Chapter 20
GALINA
“I need your help with something.”
I look up from the books and notes spread out in front of me on the table in the middle of Ravencroft Library and up into Bella Drakos’ gleaming green eyes.
“Oh, hi,” I smile. “I didn’t even hear you walk—”
“Are you free?”
My brows knit. “What do you need help with?”
Bella shifts her weight nervously from one black leather Doc Marten to the other, sucking on her teeth.
Her dark hair is piled up in a loose bun, with tendrils hanging down and framing her elfin face.
Her pixie-goth makeup today involves extra dark blood-red lipstick paired with heavy retro glam winged eyeliner.
She’s wearing a hoodie over her uniform with an illustration of a screaming raccoon holding fists of trash and the words “First of all, I’m a delight” across the bottom.
“Just…a thing.” She lifts a shoulder. “You in?”
“Uhhh…”
“I don’t, um…” Bella frowns. “I don’t have a ton of female friends? And I know we’re just in one class together, and that doesn’t make us besties or anything, but I’m kind of out of options, and I just need someone to—”
“Bella.”
I gently cut her off as the words start to tumble faster from her mouth.
“I’d love to help.”
Her brows arch. “Really?”
I shrug. “Sure. And we are friends, for the record,” I smile.
“Cool.”
She turns and starts to walk away, which I gather is my cue to follow her.
I’ve picked up by now that Bella is a little odd.
Socially, she can feel a little off sometimes, and she has some fairly quirky habits.
For instance, we’ll be in class, and she’ll glance over at the clock on the wall at 12:34 and quietly mouth “one, two, three, four”.
Other times, I’ve caught her twisting her ponytail in front of her face and counting the individual hairs under her breath.
Nothing crazy, just…diferent. Whatever. I’m sure I have weird shit that I do too.
I catch up to her outside and sling my bag over my shoulder as I fall into step beside her.
“So, where are we going?” I ask.
“Montclair Gymnasium.”
“And what do you need my help with?”
Bella glances at me but doesn’t slow her stride. “I need you to put something in a locker.”
My forehead wrinkles with curiosity. “Whose locker?”
She glances at me again but doesn’t say a word.
“You don’t have to tell—”
“Okay.”
I bite back a grin. So, yeah; Bella’s a little nuts. Maybe more than a little. But for some reason I like her.
“I can give you the locker number and combo, though. Oh, and it’s in the men’s locker room.”
My brow raises as I glance at her. “Ooookaaay…”
“I’m not, uh…” Bella clears her throat. “Not really welcome in there.”
I laugh.
“Yeah, me neither? Cause it’s the men’s locker room?”
Bella cracks a smile. “Fair. But it's…a bit more complicated than that.”
I shrug as we keep walking across campus in the direction of the gym and the athletic field. “I’m all ears, if you feel like sharing.”
She sucks on her teeth in silence for another few steps.
“You know Marco Cervi?” she suddenly blurts.
I wince. “Yeah. That’s really terrible about his uncle—”
“Oh, no.” Bella frowns as she waves a dismissive hand. “His uncle is fine. He doesn’t have cancer.”
I frown. “I thought Marco was leaving school because—”
“Or, maybe he’s leaving school because he’s a sexual predator,” Bella says with a casual shrug, looking dead ahead. “And maybe someone made a convincing argument to him that it would be better to leave campus, even if it meant telling a shitty lie about his uncle’s health?”
I glance at her warily. Bella keeps looking straight ahead.
“But honestly,” she shrugs, “who really knows what happened?”
I get the distinct impression that Bella knows precisely what happened. But I decide not to push it.
“In any case, for various reasons…” She coughs delicately. “It wouldn’t be ideal for me to be seen in the men’s locker room.”
We stop outside the main entrance to Montclair Gymnasium and she pulls a little box out of her hoodie pocket. It’s wrapped in matte black paper with a cute little red bow tied around it. “Locker number three-one-three. The combo is seventeen left, forty-two right, twenty-one left.”
I chew on my lip as I take the box from her outstretched hand.
“Uh… What is it?”
Bella opens her mouth, then closes it and just smiles at me. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t know. But don’t worry,” she laughs when she sees my face. “It’s not gonna like, blow up or anything.”
I smile weakly back at her, wondering what the fuck I’ve gotten myself into as I slip the present in my bag and sling it over my shoulder.
“There aren’t any practices scheduled right now, so…” She shrugs. “The locker room should be empty.”
Should be.
But hey, I’m already here and I’ve agreed to help. Plus, odd duck that she may be, I don’t get the sense that Bella is, like, dangerous or anything.
So I get the locker number and combination from her again, turn, and walk into the gym.
Bella was right: the place is pretty quiet. Still, I can feel my face heat as I glance around and gently ease open the door to the men’s locker room.
“Hello?” I call into the space that smells like antiseptic and body spray. When there’s no response, I open the door a little wider and call out again, louder.
“Hello! Girl walking in! I just need to grab something, sorry!”
My pulse races as I step fully into the room and let the door shut behind me.
It’s utterly empty.
Thank God.
I quickly bolt down the rows of lockers until I find three-one-three. Bella’s combination works like a charm, and I swing the metal door open.
The first thing that strikes me is how freaking organized the inside of the locker is. I mean, not to generalize, but I do have a brother who plays sports and goes to the gym, and I’ve seen the chaos that accompanies all of that.
This locker is spotless.
Two sets of gym gear plus a swimsuit hang neatly from hangers.
Deodorant, cologne, toothpaste, a toothbrush and a cup, various hair products, and a full, old-school shaving kit complete with a straight razor are lined up perfectly on a small shelf.
The next shelf down boasts three neatly folded towels.
Three pairs of athletic shoes sit at the bottom of the locker, all of them with their pristine white laces wrapped tidily around the shoes.
Pretty sure I’ve just broken into a serial killer’s gym locker.
Cool.
I sling my bag off my shoulder and unzip it. Just as I’m reaching inside for the present, I notice the framed family photo attached to the back of the locker—perfectly level, obviously.
It's of Lucia, her younger brother Elio, and her cousins Damiano and Vincenzo.
Elio is still in high school. So this is either Damiano's or his brother Vincenzo's locker.
That question is resolved the second my gaze slides to the other thing taped in meticulously right angles against the back of the locker: a heather gray patch with a dark blue raven over the Latin words “Praecisio in omnibus”.
Precision in all things.
It's the crest of The Order, which Damiano is the president of.
Vincenzo is in the Ouroboros Society with Arianna and me.
Suddenly, a huge grin spreads over my face.
Well, well, well.
Looks like Bella has a crush on Lucia’s cousin Damiano. And I’m betting the real reason she couldn’t sneak this present into his locker is because she didn’t want anyone to know it was her.
And that's all pretty adorable, I have to say.
I set the little present down on top of the stack of neatly folded towels, grin at the family photo again, then gently close and re-lock the locker.
Then, before I can get caught snooping in the men’s locker room, I turn—
Directly into a bare, muscled chest.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
Mother. Fuck. Shit shit shit shit shit.
My heart slides up into my throat and then immediately plummets into my stomach as I look up into Lochlan’s piercing blue eyes.
“Uuuhhh…”
He’s standing right in front of me, a confused expression on his brow, wearing only a freaking towel wrapped around his trim, athletic waist.
I swallow heavily.
“N-nothing?”
Honestly, I kind of expect my dickhead TA to tell me off, or to be a prick or something. But instead, he just leans back, folds his arms over his bare, muscular chest, and grins at me.
“Nothing.”
I clear my throat. “Yup, just…passing through.”
Lochlan arches a brow. “You’re not one of those girls who steals dirty underwear from star sports players, are you?”
“Ew!” I find myself giggling as a grin spreads over my face. “That’s disgusting!”
“Hey, it happens.”
I roll my eyes. “It definitely does not.”
“No?” He flashes another heart-stopping grin at me.
Goddamn, why are dickhead jocks so obnoxiously attractive?
“Then why is the laundry closet locked?” he says, nodding his chin past me.
I turn, and my jaw drops when I see the door at the far side of the locker room with a big padlock on it.
“You’re joking,” I gasp.
Lochlan laughs, pulling my attention back to his grinning face.
“I am, actually,” he chuckles. “That’s the electrical room.”
I groan and roll my eyes. “Dick.”
“Well, this is the place to see them.”
I snort, feeling my face fill with heat.
What the fuck.
Am I legit flirting with Lochlan?
This feels weird. For one, almost every other interaction I’ve had with him is in the context of him TA-ing…now teaching…my Social Psychology of Deception class, where his default setting seems to be “asshole jock douchebag.”
But it’s the second reason this feels weird that really throws me for a loop: I feel guilty that I might be flirting with him, because of The Ghost Prince.
Yup, I officially need to be committed.
“Well, on that note,” I say, “I’m going to leave before I get the full show.”
“Do I need to escort you out to make sure there’s no underwear theft on the way?”
I giggle, feeling my cheeks heat as his gorgeous blue eyes drag over my face. He brings a hand up and rakes his fingers through his damp hair, the dimple in his cheek pulling my attention before the ripple of his tattooed bicep yanks my hungry gaze there next.
Yeah, time to go.
“No need,” I toss back. “I promise to restrain myself—”
My words falter.
Because just then, my gaze drops to the white towel wrapped dangerously low around his hips. Very quickly, it’s not the panty-melting v-lines that I can't stop staring at, or the chiseled abs.
…It’s the twin sets of angry, bright red claw marks on his hips.
What the fuck.
What the fucking FUCK.
No way.
There is no fucking way these are the same scratches I gave The Ghost Prince in the lecture hall the other day, which resulted in black paint under my nails.
They're not. Because clearly, Lochlan fucking Kildare, heir to the Kildare empire and resident sports-jock god of Knightsblood University, is not a mask-wearing, thirst-trap-making, content creator.
He just isn't.
“Galina?”
I force myself out of my head. “Hmm?”
Lochlan peers at me, confused. “All good?”
Okay, he’s definitely not Ghost. There’s no possible way Lochlan is that good an actor.
“Yeah,” I say brightly. “Yeah, sorry, just…study brain.”
He nods. “Well, I’d tell you to stay. But the lacrosse team is—”
“No, that’s okay,” I laugh lightly. “I’m out.”
He does end up walking me to the door, which is kind of sweet.
It also snags me a triple-take from two girls on the cheer squad when they see a nearly-naked Lochlan Kildare holding open the door of the men’s locker room for me.
I decide not to mention to Bella that I know whose locker I just hid her little present in. I mean, she obviously wants to keep it a secret, or else she’d have told me. I do mention seeing Lochlan, though.
“He saw you!?”
I quickly shake my head. “No. I mean, yeah. But not which locker I was in.”
Bella exhales in relief, then frowns.
“Was he a dick?”
I laugh and tell her only a little bit.
What I don’t tell her is that he was also charming. Nor do I tell her I may have flirted with him a little bit, leading to that weird tug of guilt again now.
I definitely don’t tell her that for one brief second, I looked at Lochlan and saw my masked stalker.
My dark fantasy.
My dangerous attraction, and my madness.
Because he’s not him.
No way.