23. Falling Apart
CHAPTER 23
FALLING APART
BAY
I don’t know if I’m more furious, shocked, or humiliated.
Tears well in my eyes and all eyes are on me. People are laughing and reading the words that have appeared on the screen behind me.
I don’t even read the entire thing, I can’t focus.
Words like puck bunny, sluts and whore dance around my eyes. I don’t even need to read the whole post. The photos are enough to tip me off that this is the same person who tried to shame Lakyn last year.
What do I do?
My mind is reeling with a million different thoughts. The main one is, who could be responsible for this?
Cyber bullying is a crime in California and the college should investigate this incident.
More so, I look at my fellow students in the room. It must be one of them.
In theory, anyone could take those photos from any of our social media, but the guys and I never “posed” for those photos. They must have been taken by someone who was at those events.
That means it could be any student at this college. However, I don’t think so. My eyes zero in on some of the guys on the hockey team. And on my sisters.
“Someone turn that screen off!” The Dean yells, as the noise in the room reaches fever pitch.
That snaps me out of my trance-like state. I’m going to find out who did this, to Lakyn first and now to me. But I’m not going to stand here and be the ridicule of this year’s alumni gala.
I need to get out of here, go home.
The room rushes past me as I run off the stage like I have the devil on my heels.
I vaguely hear someone calling my name, but I don’t stop until I’m out of the door, running down the long hallway that leads to the foyer and, finally, outside.
“Bay, wait.”
Someone’s fingers close around my arm halfway down the corridor.
The guys must have been right behind me, but it isn’t one of my boyfriends.
“Sexy girl, are you ok?”
Topher.
Just about the last person I want to see right now.
“Let go of me,” I shove, but he doesn’t budge.
“No.” His tone is firm. “I’m not going to let you run outside by yourself, in high heels, when you’re this upset. If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself.”
The concern in his dark brown eyes looks genuine. But I still don’t trust him. He said he loved me so many times with this same look in his eyes. And the whole while he was cheating on me.
“I’m a big girl, Toph. Let me go.”
He’s stubborn as fuck. “Not until you calm down. Come.”
Before I can say anything else, he opens the closest door to us and pulls me inside.
The lights come on as he finds a light switch right near the door; it looks like a home office. By the looks of the imposing, expensive furniture, I guess we’re in the Dean’s private office.
I still want to go home, but I can’t help the relief that floods me from being out of the spotlight.
It’s quiet in here and it’s just what I need.
“Are you ok?” Topher repeats the question he just asked me a few seconds ago.
I shake my head, horrified that my eyes fill with tears again.
I’m sure I’ll eventually break down, but I don’t want it to happen here, in front of my ex.
My tongue is glued to the top of my mouth. If I try to speak now, there’s no stopping the floodgates from bursting open. I shake my head.
“That was fucked up,” Topher says. “I’m so sorry.”
Fuck. Why is he being so nice?
Words still won’t come. My lips quiver as my nose stings with the effort of keeping the tears contained.
“Come here, Bay.”
Topher doesn’t leave me the chance to protest. He pulls me into his arms.
It’s the weirdest feeling. Being in his arms after all this time is almost… comforting.
I feel no desire or passion toward him, not like I would for one of my guys. But Topher has been a huge part of my life for years. He’s been the person I would confide in, especially about school or Greek related stuff.
He isn’t as muscular as Cole, Ryker, and Jagger. My ex has always been on the slender side of a hockey player, but his chest is toned and solid; I can feel his warmth radiating from beneath the expensive fabric of his shirt.
“I’m not ok.” I finally answer his question. “Why are you being so nice to me?” This time, I ask him out loud.
“Why wouldn’t I be? Bay, I know I fucked up beyond belief with you, but I love you.”
I struggle to get out of his embrace. “Toph, I?—”
“I know we aren’t getting back together,” he sighs, letting me get some space but not letting me go. “But you can’t stop me from caring about you, ok? Here, I grabbed this from our table before coming after you. You need something to take the edge off.” He passes me a bottle of Champagne.
I take it, sipping from it more on autopilot than because I want a drink.
“This tastes funny.” I try to pass him the bottle, but he doesn’t take it.
“Sorry, it must be getting warm. Nothing worse than warm Champagne. But you need something to steady your nerve. Drink it. You’ll thank me later.”
I ignore the bottle still in my hands. “What a shit show,” I sigh. “This should have been a huge announcement. My moment of redemption, you know? I didn’t want to go down in history as the Zeta president who burned the house down and got the Star Cove chapter shut down. I guess now it doesn’t matter. I’ll be remembered as the Zeta president who was a slut. Whatever. I don’t feel like one.”
There’s an intense light in my ex’s eyes. “But is what that post says true? Are you fucking Cole, Ryker, and Jagger? It sure looks like it.”
His tone rubs me the wrong way. “Was it you? Are you Not Your Puck Bunny?”
Topher rears back, as if I had slapped him. “What? No! How can you even think that?”
“Oh, come on, Topher,” I snort. “You literally called me a puck bunny at Lakyn’s house. It would make complete sense if you did it. You and my sister have always hated each other, and this started with her last year. You were present both times the posts went live.”
Topher’s reaction surprises me. I just accused him of being behind the puck bunny posts. The man I’ve dated for most of my college career would have rolled his eyes; or at the very least, defended himself vehemently.
Topher’s tone is much softer than I expected. “I guess I deserve it, huh? This is what I get for not treating you right. I haven’t just lost you. You think the worst of me. Bay,” his brown eyes are locked on mine. “I swear I have nothing to do with those posts. No matter how bad things are between us, I would never do that to you.”
The strangest thing is that I believe him.
“Then it must be your new girlfriend,” I say, tasting bitterness on my tongue. And it isn’t just the funny taste of the Champagne. Love and jealousy don’t always go hand in hand. I might not have been in love with Topher for a while now, but I still resent him for how things ended between us.
Again, he remains calmer than I would normally give him credit for. “Maybe. But you have to be careful, Bay. Dean Williams is a very vindictive man. If you go around accusing his daughter of cyber bullying, you better have indisputable proof.”
Topher might be an asshole most of the time, but I’ve always appreciated his ability to analyze a situation. I would have never won my first presidential election without his help.
“I know.” I sigh. “This is why cyber bullying is such a hideous crime. It’s so easy to commit and there are a lot of ways to cover your tracks. Even Luca’s intelligence service hasn’t been able to pin down where the first post came from.”
His smirk is full of scorn. Topher hated Luca from the moment he set foot on campus. “That’s some fucking royal intelligence service.”
“Shut up,” I snort. “Whoever is behind this shit, used a VPN service with a very stringent security policy. They never give up any IP addresses, no matter what. Their system is fundamentally built to render them undetectable from the start, even to the VPN central servers.”
He considers my words. “The perfect crime.”
“Yup.” I admit, feeling defeated.
Topher moves a lock of my hair away from my shoulder, in a way he used to do often when we were together. “What do you say? You and I get out of here? We could finish that bottle of Champagne and lie low until tomorrow morning. Then we could speak to the Dean. See what they’re going to do about stopping that post from spreading. Come on, we skipped dessert. I’ll order your favorite donuts. You’ve always loved donuts and Champagne, remember?”
I do remember. When we first started dating, he used to bring me donuts and Champagne and we’d have a little private party in my dorm room.
“Come on Bay.” he takes the bottle from me, bringing it to my lips. “You know you want to, for old times’ sake. I promise I won’t try anything. Drink up.”
I really don’t like the taste of this Champagne, so I just let the now warm wine splash on my lips, but I don’t really drink. “I don’t know, Toph,” I take the bottle from him again. “I should go find the guys. They’re going to be worried about me.”
“Nova, thank fuck.” Jagger bursts into the room, as if summoned by my words. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Hey, what the fuck is he doing here? If you hurt one hair on her head, I swear to God—” he starts when he spots Topher.
“No, he’s actually fine.” I walk into his open arms, feeling relieved for the first time since I started my speech.
Jagger squeezes me against him, his eyes taking stock of Topher. “Right. Good, I don’t feel like kicking his ass right now.”
Topher reacts to the provocation. “Fuck you, Connelly. Don’t forget that I could still release that video. You and Bay could be the new viral couple on campus in no time.”
“Topher!” I scold my ex, disappointed that he’s already back to his old ways.
His jaw ticks as he glares at Jagger. “Sorry, sexy. I can’t fucking help it. This guy has been pissing me off since we were in prep school. When my team played against his school, I knew I’d be spending more time in the fucking sin bin than on the ice.”
Jagger is tense against me, but I’m thankful when he decides not to respond to Topher. “Let’s go home, Bay. Dad said we can get his driver to take us back to the Gamma house. He’s talking to the Dean anyway, so he’ll be awhile.”
I follow him out of the room and outside where Cole and Ryker were still looking for me.
After the abrupt end of my speech, the party has wound down and almost all the students have left. “Some of the alumni are having coffee with the Dean and his wife,” Ryker explains as we’re all safely inside Keith Connelly’s limousine. “I guess he’s trying to do some damage control.”
I tighten my grip on the Champagne bottle that’s now sitting between my legs. “Yeah, I bet he’s gonna find a way to blame this disaster on me, too.”
Jagger wraps a comforting arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry about that, baby. Dad was livid, and he was demanding that the school do something to protect their students against these kinds of attacks. The Dean might be an asshole, but he isn’t stupid. He knows you matter to one of his biggest donors, so he can’t do anything to you without losing his support.”
BAY
“Come here, baby,” Cole holds me tight as Ryker locks my bedroom door behind him. “You’re safe now.”
I sigh against his chest, my fingers playing with the lapel of his suit jacket. It’s soothing. “I know. There’s nowhere and no one else I’d rather be with right now.”
Ryker comes up behind me, moving my hair away from my shoulder to place a soft kiss on the back of my neck. “If I ever catch who did this to you, so help me, God.”
I turn around to look at him. His ice-blue eyes are a hail storm right now. Vicious gossip is what made his life hell at his previous college, so I know he understands exactly how I feel right now.
“If I had to take a guess, I’d say our frat president looked guilty as fuck.” Jagger bites out.
This night has been odd to say the least, but I can’t believe I find myself defending my ex. “Topher was actually concerned for me. We talked about it and he swore he didn’t do it.”
Cole barks out a laugh. “Right. And I’m gonna win five Stanley Cups in my first five years in the NHL.”
“Who’s saying you won’t?” I say, turning to take his big hand into mine. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think Topher was lying.”
“That would be a first,” Jagger snorts.
“I’m serious, guys. He was actually caring, almost sweet. He just wanted to make sure I was ok.”
Ryker’s tone is cautious. “Not to sound callous, Cinnamon, but don’t you think he might have had an agenda? He’s been trying to get back together with you all year.”
Cole and Ryker voice their agreement, and all of a sudden it’s all too much.
“I don’t think he was,” I offer. “But it doesn’t matter. This night has been a freaking nightmare and my head is pounding.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“What can we do to make you feel better?” Cole asks, worried.
I look at my best friend’s dark blue eyes and I exhale a slow, exhausted breath. “I don’t want to think right now. I just want to get out of this dress, take two painkillers, and snuggle into bed with my boyfriends.”
“That can be arranged.” Ryker murmurs, lowering the zipper of my dress.
Cole walks to my dresser in search of a nightie, but I stop him. “Do you guys mind if rather than wearing one of my pretty nighties, I put on my favorite t-shirt? It’s one of yours, Cole.”
My best friend chuckles. “Really?”
I smile for the first time since we left the Dean’s house. “Yeah. I borrowed it last year. One of those nights I was hiding in your room after a fight with Toph. I took it with me, meaning to wash it and return it, but it was so comfortable that I ended up keeping it.”
His smile widens. “You can have all my t-shirts, if you like sleeping in them. You look hot as fuck in them, anyway.”
Ryker nods. “Yeah, mine too.”
Jagger joins in. “And mine.”
I let my dress slide off my body. “You guys are so generous, thank you. Jagger, could you try to open the top drawer in my nightstand? I keep Cole’s t-shirt in there. There should be some painkillers in there, too.”
“Fuck,” Jagger grunts, struggling to open the drawer. “We never remembered to try to fix it after we couldn’t get the lube yesterday.”
I giggle. “We got a little… distracted. And then we were all too tired to care.”
He shoves, jiggling the handle in a way that makes the entire nightstand shake. “I hate this antique furniture. Smooth opening drawers are one of those small modern inventions that make me want to torch everything old. Like this stupid nightstand.”
I can’t help but find his frustration a little funny. “I don’t disagree. Topher was obsessed with antiques. All the furniture in this room apparently belonged to his father and his grandfather when they were Gamma presidents and occupied this same suite.”
“We know.” Cole rolls his eyes. “Topher wouldn’t shut up about how much these pieces are worth. Such a fucking show off. Look baby, if that piece of shit won’t budge, I can get you a new t-shirt and painkillers from my room. I won’t be a minute.”
Jagger grunts, pulling harder on the drawer’s handle. “No. Now this is becoming personal. I’ll open this fucking drawer if it takes me all night. If it doesn’t budge, I’ll go buy a fucking axe and make some very fancy antique firewood.”
Cole chuckles at his teammate. “Always so stubborn. I could go downstairs and find a screwdriver or something we could jam into to pry that drawer open. It might scuff the wood a little, but it’s better than chopping it up. I don’t want to deal with Topher if we destroy his priceless heirloom.”
“Ooh, wait. Wait .” Jagger grunts, his foot pressed against the bottom drawer for leverage. “I think it’s about to give. Shit!”
The drawer opens suddenly with such violence that it flies out of Jagger’s hand.
All the items inside it, including a couple of my favorite t-shirts and panties, scatter everywhere and the drawer itself crashes on the floor.
“Oh, no.” I gasp, noticing that it broke.
The bottom of the drawer is split open. “Wait,” Cole says. “Is that some kind of secret compartment?”
Cole is right. Some stuff fell out of the bottom, but if we look inside the drawer, the bottom part of it still looks intact. The inside is a false bottom by the look of it. There’s a hole in the real bottom part and that’s where some items have fallen out from.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Ryker picks up what looks like a flash drive stick.
There are also a couple of clear ziplock bags with a few bottles of medication.
“Give me that.” I take the t-shirt, donning it quickly and then the flash drive. “This looks like one of those Bluetooth sticks.”
Jagger’s eyes are as wide as saucers. “Holy shit. Do you think that could be…”
“The famous video?” I finish for him. “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s see.”
I open the laptop on my desk. “Ah. It’s password protected. Let’s see if Topher is consistent with his password theory.”
When I key in Password 1, 2, 3, 4 , the drive opens. There’s one single folder.
We look at each other as my fingers hover over the laptop’s touchpad. “Is it weird that I feel like I’m doing something wrong? Like violating someone’s trust?” I ask to no one in particular.
Ryker squeezes my other hand. “I get what you mean. But the one who should have felt guilty this entire time is Topher. For someone trying to enforce the bro-code in the fraternity’s rule book, he certainly had no respect for the most secret code of conduct in Gamma Delta Tau.”
Ryker is right. “It might still be something else,” I say, even though I don’t even believe my own words. “Fuck it. Let’s see what Topher has been hiding.”
“Holy shit.” Jagger bites out as we all look at dozens of icons corresponding to just as many initiation videos.
“There are videos from our freshman year until this year’s rush class. Some of these people graduated, so those videos should have been deleted.”
He’s right. There’s a video labeled Blaze and one labeled Cash. I can see Tucker and Corey’s names there, too. Jagger’s video is in the row first and there’s also Cole’s video.
“I wonder what all the other brothers had to do to become fully fledged Gammas,” Cole murmurs. “In a way, I want to watch this shit. But I know it’s wrong.”
Jagger glares at him. “It is fucking wrong. I mean, if Bay wants to watch mine, I don’t have a problem with it. I have nothing left to hide from my girlfriend. But I would feel wrong to watch the others. Initiation is supposed to stay a secret.”
Cole shrugs. “True. But I have no problem telling you what I had to do. I was taken to the arena. I had to skate five laps completely naked.”
Ryker bursts out laughing. “Really? You had to skate naked and you aren’t embarrassed if Bay sees that?”
Cole’s grin is full of mischief. “Nah. My cock shrunk to nothing. So what? It looked like one of those fun size candy bars some people give out for Halloween. But I’m not ashamed, it’s nature. Your cock would shrink too in the cold of the ice rink.”
Jagger’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “You’re just saying that because even in the cold, you must have been bigger than any average guy.”
Cole shrugs again, his smile widening while Ryker and Jagger glare at him.
These three will be the death of me.
“There’s no reason to get all competitive, guys.” I swear the amount of testosterone in my room right now is off the charts. “You’re all above average, and this isn’t a competition.”
Cole keeps chuckling, Jagger crosses his arms over his chest. “Is it not?”
Ryker laughs. “Oh, Cinnamon. You don’t know what you just started. Everything is a competition with these two.”
Jagger and Cole take offense. “Look who’s talking. We’re hockey players, baby. We’re competitive by definition.”
I can’t help the smile that creeps up on my face. “I get that. But none of you have anything to worry about, I promise. I mean it when I say that you all have more than enough. I’m not an expert in cock sizes. I’ve only slept with two guys, if we don’t count the men in this room. All I can tell you is that the three of you are by far the biggest I’ve ever seen. If I have to make any assumptions based on all the pillow talk with my Zeta sisters, I would say that you’re all above average, my high school boyfriend was average and Topher is slightly below average. Maybe a little more than slightly.”
The guys look shocked, but it isn’t for the reason, I think.
“Wait,” Jagger says. “Are you telling me that you girls talk about details like how big your hookups’ cocks are?”
I snort, amused by their surprise. “Duh. Of course we do. The girls you guys keep calling puck bunnies especially have a secret little black book where they rate the cocks of every guy on the hockey team. And before you get all offended about it, that isn’t any different from that cock size chart you guys have in the basement.”
Jagger laughs. “Now a lot of things make sense. That must be how the rumor about Cole’s monster cock must have started. What I don’t understand is how is it possible that no one was talking about Topher having a small dick. Sorry, Nova, but by now you know your ex wasn’t exactly being faithful to you. I just wonder how the bunnies didn’t talk about Topher’s small dick.”
I swear hockey players are obsessed with their sticks.
“I guess they wanted to keep the fact that they were sleeping with him behind my back a secret. Don’t forget that a lot of the girls you call puck bunnies are Zetas. Besides, girls who had a long-term boyfriend tended not to talk about their boyfriends’ equipment .”
I never talked about my physical relationship with Topher with anyone. The vague stuff I would share when I was pressed hinted at a hot, satisfying sex life. Jagger knows firsthand how I was lying about it.
“Sorry,” he says, pulling me to his side. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m never uncomfortable with you. I just realized how much I swept under the rug to appease Topher’s ego. It got to the point that I was lying even to myself.”
“We hope you feel like you can be totally open with us,” Ryker says, his tone soft. “If something with one, or all of us isn’t working, we want to know. We can’t fix it if we don’t know it’s broken.”
I know what he means. “You guys couldn’t be more different from my ex.”
There have always been two sides to Topher. The cocky douche bag who invoked the bro-code after cheating on me; who blackmailed all the people closer to me to keep me from finding out what he was up to.
But there’s also another side to my ex-boyfriend. Topher can be caring and romantic. He showed some of that side earlier tonight, when he comforted me after my speech went up in flames.
I’ve always clung to that side. That’s why I stayed with him, even when things weren’t great.
That’s why my chest feels tight, as guilt rears its ugly head. After the way our relationship ended and the way he acted toward Jagger and Cole, I should have no hesitation in throwing Topher under the bus. Something, however, is still making me feel guilty about doing what I know is right. “What do you guys think we should do with those videos? If we destroy them, Topher won’t be able to use them against anyone else.”
Jagger’s reaction is understandable. “What? Why should we destroy them? Those videos belong to Gamma’s central chapter. If we delete them, Topher will get away with breaking the biggest code of our fraternity.”
Cole backs him up. “I’m sorry, Bay, but I agree with Jagger. Topher deserves to pay for his actions. If we just deleted those videos, he would get away scot free. Again.”
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose as my head begins pounding again. “You’re right. I was thinking about giving him a choice. That if he resigned from president and left the fraternity, we could…”
Jagger takes my hand. “Do you really think that he would just go away? Especially once he knew that the videos were gone and we can no longer prove that he had them?”
He’s right. Topher has shown me time and time again that he’s like the Hydra. If you cut him down, another head will sprout in its place.
My ex might have some good in him, but his dark side wins out more often than not.
“Fine,” I relent. “I guess that one of you will contact your central chapter?”
Jagger nods. “Yeah. It’s getting late though and we’re all getting tired. Let’s go to bed and we’ll deal with this shit show tomorrow morning.”
I surround his trim waist with my arms. “This is the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. Ryker, could you find the painkillers in that mess on the floor?”
Ryker and Cole rush to the broken nightstand drawer with all its contents scattered all over the floor.
“Yeah, let’s tidy up a little too. This stuff’s a trip hazard if anyone gets up in the middle of the night to go get a glass of water or to go to the bathroom.” Cole says.
“You’re right, let me help you. By the way, Cinnamon,” he teases me. “You had a mini pharmacy in your nightstand.”
Jagger is walking me to the bed, but I stop to look at Ryker and Cole, still hunched over the broken drawer. “What are you talking about? I just keep a small bottle of ibuprofen in there. It’s a lifesaver when I get my period.”
Cole lifts a ziplock bag with a few medication bottles inside. “Maybe you had an emergency stash you forgot about?” he says, showing it to me.
“That isn’t mine. It must have been inside the secret compartment. Can I see it?”
Ryker shakes his head, a vaguely disgusted twist to his mouth. “Don’t tell me Topher took performance-enhancing drugs. Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me to be honest.”
My throat closes up when I read the labels on the bottles. I blink a couple of times in rapid succession, as if that could rearrange the names on the labels. “These aren’t painkillers or steroids. These are?—”
I can’t even say it.
“Baby,” Cole takes the bag from me, a worried expression on his face. “You’re scaring me. What is it?”
I swallow the bile that’s coming up to coat my tongue. “These are drugs that are commonly used to roofie drinks.” The words feel almost foreign in my mouth.
“Come again?” Jagger asks.
“Are you sure?” It’s Ryker’s question.
“If you don’t believe me, you can google it.”
Ryker takes the bag from me. “No, I believe you. You’re about to graduate with a major in Pharmaceutical Science after all. I just don’t get what Topher would do with that shit.”
I run to the bathroom as my dinner is about to projectile from me like in a scene from The Exorcist .
Cold sweat makes me shudder as the last piece of a puzzle clicks into place. A memory that has been haunting me for over three years finally begins to make sense.