Chapter 4 #2
“Yeah. Just slipped.” Two spots of color appear on his cheeks as I slowly let him go, purposely dragging my hand across his lower back as I pull my arm away.
“But before slipping and almost falling down the stairs like this is my first day on Earth, I thought I heard you say that you’re my partner for the project? ”
“I did say that,” I confirm as we start walking again, and I gently brush my hand against his in a way that could have been an accident.
He lets out a little sound, like a grunt mixed with a gasp, and we pause as we come up on the landing to the third floor.
“Well, that’s…great?” West shakes his head, his cheeks coloring even more. “I mean, good to know.”
“Like I said, you have nothing to worry about. You’re in good hands.” I add a touch of a flirty tone to my voice.
He blinks at me, his blue eyes so wide he looks like a surprised lemur.
“That’s really…great,” he says softly, his eyes falling to my mouth before shooting back up to my eyes.
“It is,” I murmur and flick my own gaze to his full lips. “Catch ya later, partner.” I give him a smirky smile and continue up the stairs, leaving him staring after me on the landing as I head up to the fourth floor.
I’m just coming around the corner when Damon steps out of his room and into the hall.
“Hey, Ant?” he asks, pausing as he closes the door behind him.
“What’s up?”
“Have you seen Graycen around?”
I study him for a few seconds.
He looks stressed as fuck, and the fact that he’s asking after one of our leaders is completely out of character for him. Something is going on, and I want to know what that is.
“You’re looking for Graycen?” I ask, choosing my words carefully.
“Yeah, I need to talk to him about something important,” he says, but his casual tone doesn’t match the nervous way he chews on his lip ring.
“Something important?” I give him what I hope is an innocent look so he’ll tell me more.
He nods distractedly. “Yeah.”
“Like what?”
“Just something personal.” He flicks his lip ring with his tongue a few times.
I might not know Damon well, but I’ve spent the past three years living in the same house as him, and I’ve learned his tells. He only plays with his lip ring when he’s flirting, thoughtful, or freaking out.
He’s definitely not flirting, and he doesn’t seem all that thoughtful right now, so that leaves door number three.
A metaphorical lightbulb goes off over my head. Is this about Xavier sneaking into the house?
I have no idea what other shit Damon has going on in his life, but having a rival frat member sneaking into his room for the past few weeks is probably putting a bit of stress on him, and it makes sense that he’d want to talk to Graycen if he’s ready to come clean.
Graycen is probably the most levelheaded of the four, and he’s considered the main leader, so all the big issues go up the chain to him. But he’s still not someone I’d trust with a grenade pin, let alone a huge secret that could potentially derail my entire life if it’s not handled properly.
Of course I could be way off, and this could be about something random and not his extracurriculars with Xave, but the odds of Damon having a second issue that he’d need to talk directly to our main leader about are slim.
I might as well show him my cards and see how he reacts. Then I can decide how involved in this situation I want to be.
“Does it have anything to do with a certain someone who’s been sneaking into your room for the past few weeks?” I ask bluntly.
Damon’s jaw drops and his eyes bug out comically, silently confirming my suspicions.
A laugh bubbles up in my chest as he continues to gape at me. I’ve never seen him look that animated in all the years I’ve known him.
“Chill, dude,” I tell him. “You look like you’re about to have a panic attack.” I tick my chin at his closed door. “How about we go in there for a second before you collapse and I have to revive your ass?”
Woodenly, he pushes the door open and stumbles back into his room.
I step in behind him and close the door.
“You know?” he croaks, his face paler than usual.
Leaning against the heavy wooden door, I fold my arms over my chest and give him a quick nod.
“How?” he scrapes out.
“I saw him on the cams about a week ago and eventually tracked him to your room. Once I knew what to look for, I tracked him coming back almost every night.”
“You did?” He goes even paler and gently sways on his feet a few times, like he’s on the verge of passing out. “Does anyone else know?”
“Just Liam,” I lie.
He doesn’t need to know I let my friends in on his secret, or that the four of us have spent almost a full week unraveling the mystery of our late-night intruder.
“And you didn’t say anything?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
I give him a long look. How honest do I want to be?
I don’t really know Damon, but I like him more than most of the guys in the house. He’s never caused any problems, and I appreciate his nihilistic attitude and “don’t fuck with me” energy.
“Do you remember back during hell week when you didn’t take me out during the Hunt when you had the chance to win?” I ask.
He furrows his brow but nods slowly.
The incident in question happened when I was a freshman and we both took part in the frat’s annual Hunt challenge. The same Hunt where I had one of the best orgasms of my life from rubbing off against West.
After we were done and West had already wandered away, I carved a small nick into the soft gold of his coin so I’d be able to find it again in the pile of tokens I’d already accumulated and use it to figure out who he was after I won.
I was so distracted by what happened that I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, and I pulled my mask up to wipe some sweat from my upper lip.
And that’s when I turned around and came face-to-face with Damon.
I knew it was him because of the shiny eyebrow ring he used to wear back then, and he knew it was me because most of my face was showing.
Technically Damon caught me since he was within arm’s reach of me, and he’s the one who snuck up on me, but he didn’t seem all that interested in getting me out.
We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, then he took a small step back and simply said, “I never saw you,” as he melted back into the shadows and disappeared.
Ten minutes later the timer ran out, and Damon and I were the only ones left standing. I was declared the winner thanks to the dozen coins I’d collected.
Damon and I both know that he was the actual winner, but he let me collect the prize and accolades that were rightfully his, and I have no idea why.
“I owed you one, so that was me paying my debt,” I tell him.
He flicks his lip ring with his tongue a few times. “This feels like an overpayment considering how many rules I broke and how much shit you could get in for helping me cover it up.”
“I thought about turning you in,” I tell him. “But I decided to track him so I could get the full picture of what the fuck was going on.”
“And you still kept quiet even after having the bigger picture?” he asks, his eyes wide with surprise again.
I give him a long look that makes him squirm under my scrutiny.
“He was able to go anywhere in the house and could have fucked with our security or done a dozen other things to sabotage us, but he didn’t.
He only ever went to your room. I figured it was better to keep an eye on things than to tattle on you guys.
Information is the most powerful thing you can have around here, and any leverage I can get over the Hawthornes was worth the risk of being an accomplice. ”
“But we broke the rules,” he insists, like he’s trying to convince me to get mad at him. “He got past our security. Multiple times.”
I chuckle at how indignant he looks. “I know. I was tracking him, remember?”
“How are you so chill about this?”
I shrug again. “I could freak out if you want me to.”
“No,” he says quickly. “Definitely don’t want that.”
“So, is that what you wanted to talk to Graycen about?”
He nods, looking shell-shocked as fuck.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say. Time to get some answers while I have leverage over him. “You tell me how he’s been breaking in, and I’ll handle Graycen and the others.”
“Really?”
I nod. “And we’ll keep this conversation, and me knowing about this, a secret. Kind of a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, mutually assured destruction kind of deal.”
Not knowing how Xave’s getting in or how he knows so much about our security is driving me crazy, and that information is probably worth just as much, if not more, than knowing about him breaking into that room at Baxter House.
“Yeah, okay,” Damon says quickly, his relief palpable. “He has a program that has an interactive map of the house, including access to our cams. That’s how he can get in without being seen. Well, mostly without being seen, since you obviously saw him.”
What the hell? How does he have a program like that? Who built it, and how the fuck did they find enough info on our house’s floor plan and security details to create an interactive map that can help someone evade our cameras?
“How many people have access to this program?” I ask.
“Just him and his cousins,” Damon says quickly. “But he’s the only one who’s ever used it.”
I nod slowly.
This is huge. A program like that could help us fill in the gaps in our own research on the house, and we can use it to revamp our security and tighten up weak spots the program exploits. “Get me a copy of it. I want to know everything about it and how the fuck it was created.”
“I will,” he promises.
“And tell him and his cousins to delete it and never use it again,” I add, giving him a pointed look. “I don’t give a fuck who they are, I will kill all of them if this comes back to bite me in the ass.”
“It won’t. I promise,” he says seriously.
I study him for a few seconds.
Damon obviously wasn’t going to Graycen to tell him that his boyfriend has been sneaking into the house, but he was going to talk to him about dating a Rebel, which has never been done in the hundred plus years that the frat has been around.
And from what I know of his father from the few times my own dad has talked about him, there’s a very real chance that Damon’s father could disown him over this, and he could lose everything.
I’ve never met anyone I would even consider giving up my parking space for, let alone risk my inheritance and connections to my family and legacy.
“Is he worth it?” I ask, my voice weirdly soft.
Damon nods. “He is. I’d give up everything for him. No hesitation, no regrets.”
“I’m actually on my way up to meet with Graycen right now,” I tell him, even though that’s not at all why I’m up here.
“I’ll talk to him about this and see if I can smooth things over.
” I rest one hand on the doorknob behind me.
“Don’t make me regret this. I promise it will end very badly for not just you, but everyone and everything that you care about. ”
“I won’t,” he says quickly. “I promise.”
Taking him at his word, I leave his room and head toward the stairs so I can go up to the fifth floor and hopefully catch Graycen without having to track him down.
He’ll be pissed when I tell him about Damon and Xave dating, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get him to agree to let them be together. I know how to handle him, and I have a few aces up my sleeve in case he needs to be persuaded.
Getting my hands on the program Xave has been using without anyone knowing about it will be worth whatever threats or promises I have to make.