Chapter 13 The Rumor
The first whisper of it floated across campus on a Tuesday, a barely-there breath of air that prickled the hairs on my neck.
By Wednesday, it had taken root, a dark, pulsing thing in the collective consciousness of the student body.
Thursday night, it had teeth. It stalked the quad, a palpable presence that seemed to shift the very air around us.
This wasn't the video. Jax had erased that, wiped it from existence, and the absence of its digital footprint was a silent promise I held close.
This was something formless, a shapeless dread that crept into every corner.
A campaign of hushed words and darting eyes.
I’d walk into the dining hall, the clatter of silverware and the drone of conversation abruptly dying around me.
Forks paused mid-air. Heads swiveled. The silence felt like a physical weight, pressing down on my shoulders, making my ears ring.
Later, Jax would recount the locker room scene: the rookie players, mid-joke, their voices catching in their throats the moment he stepped through the door.
Their eyes, wide and quick, would jump from him to the floor, or to the chipped paint on the ceiling, anywhere but his face.
Have you seen the way Carter looks at his roommate?
I heard he stayed in his apartment instead of the team dinner last week. Again.
Someone saw them in the truck at 4 AM, parked behind the library.
I sat hunched on the couch in our apartment, a tremor running through my left leg that had nothing to do with restlessness.
My phone felt hot in my palm, the screen a glaring white rectangle.
The anonymous campus confession app, YikYak, scrolled like a venomous ticker tape.
Each new post made my stomach clench tighter.
Hockey Captain definitely playing for the other team. Not talking about sports.
Saw his roommate limping again. Just saying.
Try talking to the roommate when Carter is around. I dare you. You'll lose a hand.
His roommate is hot, but I saw a hickey and a bite mark.
The front door swung inward without a knock.
Jax filled the doorway, a solid, unyielding mass of dark leather and coiled fury.
His leather jacket seemed to absorb the dim afternoon light, making him appear even darker, heavier.
He’d just come from a meeting with the coaching staff, a pre-playoff strategy session.
But the rigid set of his shoulders, the tension that pulled his jawline taut, spoke of battles far from the ice.
He didn’t offer a greeting, didn’t even glance my way.
His boots thudded purposefully across the hardwood floor, a steady, ominous rhythm.
He bypassed the living room entirely, heading straight for the kitchen.
The refrigerator door hissed open, then clicked shut.
The metallic shhhk of a beer can being twisted open was sharp in the quiet apartment.
He lifted the can, the aluminum cold and sweating against his fingers, and took a long, deep swallow.
His Adam’s apple bobbed once, twice, a hard knot working beneath his skin.
“They’re talking,” I managed, my voice thin, barely a whisper in the sudden silence of the room.
Jax lowered the can, the condensation leaving a ring on the counter. His head turned slowly, his gaze landing on me. His eyes, usually a startling blue, were now chips of flint, cold and hard and sharp. They held no warmth, no flicker of their usual intensity, only a flat, cutting edge.
“I know.” His voice was a low rasp, a sound ripped from deep in his chest.
“What did you hear?”
“Enough,” he growled, the word vibrating in the air between us.
“Coach asked if my ‘living situation’ was becoming a distraction. Tyler asked if I needed to talk about anything ‘personal.’” He crushed the empty can in his hand.
The aluminum shrieked, folding in on itself with a violent protest, then fell with a soft clunk to the granite counter.
“They think I’m weak,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, barely audible whisper. The words felt like shards of ice. “They think I’m hiding. They think because I haven’t fucked a cheerleader in a month, I’ve lost my edge.”
He moved then, a silent, predatory glide across the floor. He stopped directly in front of the couch, towering over me. His presence was a physical thing, blocking out the last sliver of daylight from the window, plunging me into his shadow.
“Get up,” he commanded, his voice devoid of negotiation.
My legs, which had been bouncing nervously, stilled. “Jax, we should stay in. If we go out, it just… it just adds fuel.” My voice cracked on the last word.
“No,” he snapped, the word like a whip. “Hiding makes us look guilty. Hiding makes us look ashamed.”
He reached down, his fingers closing around my wrist. The grip was firm, unyielding, a possessive brand. He pulled, and I stumbled to my feet, the couch cushion springing back with a soft sigh.
“We’re going out.”
“Where?”
“Sigma Chi. They’re throwing a pre-playoff rager. Everyone will be there. The team. The puck bunnies. The people writing those posts.”
“Jax, that’s suicide. If we go there together…” The thought choked me.
“We’re not just going there,” he interrupted, his voice a low, dark rumble.
He reached out, his fingers hooking into the collar of my white t-shirt.
He tugged it aside, exposing the pale skin at the junction of my neck and shoulder.
The bite mark from the shower, a secret we’d kept, had faded to a mottled, bruised yellow, barely visible in the dim light.
“It’s fading,” he noted, a hint of displeasure in his tone, a possessive frown creasing his brow. “I need to refresh it.”
My breath hitched. “You want to mark me? Now?”
“I want to mark you there,” he said, his eyes drilling into mine, an almost feral glint in their depths. “I want to walk into that party, and I want every single person who looks at you to see exactly whose you are. I want them to see the bruises. I want them to smell me on you.”
He leaned in, his lips brushing the sensitive skin just behind my ear. The warmth of his breath sent a shiver down my spine. “I’m not going to deny the rumors, Tom. I’m going to confirm them. But not with words.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the cage of my chest. “Jax…”
“Go change,” he ordered, pulling back, his gaze sweeping over me with an unnerving intensity. “Wear the white t-shirt. The thin one.”
“Why?”
“Because it shows everything when it gets wet.” He smirked then, a slow, dangerous curl of his lips that promised trouble, an invitation to chaos. “And wear the gray sweatpants. No underwear.”
“To a frat party?” My voice was barely a squeak.
“To a statement.”
???
The Sigma Chi house loomed against the twilight, a sprawling brick edifice with peeling paint and overflowing trash cans, a monument to collegiate excess.
Even from the sidewalk, the bass was a physical force, a deep, throbbing pulse that vibrated through the ground, up my legs, and into my chest. The lawn was a sea of bodies, a blur of sweating of faces illuminated by the glow of phone screens and the red plastic of Solo cups.
Shouts and laughter, distorted by the thrumming music, spilled out into the cool evening air.
As we started up the cracked concrete driveway, I felt the eyes. They landed on us, heavy and invasive, a hundred unseen pinpricks against my skin.
Jax didn’t flinch. His head stayed high, his shoulders back, his stride long and deliberate.
He moved with the arrogant, rolling gait of a predator, utterly unconcerned by the sudden cessation of conversations, the abrupt shifts in attention.
He didn’t walk beside me. He walked slightly ahead, a living battering ram carving a path through the throng, his hand reaching back to grip my wrist.
It wasn’t a gentle clasp. It was a shackle, his fingers circling my wrist, pulling me along in his wake. I was a prize, tethered, towed behind him, offering no resistance.
“Heads up,” he muttered, his voice low, meant only for me. “Don’t look at them. Look at me.”
My gaze fixed on the broad expanse of his leather-clad back, the worn texture of the jacket, the subtle flex of muscle beneath. My world narrowed to the warmth of his fingers around my wrist, the rhythm of his steps ahead of me.
We pushed through the front door. The heat hit me instantly – a suffocating wall of damp air thick with the cloying sweetness of cheap beer, the sharp tang of sweat, and the heavy floral notes of expensive perfume.
The main room was a pulsing, writhing mass of bodies. Figures danced on tables, their movements jerky and exaggerated under the frantic strobe light that turned the scene into a stop-motion nightmare.
As Jax dragged me deeper into the house, the whispers started, a low, buzzing hum that followed us. I saw heads turn in unison, a ripple of movement through the crowd. Phones rose, like tiny, glowing eyes, cameras flashing indiscriminately in the gloom.
Is that him? Ooh. He’s pretty cute.
That’s the roommate.
Look at the way he’s holding him.
Jax didn’t break stride. He pulled me through the living room, past the overflowing kegs gushing foam onto the floor, past the DJ booth where a figure in a backward baseball cap bobbed his head.
“Carter!” A shout cut through the din. It was Mills, the starting defensive lineman, leaning against the banister of the staircase with a group of his teammates, red cups sloshing in their hands. “You made it!”
Jax stopped, yanking me flush against his side. His arm, heavy and possessive, clamped around my shoulders, pressing me into his body. He held me captive, pinned against him.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jax said, his voice calm, projecting effortlessly over the thumping bass.