Chapter 4 – Reese #3
I ignored how my hands shook against the mahogany arms of the chair and stood up, shoving them into my pockets.
Too soon, it seemed, because Dean Voss held his huge hand out to me over his desk. After half a second of hesitation, I slipped my own into his, and he squeezed.
Hard.
“Anything that sets off those warning bells, Mr. Walker. Anything at all,” he said, still holding my hand. “We love our scholarship students here, but sometimes funding gets stuck behind all that red tape. We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”
The air in the room became unbearably thin, and I wanted to run out of here and never return.
The only one setting off warning bells was him.
For the very first time since meeting him, I felt pity for Dakota. What kind of family life must he have had with such a domineering, overbearing bully like this as a father? A father who wanted another student to spy on him, no less.
Was it too late to try and transfer somewhere else?
After my final class of the day, I was tired and cranky and just wanted to crash on my bed and sleep. Every step back to my room felt like I was walking to my own execution, and I was praying Dakota wouldn’t be there.
Mostly because now my general discomfort with him had been overshadowed by a heavy ball of guilt that had settled deep in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t cut out for spying and backstabbing; my anxiety was going to eat me alive in under a week. Did Dakota really deserve this?
The dean said he’d been involved in some kind of incident, so who the fuck actually knew what Dakota was capable of.
Maybe he was like me and got into fights with people who thought it was funny to ridicule someone for their appearance. I could understand that. But based on all my interactions with Dakota, he seemed like the one who’d be starting any kind of trouble.
What kind of dad blackmailed one of his students into snooping on his son for him?
What kind of loser agreed to do it?
If I didn’t do this, though, I’d have to go crawling back to my grandma’s house in Boston.
Fuck that. I refused to go back there if I didn’t have to. Living in that house with her was hell. She had a shriveled up prune of a heart, if there even was one beating inside her.
I never wanted to go back to that house.
I jumped when the door to the third floor flew open and two guys who were laughing and talking loudly started coming down the stairs.
I pressed myself against the wall to avoid them since they didn’t seem to even notice me, then kept going up the stairs, trying to tune out their annoying back and forth.
I was always invisible until people saw my face—then I became the most interesting thing in the room. Repulsive, yet fascinating.
Being seen was far worse than being ignored, in my opinion.
I made it back to my room without passing anyone else, trying to ignore the lingering scent of marijuana in the hall.
When I pushed open the door, Dakota was lying on my bed—shirtless—with one arm tucked behind his head and a book in his hand. He glanced over at me as I stared at him, my cheeks heating at seeing all that skin again.
“Hey,” he said, pulling his arm out from behind his head to turn a page in his book. His pecs flexed with the movement, and my eyes trailed down his flat stomach to the line of dark hair that disappeared into his sweats.
Was he wearing that thong under there? Or jockstrap? Whatever it was?
When I dragged my gaze back up, he was giving my body the same slow perusal, as if I wasn’t fully clothed.
“What are you doing on my bed?” I asked, incredulous. I threw my backpack onto the floor and stared at him in disbelief. “Get off my bed! What’s wrong with your bed?” I looked over at his bed. It was stripped bare. “Where’s all your shit?”
“It’s in the laundry. I spilled some orange juice.”
“Okay? How is that my problem? You have a desk with a chair, you don’t need to be in my bed, you—you jackalope!”
His laugh was like sandpaper over broken glass and scraped against my skin like nails. “Jackalope? That’s a new one.” He closed his book and swung his legs over the side of the bed, brushing against me as he stood up and walked to his desk like he hadn’t done a single thing wrong.
He smelled like cigarettes, sweat, and maple syrup.
What the hell was with the maple syrup?
Was this what I had to look forward to? Every day a toss-up, never knowing what I’d be coming back to?
I stared down at my bed—at the rumpled blanket and the indentation of his shoulders and head on my pillow—and swallowed down the urge to grab the pillow and throw it at him.
“Hey, you wanna go to the cafeteria with me and get something to eat?”
I blinked, then looked over my shoulder at Dakota, who was now sitting at his desk, bathed in a bright ray of sunlight with an ankle over his left knee.
He glanced up from his book, an errant lock of hair sliding over his eyes and making him look like some kind of dark angel that had fallen to Earth—here just to terrorize me.
And constantly invite me to get food with him, of all things.
I bit back all the profanities teeming on my tongue and muttered, “No, I don’t, thanks.”
“What did you eat today?” He tilted his head and let his eyes drift down my body. I wanted to blindfold him just to stop him from drawing this uncomfortable, unwanted heat from somewhere deep inside me. From dragging it to the surface with just a simple sweep of his gaze.
With a worn-out sigh, I sat heavily on my bed and hung my head in my hands so I wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. “I don’t see why that’s any of your business.”
“Aren’t you my business? As my roommate?”
I lifted my head, and when our gazes connected, it felt like the world had begun to slant and I was moments away from sliding off.
“Dakota, let’s get things straight between us, okay?
” He lifted his brows, then planted both feet on the ground and turned toward me so he was sitting sideways in his chair.
“Just because we’re roommates doesn’t mean we have to be friends.
I appreciate you helping me at the cemetery, but please, please just leave me alone. ”
My stomach growled right as I was done speaking. Dakota’s eyes flicked to my abdomen, then back to mine.
“Who said I wanted to be your friend?” He tilted his head and raised his brows.
Humiliation burned beneath my skin. I was so tired of being toyed with. “Just—just leave me alone, please,” I bit out.
“What if I don’t want to leave you alone?” He posed the question in a soft voice, but his eyes bored into mine with a hard awareness that felt like an icy hand wrapping itself around my throat.
A strange thrill of excitement crackled through me, making my heart pound and my mouth go dry.
I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that. Or why the fuck it excited me, of all things.
Today had started out so promising; my morning classes had gone smoothly enough. Nobody bothered me or even acknowledged me, and the courses themselves seemed straightforward and passable.
But it all had gone downhill halfway through my meeting with Dean Voss, and things were just continuing their downward trajectory. I didn’t want to know what I’d find at the bottom of this hill.
When he stood up and set his book on his desk, those dark eyes never leaving mine, I shoved to my feet, grabbed my backpack, and flew out of the room like the devil was on my heels.
Because I was pretty sure he was.