Making Mistakes: A College Bully Romance (Playing Games Book 2)

by Candace Wondrak

  That was…not what I expected, and that was putting it lightly.

  “Her mom seems weird,” I muttered, moving to set her phone on her nightstand near her TV. “She said she’d handle it from here, whatever that means.”

  Levi finally got out of bed, wearing nothing but boxers. His erection had mostly gone away, and he ran a hand through his brown hair. No one looked as good with bedhead as he did. “I never met her parents, but she never spoke of them kindly, so I can imagine they’re not very nice people.” His feet drew him to me, and I let him wrap his arms around me, pressing my face against his bare chest.

  I closed my eyes, momentarily losing myself in his arms. If we could stop time, if we could pretend the world didn’t exist for just these few seconds, that would be great. As it turned out, the world was a shitty place, and shitty things happened left and right, and there was nothing you could do about them. You couldn’t stop them. The only thing you could do was stand there and survive.

  Mel…I had to make sure that girl survived.

  I had to make sure she got retribution for this.

  With that thought, I pulled away from Levi, going back to her phone. I plugged it into its charger and leaned on the edge of her bed, deciding to do a little digging. She had to have seen the video, somehow, whether it was online or through a text. I knew she’d blocked Dean’s number, but there were ways around everything.

  I clicked on her messages first, and the very first message I saw was from a number not stored in her phone. After clicking on it, I saw that the unknown number forwarded a video to her—the video of Mel and Levi together.

  Fuck.

  I couldn’t watch that, not if I wanted to keep my sanity, so I hit the home button fast, before the video could start playing. If I had to guess, Dean texted the video to one of his frat buddies, and he got his friend to forward the video to her, since he had to have known by now Mel blocked his number.

  That damned guy. He had to get his, I would see to it.

  Once again, I set down the phone, turning to look at Levi. He’d reached for his shirt and put it on, hiding his muscular body from me. “We have to do something,” I told him.

  His blue eyes looked at me. “Do what? Mel’s already in the hospital.”

  “Not about her, about him.”

  That was all Levi needed to know who I was talking about: “Dean.”

  I nodded. “Yep. That motherfucker is going to get what’s coming to him, but it has to be good. We have to do it right. I want that bastard to never go one day in his life without thinking of how shitty he is for what he did.”

  Levi bent over to grab his jeans on the floor. “That’s a tall order. I don’t think Dean ever realizes how shitty of a person he is.”

  “He will, by the time I’m done with him.” I studied Levi, watching silently as he shoved one leg into his pants and then the other. “You are going to help, aren’t you?” Didn’t know why I momentarily doubted him, but I did. Maybe because he and Dean were a part of the same fraternity, maybe because Levi had let misunderstandings and lies come between us before.

  “Of course I am,” he said, giving me an annoyed look. “I’ve been coming up with a plan for a while now.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. Felt a little strange to be half-naked while Levi was almost fully dressed, but I was too damn curious to move. “Oh, yeah? And what plan is that?”

  “I…I don’t know yet. I asked my mom for some extra cash to buy some small cameras—”

  “To beat Dean at his own game?” I asked, so far not impressed.

  “Yeah, I guess. I haven’t had the chance to plant any yet, because almost anytime I’m there, Dean is home.”

  It was my turn to run a hand through my hair, only my hair was longer and much knottier, so they got pretty tangled real fast. “So you want to set up the cameras in his room, just like he did with you?”

  Fighting fire with fire sometimes worked, but in other cases the original fire only grew exponentially larger.

  “You assume he’ll do something that we can use?” I asked, and Levi nodded. “How about this—I get him out of his room so you can set those cameras up.”

  Levi’s brows came together. “How? I doubt he’s going to want to see the girl that kidney-punched him.” As he spoke the last few words, he grinned. Yeah, I was still kind of proud of that.

  “If I mention Mel, I’m sure he’ll drop everything to talk to me. I’ll meet with him in the union, and I’ll text you when he leaves. That should give you plenty of time to find some places, right?” Distract Dean, talk to him about Mel, all while Levi did the dirty work in his room. He’d have to make sure no one else in the house saw him enter or leave Dean’s room, but beyond that, he had the easy job.

  Me? What the fuck was I supposed to say to distract Dean for more than a minute? I hated that fucker, and I didn’t want to talk to him about Mel at all, but Mel was the only leverage we had on him, and I doubted he knew about what happened.

  “Probably,” Levi said.

  “Then that’s the plan.”

  I got Dean’s number from Levi, feeling somewhat satisfied with our plan. I had no idea what dirt those cameras would dig up on Dean, but there had to be something. If he was going to play dirty, so were we. I wasn’t going to take his antics lying down. Mel was in the hospital, so this was as serious as a situation could get.

  By the time Mel woke up, Dean would be on his knees, begging for mercy.

  Would he get mercy? Was I the kind of person who forgave and forgot? No, no I was not. I held grudges, and this grudge would never go away, even after Dean got his comeuppance. Never claimed to be a good person, never said I wanted to be. I’d be better with Levi, but when it came to that fuckface and what he did?

  Hell no. I’d be the bitch of bitches, and I’d make sure to kick him when he was down.

  Figuratively, I mean.

  Mostly figuratively.

  Chapter Fourteen – Levi

  We waited until the next day, until after lab. Kelsey and I played it cool anytime we were in public together, because if one of my frat brothers saw us together, they’d know something was going on. That, or they’d tell Dean, and then our chances of revenge would be slimmer than they already were.

  The problem I had with this place was simply because Dean had been doing this for so long, he was careful. He knew what to do and when to do it, and he had most of Sigma Chi on his side. I had no one but Kelsey on my side, because I never tried making friends, never cared enough to. I didn’t smile and talk to them all like Dean did. Sure, I played a game of basketball with them every now and then—though I stopped doing that a while ago—but that was it, the extent of me being a part of Sigma Chi this year.

  Last year had been enough. I should have told my mom I didn’t want to be a part of the fraternity any more, but the fact that she was paying for my schooling gave me pause.

  But it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t. If getting back at Dean meant that I would no longer be a part of Sigma Chi, then so be it—and if that meant my mom got so upset with me she pulled my tuition, I’d just be like ninety percent of the other students here and take out the loans. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, and I’d have Kelsey by my side. There wasn’t anything else I could ask for.

  I stood in the kitchen, trying to make myself look busy. My phone rested on the counter near me, and I fiddled with mixing something. I’d just gotten back from my bio lab, and the plan was a go. Kelsey would text Dean the moment I told her he’d left the house to go to the rec. As long as one of us had eyes on him, we both knew where he was. During their basketball games at the rec, most of the other guys in the house would be gone as well. It was the perfect time.

  The moment Dean left the house, I’d text Kelsey, and she’d contact him. I would have to wait until I got confirmation from her that she saw him walking up before I actually went in his room and did what I had to do.

  I only hoped I was as good at hiding tiny cameras as Dea
n was. That was apparently a skill he was obscenely good at.

  Ever since discovering the camera in my room, it was hard not to act like I knew it was there. Of course, when I found it, I acted like my eyes scanned right over it, not seeing it, pretended I was just looking for something on my messy desk. I hoped I was a good actor, but I guessed you never really knew when it came to these things.

  Fucking Dean. I wanted to fuck him up all over again.

  My ears heard a bunch of footsteps coming down the stairs behind me, and I threw a quick look over my shoulder, moving to stare down the hallway that led from the kitchen to the front door. The base of the stairs was near the door, and I watched a whole group of guys saunter out, coats on, a few with hats, and most with gym bags. Dean was the last one out, and the moment he glanced down the hall at me, I stepped into the kitchen and pretended I was busy. When the front door slammed shut, I doubled checked.

  Everyone was gone, and as I moved toward the door after picking up my phone, I saw them all heading to the sidewalk, talking and laughing amongst themselves. Dean included in their number.

  I texted Kelsey that it was time, and then I went back to the kitchen, tossing whatever I was mixing. I wasn’t really going to cook anything. It was just a front for me to wait and watch without being overly obvious about it. After I set the bowl in the sink, I checked my phone.

  Kelsey said: Now we wait.

  Waiting was hard, and it was especially hard because of what we had to do. I just wanted to get it over with, to do the deed and have it done. Whether or not this endeavor yielded anything worthwhile would be anyone’s guess, but it was better than sitting back and doing nothing.

  Attacking Dean head-on would only get me expelled. Me fighting him, and then Kelsey punching him in the kidney—which I still found hilarious, honestly—had only riled the beast. Plus, there were too many witnesses. If shit hit the fan, my fraternity brothers would side with Dean, because I threw the first punch. I was the aggressor.

  Dean wasn’t going to get away with this shit for much longer, that I swore.

  It felt like I was waiting an eternity. It felt like years passed as I headed up to my room and waited for Kelsey to text me. As long as she had eyes on Dean, that was the only thing that mattered.

  I had the cameras ready to go. They were wireless, and their batteries wouldn’t last forever, but their saving grace was that the cameras only recorded when they saw movement, wirelessly transmitting to an app I already downloaded on my phone.

  Tick, tock.

  The fucking clock moved ungodly slow as I stared at my phone in my lap, waiting for it to light up. Waiting for Kelsey’s message. If Dean didn’t respond to her, didn’t go to her, we’d have to try something else. Maybe get Kelsey to go to the rec and watch them play. Something, anything. To say we were grasping at straws wouldn’t do enough to explain how I felt.

  This was for Kelsey. This was for Mel, for everything I did to her, none of which she deserved. This was for Dean, getting payback when he deserved a whole world of hurt. A broken nose and a bruised kidney were nothing compared to what I wanted to do to him, but to play dirty, we’d need the dirt, and these cameras were the only way I could think of to get that dirt, since Dean and I weren’t friends.

  And then, like magic, my phone screen lit up, and Kelsey’s name appeared, along with the words: He’s here. My heart started to race, and I grew excited. Was it wrong to be thrilled about what I had to do? After all, I’d been dreaming of this day for so long now—taking Dean down—that it almost felt surreal.

  Who knew all I needed to actually commence the plan was a partner in crime? Kelsey really was perfect for me. I just hoped she was able to speak to Dean with a level head, no punching of the kidney or dick variety. She liked to do both, apparently. That girl…

  Oh, that girl drove me crazy, but now wasn’t the time to think about that.

  I set the volume of my phone to vibrate, so I’d feel it go off when I was in his room, if Kelsey and Dean’s talk didn’t end up lasting long. I got off my bed and headed to the corner of my room, where I kept my gym bag. It was also out of the camera’s sight, which was why I kept my own shiny new toys safely tucked away in the gym bag I never used anymore. I grabbed the strap and slung it across my shoulders, heading right out of the room.

  I headed to the second floor, where Dean’s room was. I had no idea if he had any other cameras in his room; I assumed he had some in the other guys’ rooms, but even that was a guess. Maybe he only put a camera in mine because he knew my hazing involved Mel. Maybe he just wanted to watch his ex-girlfriend break. The sick fuck.

  My feet took me to his room, and I stepped inside with the bag snug over my shoulder, closing the door behind me quietly. I scanned the room, trying to find places that would be perfect to hide my own cameras while attempting to see if he had any of his own hidden.

  I couldn’t find any, but it wasn’t like I tore his room apart from top to bottom. Didn’t have time to. Had to be in and out as quickly as I could, which meant if there was a camera in here, I’d deal with it when I’d deal with it.

  I really hoped there wasn’t, though. That would totally kill this plan and force us to think of something else.

  Moving toward his bed, his sheets rumpled and dirty—I doubted the bastard had washed his sheets at all this semester so far, which was kind of nasty, considering all the bodies that had to have sweated under them—I set my bag down and unzipped the side compartment, pulling out my new, tiny black cameras.

  They had switches on the bottom, where you could turn them on. I’d had them in waiting for so long, it felt almost surreal. My mom had asked why I needed so much money for a class project, but I told her some lie about needing to pay for some equipment that I had to rent out from the school. It was a lie my mom believed, because she never asked twice about it.

  It wasn’t like I came from heapings of money, but we did fine. We weren’t as poor off as Kelsey’s family apparently was—the family that she tried desperately never talking about, even when I asked. I did try to talk to her about her parents, but she shut down anytime they were mentioned. She was clearly in denial of their divorce, which, if it came as news out of the blue, I couldn’t blame her. She’d thought her family was a happy one that would stay together forever, and now she had to readjust her view. Something like that was never easy.

  I looked for shadows in his room, little nooks that I could squeeze the cameras in. Multiple angles, multiple cameras. In the end, if he found them, he’d never know it was me, because the cameras were hooked up to my app. He wouldn’t be able to see what they’d recorded.

  Dean’s room was even messier than mine. Papers tossed about, clothes everywhere. It kind of reeked of sweat, too. Nasty.

  I ended up choosing the bookcase in the corner, noting the dust on the shelves, figuring he hardly ever used it. I tucked the first camera between two textbooks after switching it on, and then I spotted a few other good places around the room. On the floor, just by the bedpost. On his nightstand, underneath the lamp, hidden in the shadows.

  All in all, I thought I picked some pretty good places. It wasn’t like I did this on a daily basis, but it would do. I had nearly every angle of the room covered, including a camera that overlooked where his laptop was.

  That thing was password encoded. Most laptops were. And knowing Dean, I doubted it was something simple like Mel’s phone was. No, the shit he had, the password had to be more complicated than that.

  I was out of Dean’s room before I got the text from Kelsey that Dean had left.

  First step down. Now, the only question was, how long did we wait to view the footage? How long did we give him before we really sat down and planned this all out? I supposed that depended on what, if anything, we saw when we went back to watch the cameras. In all truth, we might not see anything.

  Knowing Dean, though…there’d be something. There always was.

  Chapter Fifteen – Kelsey

  My stomac
h was in knots as I headed to the union. The day was brisk, definitely a late November day. The days varied in temperature, but I was pretty sure today was the coldest day we’d had so far. My hoodie did not do enough to keep my body heat close. I paired it with a baseball cap to keep my brown hair from flying around, and as I walked to the union, I put earbuds in and listened to some of my favorite songs.

  I hadn’t listened to music since driving home from Hillcrest the weekend before Halloween. It was crazy how much time had passed since then, how much things had changed. No longer was I wallowing in what I did and how horrible I felt—I hardly had time to think about Ash and how I hadn’t talked to her.

  She was mad at me. She had to be pissed, and she’d be pissed for a while. I didn’t blame her. I fucked up, and I would have to make amends sooner or later. Right now, though, all of my attention was on Mel and what Dean did to her. I hated that douchebag more than any other guy in the universe, and that was saying something. I had a lot of hate to give, trust me.

  Dean. He deserved to be tied up and dragged through the mud, laughed at for the rest of his life, made to feel as if he was nothing, like he didn’t matter. That guy was just a bully, and he resorted to childish pranks and cruel jokes when he didn’t get his way.

  All because I told Mel to steer clear of him. All because I never agreed to help him get Mel back. All because Levi wouldn’t help him. Dean was a fuckup, and I was determined to make him realize just how much of a fuckup he truly was.

  I made it the union, taking off my hat and running my fingers through my hair, untangling some of the knots that had formed in the walk over. It couldn’t just be cold outside—no, it had to be windy, too. Windy and cold equaled miserable.

  The cafeteria area wasn’t as bustling as it was during peak mealtime hours. Only about half of the tables were full, and I chose a seat on one of the end ones, as far away from everyone else as I could be. I set my phone on the table before me, angling my head down as I typed out a message to send to Dean.