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“Motherfucker,” he hissed.
“He posted a video of us online. From the night of Scene on the Green—”
Patrick gripped my desk chair like he was about to break it with his hands.
“The whole campus knows about us. Guys in your frat confronted me in the hall outside your room.”
His face went dark. “I’ll deal with them later.”
I dropped my hands and walked up close to him. “You didn’t hear? We wereright outside your door.They told me to leave, and you didn’t even come out to defend my honor. I guess you don’t think I have any.”
Suddenly his mouth sagged. As if I’d slapped him with my words the way his frat bros had done to me. “I didn’t hear you, Christina.”
“You had your fingers in your ears?”
“Headphones.” He passed a hand over his face, his pale eyes going flinty as they flicked from the disaster of my room to me to the window. “Tell me where the lizard lives. I’m going to pay him a visit.”
“I’ll take you there myself.”
Patrick’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth.
Alexis tiptoed in, wearing my sweatshirt and leggings. She’d washed off her smeared makeup. Her skin was shining, flawless as usual, but her beautiful dark eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She came to my side.
“Patrick?” She sounded dazed. “Why’d you pay my sister to sleep with you?”
He blinked at me. I folded my arms.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
*****
Rain flattened the grass as we cut across west campus to Dexter’s place. Striding between Patrick and my sister, my anger pushing out in front of me and to all sides, I’d like to say I felt safe. But safety meant pulling back, and that was the last thing I could afford to do.
When we reached Dexter’s apartment, I breathed in sharply. I hadn’t stood on this doorstep since December, when I came to break up with him.
I knocked. Unlike my building, Dexter’s front door opened directly to the outside. Patrick and Alexis stood well behind me, hidden in the shadows.
When I glanced back, Alexis was huddled close to Patrick. Another sign that my sister wasn’t herself. She wasn’t in the habit of making herself small for guys. He spoke quietly to her, and she straightened up and gave him some space.
My head whipped around at the pad of feet across a wooden floor. The door creaked open. Dexter stood in front of me, barefoot, in a tank top and boxers, his wet hair slicked back. The beachy scent of his shampoo hit my nose, reminding me of all the times I’d borrowed it.
“Well, well, well.” Surprise bulged his dark eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a smile that lurked at the corners of his mouth. He reached around to scratch his neck, flashing a glimpse of the inked feathers on his shoulder. “What brings you here?” He made a show of looking past me at the torrent of rain, but gave no sign of seeing Patrick and Alexis. “On a night like this.”
“I’d like my key back,” I said coolly. “And my money.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “Did you come here to turn tricks? You’re trying to earn some dough? I still have that thirty bucks in my wallet. Though I’m thinking it might be a liiittle high for you now. Your value’s dropped, now that everyone knows what you really are.”
“Just give me back what’s mine.”
“What, your reputation? Sorry,sweetie,you can’t get that back.You think you’ll ever have a normal relationship after trying to play hooker? You think I can save you now?”
Emerging from behind me, Patrick streaked past in a blur, shoving the door open. He gripped Dexter by the shoulders and slammed him against the living room wall.
“Unlike Christina,” he gritted, “My patience is at an end. Where…is…the money?”
“What the fuck, man?” Dexter gasped. Fear flashed across his face. “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did you let yourself in her front door like you belonged there, or did you crawl in and out of the window like the reptile that you are?”
