It doesn’t matter, I can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s about to back down.
Whether or not the allegation is even true doesn’t matter. Bridget is every bit as powerful on this campus as her brother is because money talks and she has an equal amount of it.
If only Sterling was here to make even them look like paupers, well then, maybe we’d have at least some leverage. But as it is, I suddenly become keenly aware of just how loud my speeding heartbeat is pounding in my ears.
“What do we do?” I whisper to Warren with a look of panic on my face. “She can’t find me in here with you.”
“I know that,” he says, his own voice betraying a tone of urgency that just makes my heart beat even faster.
He looks around to see where I can hide, but the dorm room is literally one open rectangular space. Even the wardrobe doesn’t have any doors on it. There’s no way for me to get out of the room without running straight into Bridget and having her see that I was in Warren’s room with him alone.
“Here,” Warren said as he lifts up the blanket that is hanging down alongside the bedframe. A cloud of dust bunnies flies up when he lifts the blanket.
“You want me to go under the bed?” I ask.
He shrugs because we both know there isn’t any other place to hide. I drop down on the floor and lay on my back, then scoot myself under the bed while cursing myself inwardly. I should have laid on my stomach. It would have made this whole thing a lot easier.
To say it’s a tight fit is an understatement. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic, though after this experience, I might be.
Warren drops the blanket back down just before his door opens and I can hear the heels of Bridget’s boots stomp into the room. Even her footsteps sound like trouble coming. He sits down on the bed with his feet blocking the crawlspace right next to me. I try to breathe as silently as I can, and hope that I don’t sneeze due to all of the dust under the bed.
“Where are your books?” she says to him in a highly agitated tone of voice.
“What books?”
“Your advisor says that you are in here studying for exams, but I don’t see any books.”
Uh oh.
I can’t see anything from under the bed, but I can hear enough from her voice to know that her level of suspicion has now exceeded a mere casual curiosity. She knows that Warren is lying.
“What are you, the exam police now?” Warren asks with some serious snark before turning the question around on her. “I don’t see you studying either. Didn’t mom say that you needed to pull up your grades this semester too?”
Bridget huffs and his comment has apparently worked well enough to at least take some of the heat off of him for the moment.
“What are you doing here anyway?” he asks. “And why are you hassling my resident advisor? That poor guy hasn’t done one thing wrong his whole life. The threat you made against him is totally empty.”
“I didn’t hassle him,” she says with an air of entitlement. “I came to ask if you, Sterling, and Chase wanted to come with me and the girls tonight to a party.”
“What party?”
“One of the other dorm buildings is hosting a holiday party and I want to go,” she says. “Don’t tell me that you’ve been so preoccupied with that atrocious Aubrey that you’ve forgotten that the holidays are coming up. Which, by the way, also reminds me that we need to get mom and dad a holiday gift before the winter break.”
“Bridget, the winter break is still a few weeks away.” Warren sounds impatient and I wonder if he is worrying about the fact that I can barely breathe under this bed or if he is worrying about having to go home over the winter break.
I hadn’t even thought about the break yet. It’ll just be another extended time period that I’ll be alone on campus again … but this time for more than a single week. A few months ago, I would have gladly welcomed a few weeks of solitude to get away from the madness of Ridgecrest.
But now, these days, the thought of being alone without Warren, Chase, or Sterling … I dread it.
“You never plan ahead for anything,” Bridget continues scolding. “It’s a miracle that you’ve even made it this far in life. If it weren’t for me, you’d never have your assignments turned in on time, and mom and dad would have disowned you by now for forgetting their birthdays every year.”
Sheesh. I knew she and Warren had a … complicated … relationship to say the least, but the way she hurls abuse at him, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to strangle her yet.
“Actually,” he says. “I did plan for something.”
I don’t actually hear anything, but if it were possible to hear the sound of a condescending look, I’m pretty sure that Bridget is giving him one right now.
“I was going to ask you later today if you would like to go with me to the gala,” he says sweetly. I can tell that he’s laying it on thick to get her off his case with everything else.
“Like as your date?” she asks.
“Yeah, I thought that you would enjoy going to it. It’s supposed to be a pretty lavish event and you like parties more than anyone I know.”
“I figured you’d be asking some hot girl that you wanted to try to land
