The Black Bear is only a few blocks away, so I decide to hoof it, and that’s when I inadvertently become a spectacle. It’s not that I’ve never noticed girls checking me out before; it’s that I’ve never noticed so many turning their heads with the utter look of pity. The only thing I can think of is, that I did have the entire rushing class of Alpha Chi come down and watch me do my thing—fucking a bed no less with my bare ass. But usually, I’m not met with sympathy after women witness the scene—quite the opposite. I’m met with fistfuls of dollars and a smile, a proposition or two.
The Black Bear pops up on the horizon, and I’ve never been so glad to see that giant stuffed bear outside of the establishment. It looks real as shit, scary when you get up close, but for right now it spells out relief. Whatever the hell is going on, Jet is about to end this mystery for me.
I walk inside to find the lunch crowd already clogging up their arteries. Jet is in the back at our usual table perusing the menu.
“Hey, you!” Roxy comes up with a forlorn look on her face.
“Hey, beautiful.” I pull her into a strong, quick hug. “What are you doing here?”
“My man works here, Cole.” She nods to the bartender, and he offers a quick wave. “He’s Baya’s brother. She says she met you.”
“She did. She’s great.” I grimace, looking at Cole. He looks like he could do some serious damage to me if he wanted. I’m glad he doesn’t want to.
“How’s Aubree?” Roxy searches my features for any trace of pain. Roxy has been a rock since this entire nightmare began. She’s even gone with me once to see Aubree, but that ended badly with a shouting match between the two of them. Roxy isn’t one to mix words. If you piss her off, you’re going to know about it real quick. Piper and Roxy actually have a lot in common.
“She’s—I don’t know. I missed my visit for the first time ever last Saturday.”
She shakes her head knowingly. “Look, I’m really sorry what that little bitch did to you. Don’t think I’m going to let her get away with this. Nobody messes with my family like that.”
The room stills for a moment.
“What are you talking about? Aubree didn’t do anything to me. Has she?” Why does it feel like I’m in a time warp? I went to sleep with Piper, and in the morning the world changed.
“That chick that used you—Piper. I know she’s related to Wyatt and Blake, but still, that doesn’t mean I’m letting her get away with treating you like trash. You’re a nice guy, Owen. Just because your sister did some really fucked-up things, doesn’t mean you need to spend the rest of your days paying for them.”
Shit. I swallow hard because the pieces are loosely starting to fall together.
“Thank you.” I bob my head absently. “But do me a favor, and don’t say a word to Piper. I’ve got this. And I promise, she’s a nice girl. Whatever it may look like to you—it’s not as bad as it seems. We’ll do coffee soon.” I give her another quick hug and make a beeline for Jet.
“What the hell is going on?” I land hard on the seat opposite of him. “Give it to me straight, no sugar, no lube. What’s going on with Piper that has people volunteering to kick her ass for me?”
“Where’ve you been?” Jet winces. He tips his head to the side, examining me for a minute. “You haven’t heard?” His forearm is covered with gauze, a surefire sign he’s added another tat to his ever-growing collection. Usually, that alone would be the topic of conversation—only to be followed up by the girls he’s tapped.
“No. I was with Piper.” I shrug. “We were together.”
“Oh, I know you were.” He gives a smug grin. “She’s in by the way. You were her ticket—but I don’t think it matters. Those chicks are raining a shitstorm down on her right now. Why the hell would she want to suffer that humiliation?”
I pounce over the table and grip him by the shirt. “What chicks? What shitstorm?” I release him with a marked hostility. “Start over. Speak slowly. Lose the shit-eating grin.”
“Why don’t I just let my phone do the talking?” He hands it over, and I scroll through, reading a series of texts that Rex sent with links leading to about a dozen social media sites, the WB student page, Alpha Chi’s home base—their entire feed on Insta-Chat.
My body goes numb, my mind feels as if it’s been dunked into the deep fryer.
“So, Piper’s been using me?” My thumb continues to scroll up and down over dozens of pictures of the two of us in compromising positions, but it’s the captions that break my heart over and over again. The douchebag and me! The Punisher is about to get punished! I didn’t win cock-tease of my senior class for nothing!
There’s one picture of the two of us naked from the chest up at The Witch’s Cauldron. Piper took the shot from behind my back, her face saying she’d rather be anywhere but there. Taking one for the team. This one goes out to all the girls he’s played before!
“What’s this about?” My voice is hoarse. As much as I want to look at the pictures of the two of us seemingly enjoying one another’s company, the captions and her facial expressions in most of them suggest otherwise. My heart sinks to my gut and swims in battery acid. “What’s she using me for?” It comes out lackluster because I’m not really buying this bullshit.
“Dude.” Jet winces. “It was all a part of some sorority rush. She needed in, and taming a player was the key. I guess whatever happened last night cinched the deal.”
My eyes lift heavy from the table to meet with his. “What do mean ‘last night’?” Last night was sacred, special. Nothing about that is anyone’s business other than Piper’s and mine.
He fiddles with his phone once again and pushes it across the table, slow as shit, as if it were a loaded gun.
I pull it over and look at a split screen shot of the two of us in a lip lock last night right here at this very same location. The next shot is a picture of Piper leaving my building, holding her shoes, her hair wild as a lion’s mane, looking hotter than hell, but nevertheless a little like hell. Underneath it reads, Made the claim = walk of shame. Let’s welcome Alpha Chi’s newest captain to the team!
“She made captain.” I flick the phone, and it spins. “Good to know I’m good for something.” I get up and take off.
“Where are you going?”
“Find a hole to jump into,” I say mostly to myself.
Just as I’m about to hit the door, I hit a barricade much stronger than steel. It’s family. Roxy and Ryder stand stoic, side-by-side, just as Ryder’s wife, Laney, pops up.
“Do you have class?” Ryder looks good and pissed for me, and it breaks my heart, because no matter what happened, I don’t want anyone pissed at Piper.
“I’m off today. Look, I don’t think I’m coming in tonight. I’ve got shit on my brain. I think I’ll go out for a run. Get lost for a while.”
“No way in hell.” Roxy comes and links arms, leading me to the back, into an employee room sparsely furnished with a table and chairs. Ryder and Laney sit across from me as Roxy presses me down into a seat.
“She’s banished from this bar.” Roxy’s eyes flare with the same kind of insta-rage that Piper is prone to, and, sadly, it makes me miss her—the old her, the one I thought I knew—I’m pretty sure I do.
“I don’t want you to banish her.” Alpha Chi hosts most of its mixers here. I’d hate to ruin anyone’s good time—especially not their new captain’s.
Laney leans in and picks up my hand. “I don’t know this girl too well, Owen. But, in the short time I’ve come to know you, I realize that you are one of the good guys. If she’s willing to treat someone so vindictively, she isn’t worth your time. I know that both of her brothers are great people—Marley and Annie, they’re all insanely nice. I think you of all people know you can’t judge someone based on their family.”
“She’s a rotten apple!” Roxy pounds her fists onto the table. “And she just fucked with the wrong person.”
“Relax,” Ryder pleads with his hothead of a sister. “
Piper is just a kid. She got caught up in something stupid. Rush makes people insane. Obviously, someone told her to do these things.” He glances to me. “I guess you were the playboy she was to tame from what Laney tells me. There was some hit list they gave her if she wanted to become captain, and to get that title I guess she needed to hustle you. That’s the end of the story. She fell for it, and unfortunately, so did you. We all know that Alpha Chi is poison. Aubree and her obsession with Bryson, coupled with the fact she led that sorority house straight to hell, doesn’t help the situation.”
“So, you’re saying Aubree is somehow responsible for this?” It pisses me off a bit more than it should. My sister is a killer. Having sympathy for her is like having sympathy for the devil, but it doesn’t seem to change the fact she’s my sister, and I love her.
“No.” Ryder closes his eyes with deep regret. “But, yes, I’m saying she’s set a precedent for those girls, and something like this—where they sic a fucking freshman on someone like you—no offense, but you’ve been with a few girls—to tame you, to sleep with you? It’s just wrong. Piper shouldn’t have felt pressured to seek out some playboy and make him bow down to her. I’m sorry you were caught up in this, but I’m sorry she was, too.”
“She was stupid.” Roxy thumps her foot against the floor, rattling the table, bouncing her body as she strums with anger. “But I also think they need to shut down the entire damn Greek system if that’s the shit they let them get away with.”
Laney shakes her head. “This is an Alpha Chi problem. Ryder is right. Piper may have just gotten caught up in it all. She’s young—impressionable. I’m willing to bet good money that she had no clue these pictures would be made public.”
“She didn’t.” She looked shocked as shit this morning. “I don’t get it. Why would the girls who run Alpha Chi insist she sleep with me when they were so hard up for her to be with one of their preppy friends?”
The three of them shake their heads with blank expressions.
We rise together, and Ryder pulls me in by the hand. “Hard questions with no answers. Don’t worry about the internship. I’m meeting with Wyatt this afternoon, and we’re going to figure this out. Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“These posts I’m seeing from this strip joint called The Dungeon—does that have to do with you? Are you the Punisher?” He huffs a quiet laugh, but his eyes are filled with sorrow for me.
“That’s me, dude. Someone has to keep the lights on.”
“I hear you, man. No judgment.”
Roxy pulls me into a deep embrace. “I’ll do a bitch slap down if I have to.”
“You don’t have to. Don’t touch a hair on Piper James’ head.” I’m in love with her.
Always will be.
* * *
I wait until three to pick up Ava from West Haven High. She slips into the passenger seat, happy to see me, yet, with the patina of discontent left over from her day at school. I take her out for ice cream, and she details how much she dislikes that place.
“You think Mom and Dad will ever get me back to Davenport so I can finish out with my friends?”
“The old Mom and Dad would have. The new ones? Not so much.”
“I hate my life.”
“Don’t say that.” I pull her in and breathe her sugary perfume a moment. Ava’s so sweet, so innocent. I’d hate for her to lose that—for her to have to toughen up in order to survive like I had to. I’d do anything to stop that from happening. “You need to stay strong. Stay focused in your classes. You’ll meet new friends.”
She slumps as she stirs the remnants in her cup into a vanilla chocolate swirl. “You think Piper and I can hang out sometime? She really knew where I was coming from. You didn’t scare her off yet, did you?”
“I don’t know.” It’s all I say about that as we hop back into the truck and drive down to the North Carolina Woman’s Correctional Facility—Camp Cupcake, as it’s known in these parts. Cupcake, my ass. I’ve seen more heartache and grief at that shithole than I have in front of Think Ink, or The Dungeon for that matter.
We head inside and go through the rigorous constraints of the pat downs, the metal detectors. It’s not visiting day, but Aubree has a few passes she can use throughout the year that she received as tokens for good behavior. Once she heard Ava and I were here, she had no problem parting with one.
Ava and I sit in the empty visitors’ lounge, smell the stale coffee, and wait. This is low security, so we’ve never had to visit behind glass walls. As much as society hates Aubree, I still enjoy a nice hug from my big sis. As I see it, Aubree is simply sick. Her disease lives in her brain, so it’s easy for people to dismiss it. It’s too bad it wasn’t caught in time, because her obsessive disorder to have what she wants and whom she wants has cost somebody their life—it almost cost Baya her life as well. But in here, behind these heavily patrolled walls, she can’t hurt anybody. Hopefully, they can make her better to some degree.
“Here they are!” she shouts with glee as the security guard escorts her in. Aubree is beautiful, not the polished beauty she once was pre-prison, but a much more down-to-earth, minimal makeup, hair in a bun, demure beauty. I’ve asked her a million times if she’s okay in here, if anyone has given her shit or tried to touch her inappropriately, but she denies it all and insists there isn’t anyone getting raped twenty-four seven.
Aubree has managed to amass a close-knit group of friends. She teaches a yoga class each morning and knows who to stay away from. They decorate like mad during the holidays and have baking contests once in a blue moon. In the end, Aubree gets to rule the sorority she’s always wanted. And now she can do so for life.
“I thought you abandoned me.” Her smile dips into a frown for a moment. “You know how bad I need those weekend visits. I live for them.” She pulls Ava into a strong hug, then me. “When you get your license”— she points a red painted fingernail to Ava as we take a seat at the table—“you don’t need to wait for this clown to see me.” Aubree sags for a moment. Her lids grow heavy. “Unless you both move away. I guess we can write. Thank God for the Internet. Most of these girls don’t have any weekend visitors at all. They have to settle for Skype.” She sniffs away the tears. “Anyway, you’re here. What earth-shattering thing happened that kept you away?”
“I was dumped.” I nod into my admission. “She went away with someone else for the weekend. It sucked.”
Ava’s mouth drops open. “I liked her!” She takes a moment to swat my arm.
“I liked her, too—that’s why I got her back.” I offer a short-lived grin. “But then, things sort of went south this morning. Anyway, this isn’t about me. Ava is having a rough time in school. You have any sisterly advice you want to dispense?” I sit back and chill out while they prattle on about boys and noise and handbags they can no longer afford. My mind keeps drifting back to Piper on a loop. Piper and me on that bed last night. The way her tongue took control of my body. The way she felt lying naked underneath me—how fucking soft her tits are, and that’s when I close my eyes to stop the tears.
Ava excuses herself to the restroom for a moment.
“All right, wake the hell up.” Aubree gives three sharp knocks on the table to get my attention. “Who is this little bitch, and what did she do to you? You have less than five minutes to spill.”
And I do. I tell Aubree everything from the moment I swept Piper off her feet—literally—to the moment she frantically apologized and everything in between. I leave no stone unturned. If anyone understands the twisted female mind, it’s Aubree, the champion of twisted female minds.
“Wow.” Her brows rise straight into her forehead, and my stomach clenches because it looks as if I’ve just stumped the master of head games. “You really have a piece of work on your hands.” She looks to the ceiling as if inspecting it for details. “Wait, back up the train. Did you say she was forced to date some guy? Did the Alpha girls have her do that?”
“Ye
ah, I think so. Two of the leaders were sort of pushing it.”
“Really,” she says softly, her eyes still lost in some faraway place. “He wouldn’t belong to Sigma Theta Tau, would he?”
“I think so. He’s a frat brat. I know that for sure. They go to mixers and shit together.”
“Oh”—her chest collapses over the table as she chuckles—“he’s her matchup.” She flicks her wrist as if it all makes sense. “So, if she was tapped for captain, it wasn’t you she had to sleep with—no offense, but that wouldn’t make any sense. You were there for two reasons, and two reasons only—to humiliate and blackmail if necessary. Nope, it was her Theta matchup she needed to sleep with if she wanted to get a bed—especially as a freshman. No freshman gets a bed unless a Theta boy ponies up for it. And about that captain stuff—” she winces. “I think that’s bullshit. They’re using the title as a cover-up.”
Ava comes back, and I ask her to give us a minute, so she heads to another table and happily glues herself to her phone.
“What do you mean, she doesn’t get a bed unless a Theta boy ponies up for it?”
“He paid for her. God—the price of an Alpha Chi PNM is a mint. He must be really loaded.” Her eyes sparkle as if she were impressed.
“Money? How much, and who gets it?” My blood boils, as this shitty mess is further uncovered one wicked layer at a time.
“It can be anywhere upwards of twenty thousand dollars. Usually, it’s five or ten grand. Hustling girls is big business, but only the captains know about this. Trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds. The boys we match them up with at Theta are hot, intelligent—they’re the leaders of tomorrow. Most of those girls go willingly, and if they don’t, they don’t get in, and, of course, we don’t get the money.”
Wild Kisses (3:AM Kisses #7) Page 19
