I press my hand to my lips and blow him a kiss, warning him with my eyes that this isn’t the end of us.
“See you on the field, DuPont!” I shout, earning the attention of everyone within earshot.
“Looking forward to it, Davenport.” He chuckles, tucking Delaney’s hair behind her ears as she twirls her head to me.
Blue eyes, crystal clear as the prettiest skies, draw me in, taking pieces of me I didn’t know I have left to give. One single look and I’m done for. The sad part is I think she knows it.
It’s too late, though.
We’ve been through too much, seen horrific things in each other’s presence, and to try to continue life as normal would be nearly impossible. When we look at each other, we see the other’s soul, reflecting the night that changed us.
Blood and fear have left a nasty stain.
Chapter Two
Delaney
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened that night?” Tripp tosses me a t-shirt.
The question is from left field, yet somehow isn’t that big of a surprise. I’ve never been an open book to most people, but when it comes to that night, I’m more closed off than I’ve ever been. That won’t stop Tripp from trying to dig it out of the parts of my soul I prefer to keep locked tight.
We’ve been at his dorm for close to thirty minutes. The ride to Hollow Hill Academy campus was spent in silence. Whatever happened tonight, we are trying to pretend like it didn’t. It’s safer that way.
Tripp and I are on unsteady ground. He has been thrust into my life by his parents’ association with my father. That alone is enough reason to keep my distance from him. Our worlds are intertwined in an impossible loop. In a moment of weakness and havoc, when I was vulnerable, he swooped in and figured out a way to help me out of the fog.
Christmas at the Chambers’ estate is an event. We’ve always gone above and beyond with lavish parties and decorations. It started with my mother, but in her absence this year, the responsibility fell on my shoulders. I took on the task like a busy bee, buzzing around the house barking orders.
Tripp found me in the middle of a fit after he returned from skiing. His hair was frosted with flakes of snow and his cheeks rosy from the wind. He waltzed into the kitchen, demanded a cup of coffee from one of our staff, and left the room. One thing I’ve learned from watching my mother is to treat the staff as if the roles could be reversed at any time.
I rolled my eyes as I grabbed the cup of coffee and stormed out of the kitchen, cursing his name at his heels. He grinned.
“I was wondering when I’d grab your attention,” Tripp says.
“You were purposefully rude to the housekeeper to make me notice you? That’s pathetic, not to mention, a bit elitist of you. I don’t care who you are or how much money you have, we don’t talk to the staff like that.” I hold out the cup for him to take.
“Oh, I don’t drink coffee.”
“So, this was for nothing?”
“No, you seemed like you needed it, but you were too busy to think about yourself, so now you have it.” He winks. He fucking winks at me. He thinks he’s real smooth.
“I don’t like you.”
“You will. Give it some time.”
“How long will you be staying with us, again?” I cup the hot mug between my hands, loving the heat on my skin.
“Campus is shut down for the holidays, so until after the New Year, and then I’ll be out of your hair, but something tells me you’ll miss me, Laney.” He nods his chin at the cup of steaming coffee. “Drink up and learn to chill out. You’ll kill yourself trying to make this perfect.” His finger dances around the foyer with three Christmas trees adorned with gold and silver ornaments.
“Where’d you go?” Tripp bends down and tugs the dress from my body, replacing it with the t-shirt in my hand.
“Away for a bit.” I smile to reassure him, something I find myself doing more often than not these days. “And I’m not ready to talk about that night.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be ready?” He sits down beside me on the end of his bed.
“If I talk about it, it makes it more real. There are things I’d be happy to erase from my memory forever. That night is on the top of the list.”
“That night is part of your story. There’s no getting away from that. Those people at that school are engrained into you like a scar.”
“Those people are my people,” I argue.
“I’m not trying to diminish what they mean to you, but I’d be lying if I say the relationship you have with Marek and Breaker makes me uncomfortable.”
“First of all, Marek is madly in love with my best friend, Palmer. He’s simply protective of me because of what we went through. I need people like that in my life.”
“Yes, Palmer, the girl who got you into this whole mess.”
“No, that’s not what happened in the slightest.”
“And don’t get me started with Breaker Davenport. He’s as low as they come.” I hate how he’s so willing to dismiss my history to prove his own point.
“I think I’m going to head to campus.” I slide off the bed to search for my dress, but he grabs my hand and jerks me down again, pinning me to the mattress.
My vision tightens, narrowing into a black hole. It may be Tripp’s body on top of me, but what I see, the only thing I smell, is Declan Dumas. Oh no. It’s happening again.
“Get off me!” I yell and thrash around, jerking my wrists to gain a little leverage to throw the weight off my chest. “Stop, don’t do this!”
Once I’m finally free, I rush up and across the room, putting enough
