Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Zeke
When Charles blusters into the war room, I can’t help the smile that immediately jumps to my lips. Then I stamp that shit down because what I’ve heard this morning is far from happy news.
“Okay, I’m here,” he says irritably. “But I have a class starting in fifteen minutes that I can’t—”
“Might want to skip it,” I say.
He levels me with a look. “My morning has been disrupted enough, thanks to your brothers. It’s not like I can pick and choose which classes I go to. My degree is hard work, and I should be focused on end of year …”
I cross my arms and listen to him vent. I’ve dealt with Charles enough to know that you’ve got to let him get it all off his chest before he’s ready to focus on the actual conversation.
His objections come to an end.
“You good now?” I ask.
He nods and sinks into a chair. There’s something about him this morning that is radiating … unhappiness. It’s unlike him. Even when he’s frustrated or annoyed, he has a level of energy about him. Today, it’s like all the air has been sucked out of his personality.
And I’ll have time to psychoanalyze him later. There are more important things at stake here than his out-of-character vibe.
“It wasn’t us,” I say.
“What wasn’t?”
“The prank. The lawn. We’ve asked around, and it wasn’t anyone here.”
“But …” He scrambles for his phone, clicks on something, then holds it out so I can see. The Sigma Beta Psi letters stare back at me. “Who else would do this?”
I almost laugh. “Anyone but us. Why the hell would you think we’d leave that kind of evidence?”
His face falls. “So we covered up the crime scene?” He looks so scandalized, I can’t help watching him. Charles’s face is full of expression. Always. It doesn’t matter how he’s feeling, he wears it all out there for anyone to see.
I purposely keep my thoughts locked down tight.
I lick my lips slowly to keep that damn smile away. “Crime scene?”
“Well, yes. If it wasn’t you, then it was someone else.”
Chad shakes his head. “Except everyone would have thought the same as you did and assumed it was another one of our pranks. So, ah, thanks? For covering it up?”
Charles blinks at Chad, looking like he’s waiting for the punchline. When nothing comes, he turns to me, and I notice for the first time he’s not meeting my eyes. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“That’s the question.”
The four of us get lost in our thoughts, turning that over. Why the actual fuck would someone pull a harmless prank and try to make it look like us?
“Do you think—” Charles cuts off, and his eyes dart to Chad. “Could it be because of … you know.”
“It’s okay. I told him, Robbie, and Brandon about the posts. And I dunno. It could be, but … why? If they wanted to back up those posts, they would have done something bad, right? Why do something as boring as cling film if you’re trying to make us look like deviants?”
No one has an answer to that either.
“This is concerning,” Charles says. “But what are we supposed to do about any of it? Maybe the posts and the prank are connected, and maybe they’re not.
We won’t figure out anything just now, and I really need to get to class.
” There’s something in the way his voice pitches high that makes me take pity on him.
He’s got a point, after all. There’s nothing we can do right now.
I’ve been scouring the house for any sign of shoes like the ones I saw and have come up empty.
Which doesn’t make sense. My brothers are the only ones who know about the parameters thing, so unless it was one of the ones who don’t live at the house …
“Wait a minute,” I say, head jerking up. “Who has the biggest cause to be pissed with us?”
Chad’s eyes flick to Charles.
I wave my hand. “I don’t mean Kappas. Think about it. Someone who’s been on the inside here. Who knows about Charles and wears the same shit we do but actually has a reason to hate us?”
“Carter,” Bailey answers before the other two can.
I snap my fingers and point at him. “Bingo. That guy has never fit in around here, plus he knew about the prank on Brandon.”
“Yeah, he definitely seems like the most likely,” Chad says, “but there are a few holes. First, he doesn’t own a pair of Ultraboosts—just budget knockoffs. He also got fired from the convenience store he was working at, and two nights ago when you were both …” I swear suspicion crosses Chad’s face.
“Trying to find out who Anon is,” I supply before he can come up with some other reason I was with Charles.
“Yeah. That. Well, Carter was at the same party as me. I remember because Robbie wanted to spray beer at him, and Brando and I had to keep talking him out of it.”
“Shocking,” I mutter. “Could he have left during the party?”
Chad shrugs. “Maybe. But the party was off campus, and we saw him a few times over the night.”
Charles moves, and my attention unwillingly returns to where he’s massaging his forehead. “What party?” he asks.
Chad tells him, and a moment later, Charles’s screen is full of photos.
“Carter’s in a bunch of these,” Charles says. “There’s no way he was there and locking us in at the same time.”
“Unless he was working with someone,” I point out.
“Sure, it’s possible. But we have no proof on any of this. Even if we go and confront him, I doubt we’ll get much more than him laughing in our faces.”
He’s right, and the fact Chad doesn’t think it’s him means it probably isn’t. Chad’s never liked that guy, and I know that if he could get him back for the shit he pulled—trying specifically to target Chad—Chad would want to return the favor.
And so we’re back at square one.
“You’re right. Need a lift to class?”
Charles opens his mouth, and I’d put money down that he’s going to argue, when he gives a curt nod instead.
He’s still not meeting my eyes, and when I follow him out, I can feel Chad’s stare on my back.
Whatever. I understand his confusion. While I’ve never been hostile toward Charles like the others, I also haven’t gone out of my way to be nice to him—that they know about.
But my curiosity at finding out what’s up with him outweighs the knowledge that I’ll have to explain myself later.
I’ll just tell Chad I was scoping him out a bit more.
“I can drive myself, you know,” Charles says as we get to my car.
“Yeah, but like you said, you’re running late. I have class in half an hour anyway, so I might as well take you.”
He shakes his head. “Just drop me at my place on the way past. I need to get my laptop and textbooks.”
“I can’t believe you still have textbooks.”
“When you’re dealing with criminal law, it’s easier to have a physical copy to reference.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” But I don’t want to leave him at his place. “You run in,” I say, starting the car. “I’ll wait for you. It’ll save on gas. And we can both put that down as our environmental deed for the week.”
“Somehow, I don’t think presidential carpooling counts as being environmentally conscious.”
“Philanthropy quota, then. You survived a car ride with a Sigma Beta Psi and you didn’t commit murder. Someone should knight you.” Even I can hear the desperate tinge in my voice.
The soft laugh he lets out warms my gut. “Don’t get ahead of yourself—we’ve only made it seven houses. We still have the drive to campus to go.”
I pull up out the front of Kappa house, and Charles jumps out of the car but leaves the door wide open. If that’s not accepting my lift, I don’t know what is.
I don’t not watch his ass as he walks up the path, but then my attention is pulled away to the dug-up lawn, and I curse softly.
Something’s up. Very up. And surprisingly, it’s not my dick.
Fuckery is afoot, and it doesn’t feel like fraternity fun times.
My gut’s telling me I should be worried, but what the hell do I do? I have no clue where to start with any of it, and so far, the one time I tried to do anything about it, we ended up handing this Anon dick evidence of wrongdoing. Like hell am I going to make that mistake twice.
Maybe it’s time to take my brother’s advice. Maybe it’s time to hand off all this shit to Larken and enjoy the rest of my final year.
I don’t have to be in control of everything.
The soft thump of the front door draws my attention to Charles jogging down the stairs. He has a satchel slung across his chest, tan hoodie on over a button-up black shirt, and a giant textbook tucked under his arm. He looks like a total dork.
My mouth is dry.
“Okay,” he says, plopping back into the passenger seat and pulling the door closed. “I’m good.”
“Good.”
When I don’t move, it must catch his attention because those unusual eyes finally look at me. I still can’t tell what color they are. His eyebrows are dark though, unlike his copper hair. Thick, and dark brown, and currently bunched up and creasing his forehead.
“Are we going? I need to get to class.”
Fuck. “Yes, sorry, let’s do this.”
What the hell is wrong with me? I need to get my dumb ass under control, otherwise he’s going to think I’m a creep. What does it matter if his eyes are blue or green? Or that his eyebrows don’t match his hair color?
If I didn’t know better, I’d say my brain was waterlogged from all those early morning swims.
“What time do your classes end?” he asks when I get us back on the road.
“Two thirty.”
“Damn.”
“You?”
He screws up his face. “Not until five.”
“Ouch.”
“No one said being a lawyer would be easy.”
“I forgot that’s what you’re studying.” It’s either that or I never paid attention in the first place.
He hums. “You’re working on a business degree, right?”
“Yeah, I figured I should have a backup for if being a professional swimmer falls through.”
“You really think you can make it?”
I laugh. “You think I can’t?”
“I’m not qualified to answer that. I have no idea how it all works.”
“It’s not that complicated.” I talk him through the different heats and how I need to hit certain times to qualify.
To his credit, he actually seems to be listening. “And the one hundred is your specialty?”
“Yeah, with about half of the rest of the country.” As good as I am, and as fast as my times are, I refuse to jinx myself by talking like it’s a done deal. All it takes is one mistake, one shitty dive or bad turn, and then you lose the second you desperately needed to place.
It comes down to the qualifying swim. You either make it, or you don’t.
“I can barely doggy paddle, so I think that’s impressive.”
I shoot him a grin. “I don’t have the stamina for the longer swims, but I know how to go hard, fast.”
“Jesus …”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to have heard that or not, but the hitch in his voice gets my attention.
“Don’t get me wrong, I can go the distance,” I say, not able to stop the words.
“But I like to take my time with marathons. To enjoy it. Really work up a sweat and feel the burn that comes from a nice, long … swim.”
When Charles laughs, it catches me totally by surprise. I glance over at him, not believing what I’m hearing, and it hits me that I’ve hardly ever heard him laugh like this.
I like it.
“Now you’re messing with me,” he says.
“Picked up on that, huh?”
“Well, you were so subtle, it was a hard call.”
My smile’s splitting my face. “I’ll be sure to try harder next time.”
He groans. “I hate that my brain is turning that into innuendo.”
“Who says it wasn’t?”
“You, when you said it was the last t—” He abruptly stops talking, and all the air is sucked from the car.
Fucking Charles.
Maybe it was my fault for messing with him first, but I didn’t actually mention specifics.
The thing we had worked because we ignored that we had it at all.
But there have been too many moments of meshing the two versions of our relationship together that now I need to figure out how to play this.
Let his comment go and continue to pretend?
Or acknowledge it already and get the goddamn elephant out there?
I’m nervous as my mouth makes the decision for me. “I said probably.”
“W-what?”
“I said we probably couldn’t keep it up. You agreed.”
He swallows so loudly I hear it over the music. “Umm, right.”
“We’re both too busy. That’s all it is.”
“Uh-huh.”
I pull up in the parking lot, and he has one hand on the door handle before I’ve even turned the car off. At the click of his door, my hand flies out like it’s been summoned, and I grab his arm to stop him from leaving.
My casual smile comes easily, even though everything inside me feels like a complete mess. “It’s childish to keep pretending it didn’t happen. We’re both cool with it all. Sorta friends. It was good, yeah?”
“Uh-huh.”
I laugh. “Is that your only response?”
“I have to get to class.” His strangled voice throws me back to the way he said my name when he really, really shouldn’t have, and it takes me a second to remember I’m still holding on to his arm.
I let go, and Charles scrambles from the car.
Before he can close the door, my stupid brain gives me one line that doesn’t make it to my lips in time.
“Let me know if you’re ever not—”
The door slams.
“Busy.”
I drop back into my seat and press my face into my palm. What am I even doing?