakota looked for the keys to Trevor’s boat. And a few others stood lookout while Vivian retrieved whatever Trevor stole from Dakota during his prank on her. I didn’t really understand the point of why we were doing it, but it was supposed to be a bonding thing.” I took a second and considered how everything went down. “Even though she made it seem like it was house versus house, now that I’m thinking about it, everything we were doing revolved around Trevor.”
“Oh, I didn’t think Trevor was seeing Dakota anymore.”
“Dakota talks about that man and what sweet thing he does for her every single day. For the last couple of weeks, she’s been laying it on thick. Even while we were getting dressed to go to the party tonight, she told everyone how he had planned some romantic weekend for them next week.”
“Oh.” He shrugged as a confused look passed over his features.
My eyebrows furrowed. “What is that look? What do you know about UFIT’s reigning elite couple?” I was sure my sarcastic tone matched the look on my face. I already couldn’t stand Dakota, but after what happened earlier, I hated her.
He groaned and turned on his side, propping his head up with one hand. “Elitist, definitely. But there’s nothing elite about either of them.”
“Thank you!” I lifted my arms as high as I could. “Living with people who kiss Dakota’s ass has had me questioning mankind every day for a month. But what do you know?”
“I don’t know what’s going on with them for real. I just know that Trevor was at the gym screaming that it was over.”
My eyebrows flew up. “What?!”
“I was on the ground stretching so I don’t think they even knew I was there when they came in. They were already talking so I didn’t catch the beginning of the conversation, but”—he shook his head— “he told her that he was going to fuck whoever he wanted to fuck and there wasn’t a damn thing she was going to do about it. He accused her of being interested in someone in his fraternity and then he told her that he was done with her—”
“What?”
My mouth hung open as what Jay said conflicted with Dakota’s version of events. It wasn’t unusual for someone to embellish and make their relationship seem better than it was. But if they were broken up then what she had us go there to do wasn’t a prank—it was revenge.
“—and that he was fucking a better member of the squad anyway.”
“What?!” I screeched, doing my best to sit up straight. My body quickly reminded me of my night, and I slumped back against the pillows. Conversations swirled in my mind and I felt dizzy.
Jay pushed himself up quickly, reaching for my arm. “Hey, hey, careful.” His eyes looked like two dark brown pools of worry. “Are you okay?”
“When did this happen?” I asked quickly, my words tumbling out of my mouth. An unsettled feeling spiked my heartrate and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “When was this?”
“A couple of weeks ago.” Carefully, he moved to the head of the bed, never taking his eyes off me. “What’s going on?”
“I’m just…trying to wrap my mind around…” My sentence trailed off as I brought my hands to my temples and rubbed in a circular motion. “If Trevor broke up with Dakota, what happened wasn’t a prank gone wrong. It was on purpose.” I closed my eyes. “This shit is bad.”
“What happened?” Jay gently moved my head, turning it toward him.
I opened my eyes and exhaled shakily. My mind was already spinning and being that close to him didn’t help. But I couldn’t turn away without exerting energy I didn’t have. “I don’t know what happened.”
He sighed. “Brook…”
“No, I’m serious. I don’t know. We went to the PRO house around ten and we were all supposed to do our part at midnight because the guys would be mostly drunk by then. And then we were supposed to all meet on the front steps at one thirty. I didn’t drink because I was…” My sentence trailed off as I looked into his eyes.
I was nervous about talking to Aiden and I didn’t want to say anything stupid, so I just drank Coke from a red solo cup, I admitted silently.
Jay didn’t need to know that.
“I just didn’t drink,” I finished. “Aiden’s back was to the basement door, so he didn’t see it when Dakota appeared in the doorway holding up some keys before running off. I didn’t think anything of it because she was one of the three people who drove. But maybe five minutes later, there was a loud crash. Aiden and I ignored it and kept talking, but a few minutes later, we heard Dakota screaming. And then we smelled smoke, and everyone was screaming.”
“Smoke? As in the house was on fire?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe? We thought it was someone smoking in the house. But Dakota was screaming about how she hoped it was worth it and that Trevor was going to pay. Then she yelled ‘Now!’ and it sounded like total chaos. I heard other women laughing and then the door slammed. I told Aiden I didn’t like the sound of what was going on. I asked if things ever got violent there and he didn’t give me a
