Chapter 2 #2
Now Victoria isn’t just slightly blushing—she’s full-on pink. Mike has a reputation—I’ve never slept with him, but that probably puts me in a minority on campus. But Victoria should have a little fun; Mike is, from what I hear, a lot of fun.
I shove them toward each other. “C’mon, you’re dancing with Victoria,” I say.
Mike offers a hand, but despite the makeover, Victoria hasn’t lost her good girl tendencies. “Sav, I should help you get home,” she says.
“Have a good time—that would help me.” And before she can object, I slip off through the crowd, but not before I see Mike put his hand in hers.
Outside, it’s a beautiful, clear night even for San Diego. I sit for a few minutes on the porch, enjoying it and not thinking about how—if—I’m going to be able to pay for Morningside.
I need to go back to my room. I need to deal with this.
I need to do…something. For a moment, I think about calling my father, asking if my insurance and my cards being cut off is just some grand mistake.
As if the situation could be resolved that simply.
No one’s going to fix all your problems for you.
But that doesn’t stop me from wishing they could.
I’m about to pull myself up so I can walk back to my dorm, when a man stumbles up the path toward the house.
Even from a distance, it’s easy to tell he’s drunk. Maybe not just drunk. Cross-faded. He’s listing to one side. He’s tall, muscular, with close-cropped blond hair, and there’s a lot of him to list.
“Is this the baseball party?” he slurs when he gets up the path.
He does look like a baseball player, though no one I recognize from our team. Maybe he was playing against us or maybe he’s just here to start shit. “And you are…?”
“I’m not Blake,” he snaps.
“That’s good. I’m not Blake either.”
He gives me a once-over, eyes sweeping up from my ankles to the crown of my head. “You are definitely not Blake.”
“You are definitely drunk.”
He shrugs and doesn’t deny it.
“All right, this is the baseball party,” I concede.
His forehead scrunches like he forgot he asked the question. “Obviously. I’m here.”
I’m about to ask what, exactly, he means, when two other partygoers make their way up the path. “Holy shit, that’s Blake Forsyth,” one yells. She raises her phone camera. Flashes go off as she snaps a picture, then examines whatever image she took. “No, wait, that’s not him.”
Whoever Not Blake is, he rolls his eyes. Hops up on the porch next to me with surprising fluidity for a drunk guy, even if he stumbles a little on the landing.
“This seat taken?” he asks, then sits himself beside me before I can answer.
Up close, he has a straight nose, a square jaw.
He smells like whatever he’s been drinking—something smoky; whiskey, maybe—and he looks just like every country club guy I grew up with.
Except for his dark gray eyes, which are currently studying me.
The girl with the camera flashes another picture. I flinch. What the fuck?
“Find another party.” He practically growls it at her.
She backs away, laughing, already talking to one of her friends about oh my god, that was so weird right… until their voices are carried off in the night.
“Okay, who’s Blake?” I ask when they’re gone.
“My brother.”
“And people know who he is?”
“Yeah.” The man flashes a grin. “People know who I am too. Or they will soon.”
“So are you famous or infamous?” I tease.
He laughs, though it doesn’t sound entirely amused. “I’m Brayden Forsyth.”
In my time shadowing my father’s business, I’ve met important men—and men who thought that they were important. I can’t tell which Brayden actually is.
“I’m Savannah—” I cut myself off. Because Burke Holdings, my father’s company, is starting to be in the news. Brayden might want to be infamous, but I was raised to always protect the family name and business, even when that business doesn’t exist anymore. “Savannah like Georgia.”
As soon as I say it, my heart sinks. I’m supposed to be there this year.
A possibility that looks more and more distant.
Next to me, I can’t tell if Brayden has stopped listening.
Maybe he’s forgotten I’m here. Being plus-sized means half the men I talk to treat me like I’m invisible and the other half want to fuck me in private while ignoring me in public.
I feel like I have to tell someone—anyone—about Morningside.
Who better than a drunk guy who clearly won’t remember it anyway?
“I got into this program in Atlanta. It’s for bioinformatics.
I really want to go. I think that’s what I want to do with my life.
” I think of all the things I didn’t say to my father to convince him to pay my tuition—and he didn’t do that anyway.
“I want to be a scientist, I think. To do something to help people and not just to make a profit. Anyway I don’t think it’s gonna work out.
You ever think you have something all set and the universe has different plans? ”
That catches Brayden’s attention. He turns to me, eyes storm gray. “You were supposed to come to Atlanta?" He doesn’t have much of an accent, but he has enough of one to drop the ts from Atlanta.
“I was,” I admit.
“And now you’re not?”
My stomach sinks. This is the first time in my life I’ve come close to failing at anything, and it’s not even my failure really. But I don’t want pity: his, anyone else’s. Definitely not my own. “Correct.”
“To study bio—” He pauses like he forgot the word. “Bio-whatever.”
I laugh. “Yeah, bio-whatever.”
He digs into his pocket, pulls out something. Offers it to me. A wad of twenties. Why the hell are you carrying around that much cash? Probably for nothing good. I think about the register in the hospital pharmacy, ringing up a price I can’t come close to meeting. “What’s that for?” I ask.
Brayden looks at the bills as if it’s obvious. I can’t just take his money, right? Something about it feels like robbery. Worse, like charity that I don’t come close to deserving.
“What do you get in return?” I ask.
“Who says I want anything?” he asks.
“People always want something. My father always says no business deal comes without a catch.”
“He sounds smart.”
“He is.” He was, anyway.
“Would he also tell you to take the money and run?” Brayden asks.
“Is that what you would do if I offered you”—I scan the pile—“a thousand dollars for no reason?”
Brayden’s eyes flick over my face like he’s searching for something. Then, finally, he grins. “Who says I don’t have a reason?”
And I’m just about to ask him what that is when another set of flashes goes off.
At first, I think it’s a phone camera again.
But then another flash bursts and then another, followed by the whoop of sirens.
Suddenly the rest of the party starts pouring out, a sea of people around us, half of whom are panicking about being in trouble for underage drinking, the other half of whom are pulling clothes on frantically.
Some people are crying, and more are yelling, and someone shoves me with a hard elbow, jostling me.
I look around—Mike is still here, at one end of the patio shepherding all six feet and six inches of Jonathan toward an exit. “Where’s Victoria?” I call.
Mike doesn’t flinch, exactly, but his lips pull to one side as if he’s guilty and trying to hide it. “She went home.”
“Alone?” I ask a little pointedly.
That gets Jonathan’s attention. “Does she have a boyfriend? Just wondering. For no particular reason.”
Oh, so it’s like that. My best friend is caught in some kind of bizarre love triangle thing that they should all probably work out. Possibly horizontally. I’ll be sure to suggest that.
For a few minutes, everything is a swirl of colors and lights—students shouting, campus security declaring that we should all just go home. And it’s not until the crowd settles that I realize Brayden has disappeared.
It’s two a.m. by the time I get back to my dorm room. I take off my jewelry. Or take off one earring. The other must have gotten lost in the shuffle: a vintage set of hoops Cherri got me that there’s no way I can afford to replace.
I put on my pajamas, do my skincare routine, then settle into bed with my phone plugged into the charger on my nightstand.
Eight hours later, I wake up to the sound of it buzzing.
Once, then again and again. OMG is that who I think it is?
A study buddy—not even a close friend—from last year’s Ochem class texts.
She included a link to an Instagram account.
On it, a picture of me and Brayden sitting on the porch with about a thousand comments speculating as to who I am.
New gf???? someone asks, though we’re barely touching.
He's tagged in the picture, which must be what’s making people lose their minds. I go to his account, expecting to find out that he’s some kind of college baseball star the way Jonathan is.
That’s…not what I find.
Brayden Forsyth—right fielder for the Atlanta Peaches. For whatever reason, I hear Atlanta in the soft way he said it.
I google him. The team’s in town playing against San Diego. I skim through articles about his hitting and fielding—sure, baseball, whatever—about how he’s supposed to be Atlanta’s next hot player…and isn’t.
Atlanta’s nine-million-dollar mistake, a headline reads. If you’re expecting Brayden Forsyth to live up to his brother’s legacy, based on his hefty signing bonus, prepare yourself for disappointment.
Another is more direct: Why’d we end up with store-brand Blake Forsyth?
The article has a highlight over Blake’s name. I click, skim his player profile, a confusing set of numbers. He played for Atlanta—and was good—and now he plays for Boston—and is still good. Apparently, that’s a big deal. I read more until my eyes start to glaze over.
Blake has never done anything wrong—or seemingly interesting—in his entire life. Professional baseball’s golden boy.
Brayden, on the other hand…
Professional baseball's notorious party boy.
That phrase pops up over and over. Brayden wasn’t wrong: he is infamous. His Insta tags are mostly blurry pictures of him at bars, with women—thin, blond women, of course—draped all over him.
Different from the man who sat next to me on the porch who seemed…lonely.
Lonely with a giant wad of cash.
A giant wad of cash you said no to. I check my migraine meds. Shaking the empty bottle doesn’t magically make pills appear.
By now, people are figuring out who I am and tagging me in the comments. I wade through my notifications, blocking a bunch. When I check my DMs, there’s a request. From Brayden. I click accept.
For some reason, he sent me a single emoji: a diamond ring.