That was what I figured since no one came. I eased hands inside my pockets.
“So there’s no one else I need to worry about?” he asked me again, straightforward. “Because I really don’t want to have to come down here and clean up more mess.”
I felt Royal’s gaze on me, well in the know that someone else was around. I told my buddy everything, but not only did he stay quiet, I did too. I shook my head. “No, sir. No one else.”
Grandfather faced Royal as if needing confirmation. He knew that I told him everything, and when Royal said nothing, my grandpa went back to his tea. Royal and I stayed there, silent as we watched one of the oldest members of Court enjoy his tea. As far as my grandpa was concerned, no one else beside Bryce and me were in that bedroom tonight. Because the alternative would be very, very bad. My grandpa didn’t just cover something up when he wanted something gone, he erased it.
Greer and her mom had been lucky to escape the first time.
A Few Days Later
Chapter Five
Greer
A nervous fucking wreck, my new MO when one of my roommates, Haley, popped her head into my bedroom. I literally jumped a foot full off the bed, sleeping when I heard the door open. I pulled the sheets down, and Hales was pouting.
“You all right, boo?” she asked, folding herself in. “You haven’t left this room like all week. The girls and I are starting to worry? Thinking about calling your mom?”
God fuck would that be a bad idea, even worse if my mom roped in my stepdad Ben. He was a cop, campus police actually.
I scrubbed into my hair, my demeanor cool, calm, and collected when I raised my legs under the sheets. At least, I tried to appear that way. I forced a grin. “I’m good. Just been stressed.”
“Stressed?”
Yeah, the epitome of, but since my experience the other night with a devil heir who was basically sex on legs was on the need to know, I forced my grin again. “I’m good. Don’t worry. Like I said, just stress. This whole college thing is new.”
Hales definitely got that. Premed, her coursework was insane and our other roommates, Keisha and Sophie weren’t much better off. They were pre-law if one could believe that, making me basically the laziest fuck in our entire living situation. I was undecided like most freshman, but with so many girls already preparing for their futures constantly swirling around me, I looked scatterbrained and unawares when it came to what I wanted to do with my life. That was made worse as of recently, the paranoia and not wanting to leave my room. Like Hales said, I basically hadn’t gone to classes all week.
Smiling at me, she bounced in with her little blond ponytail, dyed unlike mine. She kept asking about my stylist, but my pale colored locks just kind of came out that way, too lazy to do anything else. She hugged me. “Well, good. And my God, have you been secretive lately. Really, what happened with Bryce?”
Had she paid attention to anything but her books she might know Bryce Coventry, the guy I left that night at the club was dead. I knew the college knew because it was all over the Internet the next day. “Troubled Coventry heir kills himself. Are the burdens of college stress too much?”
They were for me, the fact I was in my bedroom and not on the way to my psych class apparent. I had that one first thing this morning.
I touched Hales’s hand. “Didn’t work out. Don’t think I’ll be dating for a while.”
“Ah, shame.” She pouted, putting her chin on my shoulder. “I really thought you’d get that one. He was pretty much sex on legs.”
I knew sex on legs. I knew dark brown eyes so captivating they were almost pretty. But there was nothing “pretty” about Knight Reed. Knight Reed was a bully. Knight Reed was a tool, and he also had a complete God complex. How else did he think pushing me around and telling me what I could or could not talk about that night would come across? He was also a snob and a half with his ritzy parties and the only reason I hadn’t said anything about that night was the same reason I was in here. He might be out there, watching me. After all, he had my phone number.
“Remember to be a good little dove.”
Those words haunted me, the text message gone but their meaning still lingering in my racing heart. He’d threatened me. Basically told me to shut up and keep my head down. I’d been doing that all week, and it would no doubt ultimately be the reason I squandered away the free tuition both Mom and Ben were getting me. They’d pulled a lot of strings to let me go to this expensive school and, in Mom’s case, even taken a crappy job. She was a janitor when she was way more qualified with her office work background. She could be working as an administrative assistant somewhere and only came here because Ben, her new husband, had gotten a job here as campus police. Even his work hadn’t been able to cover my schooling, so Mom too made the sacrifice to work here, for me.
Yeah, you gotta get your ass up today.
Deciding on that, I squeezed Hales’s arm, assuring her once again everything was fine and I actually was going to class today. This of course sent her through the roof, so driven like our other roommates. None of them really
