26. Hadley
Hadley
I wake up and violence chooses me.
I don’t have a conscious thought as I pull on a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, forgoing a shower.
I head to our shared restroom, cringing at the makeup smeared across my face and the clip-in extensions that have mostly fallen out of place.
I remove them, wipe my face clean, and am nearly out the front door when Katie catches up to me.
“Where are you going?” She follows me down the stairs and outside as I continue, not stopping for shoes, only my purse.
“I need to issue a public warning,” I say, continuing to my car.
Katie closes the front door, rushing to my passenger door, still wearing her pajamas, and also barefoot. “Is this about last night?”
I nod.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Not really.”
“Do we need help? Should we grab shoes?” She pulls her hair up into a ponytail.
“Not with my current temper.” I punch the gas, driving the short distance to the campus. I park in front of the dorms and get out, Katie at my side.
A couple of people glance at us when we enter the lobby, but no one says anything. Half of them are still in pajamas.
“Does anyone know what room Ethan James is in?”
“Fourth floor,” a guy says.
I nod, already aware of that. “What room?”
“Four-oh-nine,” someone replies.
I nod and turn to the elevator. Once inside, I stab the button for the fourth floor.
“Ethan did it?” Katie hisses. “Does Hannah know? What happened?”
I shake my head. I can’t answer her right now because that would involve calming down and engaging in a conversation, and I want to hold onto this anger and let it hit the right target.
The doors open to the fourth floor, and we head down the hall, stopping at door four-oh-nine where I pound on the surface with my fist.
A shirtless, bleary-eyed guy who is most definitely not Ethan answers the door.
“Where’s Ethan?” I demand.
“The fuck?” the guy asks.
“Ethan James. Which room is his?” Katie demands.
The guy shakes his head and starts to shut the door, prompting me to stick my foot out, my bare toes pushing against the surface. “We found his wallet and want to return it.”
He looks at me with one raised brow. He knows I’m full of shit. “Four-thirty-seven, I think.”
Katie and I turn, prepared to wake up the entire damn hall if necessary. She reaches the door first, knocking while I realize I should have come up with a better plan—and shoes—Katie was right about the shoes.
When the door doesn’t open, Katie knocks again. “Open up!”
A door beside us swings open and Colin appears. “Oh hey,” he says.
“Where’s Ethan?” I ask.
“Probably at the facility,” he says.
“For fuck’s sake,” I say, shaking my head.
A couple more doors open, and guys from the team step out of their rooms in dress clothes, others in sweats—all of them looking at us as we march back to the elevator.
“Sorry, but no,” I say when one of them tries to get into the elevator with us.
He furrows his brow. “This is—”
“Out,” Katie orders, pointing to the hallway.
One of his teammates snickers, but the guy obliges, muttering curses about us being crazy. He might be right; I feel a little crazy right now.
“What are we going to do?” Katie asks.
“Find him.”
Surprisingly, Katie doesn’t object.
When we hit the lobby, the guy who gave me the wrong room number snickers.
I flip him off, grateful because his reaction to call me a derogatory name to impress his friends only lights that match in me again.
I know he’s a soccer player, I’m pretty sure I even saw him last night at the party.
But he’s not who my fight is with. Not now, at least.
“Where exactly are we going?” Katie asks as I push the doors to the facility open.
“You might want to keep your eyes on the ground,” I warn her as I push the door that leads into the athlete section. “They walk around naked.”
Katie cups a hand over her brow as we weave through the mostly empty halls, until I spot Ethan, laughing with another player I don’t know. His smile falls as he sees me, or maybe it’s my wrath he recognizes as he moves, gaining better balance as he squares his shoulders.
“Hey, Hadley.”
“You drugged me, you asshole.”
He scoffs. “It was just an edible. It’s not like I roofied you.”
My palms slam into his chest, pushing him with the full strength of my anger, making him stumble several feet, before tripping over a bench and falling. I follow him, as he gets to his feet, glaring at his boyish face I’d once thought of as cute and sweet. “You don’t drug people, you shit bag.”
“You had fun.”
A sound that is part screech, part growl, fitting of the lioness costume I wore last night, leaves me.
“You were my friend and you drugged me,” I repeat.
“You don’t give someone edibles unknowingly.
It makes you a douchey predator! And I swear, if you drug anyone again, I’ll destroy you.
They won’t be able to find your teeth to identify you. ”
I turn and am three steps when he scoffs. “I was just trying to help you loosen up. You guys can be so uptight.”
Katie charges like a rhino, her fist connecting with his jaw with a crack that has him turning his head. “We’re fine being uptight and holding onto our high standards. It filters out the bottom feeders like you.”
Ethan shakes his head and raises a hand to his face, stretching his jaw. “You guys are fucking crazy.”
“Remember that,” I tell him. “Because if you think this—defending ourselves and our friend is crazy—you’re going to think we’re absolute lunatics if you try that bullshit ever again.
She trusted you. She liked you, and you took advantage of her—of us.
You are not welcome in our house ever again.
Don’t even try to come by or I’ll report what you did to the police, and you can kiss your future and Camden goodbye. ”
He sneers, revealing his true colors that he loosely managed to conceal for too long.
As Katie and I turn, we discover a small audience has gathered, phones raised to record our altercation.
Movement draws my attention to Palmer, Corey, and Lenny as they cut through the crowd, looking at Ethan and then at us.
“I got him,” Lenny says. I think for a moment he’s going to put his arm around us and try escorting us out, but he slides past us toward Ethan, gripping his arm like he’s an obstinate child refusing to leave the grocery store.
“Callum, collect their phones,” Corey says, nodding to their teammates. One releases an audible sigh, catching Corey’s attention. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. We have enough to deal with this morning.”
“Come on,” Palmer says, tilting his head toward the empty hall that we just made our way down. “Let’s get you two out of here before shit hits the fan.”
As we step forward, Corey and Palmer fall into step at our sides.
“Grey,” Palmer calls as Grey steps into view.
Grey looks from Katie and me to Palmer. “What’s going on?”
“Ethan gave them the edibles last night. He didn’t tell them they were edibles.” Palmer’s jaw is sharp as glass, his anger barely contained, reminding me of the friendship that’s developed between us that feels a hundred percent more authentic after Ethan’s reaction.
“Where is he?” Grey asks.
“Lenny’s got him. You need to call Nolan.” Palmer says. “Stall him.”
“He’ll be pissed,” Katie says, nodding in agreement to their plan.
Palmer nods. “He’ll be a lot more than mad, which is why he can’t be here right now.”
“I meant, he’ll be pissed if you keep this from him,” Katie amends.
Palmer nods again, his gaze falling to the floor, as though already feeling the repercussions of his decision.
“I know, but if he gets here, he’ll probably want blood—I know I would.
” He glances at me, and then back at Katie.
“If Nolan even tries to hit him, it will jeopardize his place on the team. Peters will make an example out of him.”
Grey nods, and disappears, his phone already to his ear.
When we step outside, the morning chill soaks into my bones from all angles, but especially my bare feet. The last twelve hours—the last fifteen minutes—hits me like a windstorm, pride, regret, and fear all dancing around me until Palmer moves in front of me.
“Are you okay?”
“You were there last night?” I’m not positive, but I think I recall him. Several parts of last night are a blur, including the memory of seeing him.
He nods. “Only at the end. We didn’t know. We…” He shakes his head. “You called Nolan.”
Of course, I did.
“And we came and got you guys,” he says.
I nod, trying to swallow what’s left of my frayed pride. “Thanks.” I turn to Corey, vaguely recalling him as well. “I appreciate you guys coming and helping.”
Corey’s jaw is tight, a muscle bulging as he shakes his head. “Don’t thank us. We shouldn’t have had to come.”
“Still, I appreciate that you did.”
Palmer loses a breath and wraps his arms around my shoulder. “How’d you guys get here?”
I point at the parking lot. “I drove.”
He nods. “Let’s get you out of here in case there’s a backdraft.”
On our ride home, I fill Katie in on what I can remember from the previous night: the terrible pumpkin cookies Ethan offered us, and how I’d felt fine for at least an hour, and never considered the cookie could have been what caused me to feel so loopy until Nolan confirmed I’d had an edible.
Katie’s not quite as shocked as I am that Ethan turned out to be a creep. Maybe I’m not as shocked as I want to be, either.
“I feel like a terrible judge of character,” I admit to Katie.
She shakes her head. “This was all him. Don’t carry an ounce of his guilt.”
Grey and Hudson are in the kitchen with Nolan, a bag of breakfast sandwiches between them.
“Where’d you guys go?” Nolan asks. His gaze tracks down Katie’s pajamas and then our matching bare feet.
“We just had to do something,” I say, feeling the blunt edge of my lie, cutting into my chest.
Nolan lowers his brow, as though, recognizing the falsehood, I sow too easily.