Chapter 26
WEST
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Damon asks.
I look up from the textbook I’m reading, or at least trying to read. “What do you mean?”
He studies me for a few beats. “I know you’re hooking up with someone.”
I look back down at my textbook, the words swimming on the page. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you’ve been avoiding me for weeks. And I saw a guy come out of your room just after seven in the morning last week when I went to see if you wanted to get breakfast before our class.”
I freeze, his words washing over me like a wave of icy water. Oh shit. Did he see Ant leave my room after he spent the night?
“And that’s enough for you to decide I’m sleeping with this guy?” I ask, trying to sound light and breezy and not like I’m internally panicking.
“Normally, no. But he was wearing your hoodie.”
“How do you know it was mine?”
“Because I saw you the night before and you were wearing it.” He chews on his lip ring, clearly deciding what to say next.
“You don’t owe me any explanations, and you don’t even owe me the truth, but you’ve been acting weird lately, and it makes sense that you’d hide whatever is going on after the McKenna thing and your family and all the gossip.
I get it.” He flicks his lip ring with his tongue a few times.
“But you’re my best friend, and I guess I just want you to know that you can talk to me about whatever is going on. ”
“Goddamnit.” I close my textbook with a loud snap. “You know I can’t hide shit from you when you pull the best friend card like that.”
He shoots me a little smirk, but it melts into concern when I toss my textbook aside and scrub my hand through my hair.
“I’ve kind of been hooking up with someone,” I say, not sure how to even unpack everything that’s been going on. “It’s just a fuck buddy thing, but that’s why I’ve been so distant and weird lately.”
“Is that who I saw come out of your room?” he asks.
I nod.
“Can you tell me who he is?”
I chew on my lip as indecision wars inside me. Anthony told me he doesn’t care if people find out about us, and Damon isn’t just people. And I really need someone I can talk to about everything that’s been going on.
“Do you promise not to tell anyone? Not even Xave?”
He nods quickly. “I promise.”
“It’s Anthony.”
He stares at me for a few seconds like he’s frozen in place, then he blows out a low whistle. “Jesus. Complicated, party of two.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Between the McKenna thing and him being one of our leaders next year, it’s definitely complicated.”
“And it’s just a casual thing?”
“Not even that,” I correct quickly. “It’s just a friends with benefits thing.”
He gives me a dubious look. “Really?”
“Really,” I insist, but I know why he’s so skeptical.
I’ve had a few friends with benefits arrangements over the years, and Damon heard all about how unsatisfying they were. He knows I don’t do casual and can’t separate sex from emotion, but he thankfully doesn’t argue with me.
“When did this start?” he asks.
I laugh before I can stop myself. “Do you want the crazy version, or the overview?”
“You can’t just say there’s a crazy version and not tell me absolutely everything.” He shoots me a flat look. “How crazy are we talking?”
Starting at the beginning, I tell him everything that’s gone down between Anthony and me since the night he sent me that first anonymous text.
The only part I leave out is anything to do with what happened at the Hunt.
It’s not that I want to hide it from him; I’m just not ready to tell him I’ve been keeping this huge secret from him for all these years.
Damon listens to every detail, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide as saucers when I finally finish.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters, still looking shell-shocked.
“Right?”
He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “If I didn’t know you, I’d swear you made all that up just to fuck with me.”
“Like I said, it’s pretty crazy.”
“I knew Anthony was into guys,” he muses. “But I had no idea he was into all that other stuff too.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, my voice going up an octave. “You knew Anthony was into guys?”
“Yeah, or at least I knew he experimented with one,” he says. “I didn’t know if it was a one-off, but it’s pretty obvious it wasn’t if you’re hooking up with him.”
“I’m sorry, but can we circle back to you knowing about him experimenting with a guy?” I ask, not ready to let that go.
He leans forward like he’s about to tell me some state secrets. “Do you remember the Hunt back in your first year?”
A chill races down my spine, but I manage a quick nod.
“Right before the end, I think it was about ten minutes before the clock ran out, I saw Anthony and another guy hooking up.”
“You did?” I croak.
What the actual fuck? Damon saw us? How?
“Yeah. I didn’t see who he was with because of the masks and it being so dark,” he says before I can ask for more details. “But they were both very into it.”
“How do you know it was Anthony?” I ask. “If you didn’t see their faces,” I add in what I hope is a casual tone.
“He took his mask off and I saw his face.” Damon pauses as he studies me, then his eyes go round. “Holy shit. It was you.”
“What?” I gape at him.
How the fuck did he figure that out?
“It was you,” he repeats. “You were the guy in the woods with him.”
“How did you know?” I ask, my head spinning. “You said you didn’t see me?”
“Your reaction.” He points at my face. “You suck at hiding shit from me.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “I’ve spent the past three years wondering who was under him, and it was you this entire time.”
I just gape at him, still trying to process that he saw us.
He flicks his lip ring a few times. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
I wince. The fact that we hooked up during the Hunt is the only detail I left out of my retelling, and I’m not even exactly sure why I hid that from him.
Maybe it’s because I felt like a moron for not realizing sooner, or it could be my whole willful ignorance thing and not wanting to look like a total moron who chose not to see what was right in front of me.
“Because I didn’t know how.” I shrug helplessly. “How was I supposed to tell you I let one of our frat brothers rub off on me when I had no idea who he was? I didn’t even understand it, and I figured it was just a one-time thing, like a hall pass or whatever, so it didn’t really count.”
“Did you know it was him?”
“Not until the first night he snuck into my room.”
“Wait a second.” He gives me a sharp look. “You said you had no idea Mr. X was Anthony until that night in your room when you recognized his eyes under the mask. Does that mean you knew Mr. X was the same guy from the Hunt, but you still had no idea who he was until after you started fucking?”
“Pretty much.”
“Wow.” He shakes his head. “Anything else you didn’t tell me?”
“Pretty sure that’s it.”
He blows out a breath. “And here I thought my situation was complicated.”
“Yeah, but things will go back to normal when he gets sick of me,” I say dismissively. “So they won’t be complicated forever.”
He looks like he wants to argue with me, but doesn’t say anything.
Anything else you didn’t tell me?
Damon’s words echo in my mind, and it’s like a switch is flipped and a lightbulb goes off over my head.
The flash drive I found at The Crypt. The one with Xave and his cousins’ names all over them. I totally forgot it even existed with everything going on.
“What?” he asks, looking confused.
“You asked if there was anything else I didn’t tell you, and I just remembered something I forgot to tell you.”
“What is it?” he asks as I slide off the bed and stand.
“I found something a while ago that your boyfriend and his cousins will probably want to know about.” I dig the flash drive I copied the files onto out of my desk drawer. I could just give him the original, but something tells me I should hang on to it just in case.
I briefly explain what went down at The Crypt as I give it to him, then tell him what I found when I listened to the files.
His expression is grim when I’m finally done. “Thanks.” He tucks the flash drive into his pocket. “I’ll get this to Jace, and hopefully he can figure out what’s going on.”
“Jace?” I ask.
“He’s a hacker,” Damon says like it’s no big deal.
“Jace is a hacker?” I repeat.
I don’t know the Hawthorne twins beyond their reputations and Damon’s stories, but Jace being a hacker is surprising—and also not. Both twins are incredibly smart, but they’re also completely unhinged, and Jace is always getting into some sort of trouble along with the rest of his cousins.
A lot of shady shit goes down at Silvercrest, and a lot of stuff you don’t find at other colleges, like abnormally high crime rates and a policy of looking the other way depending on who’s involved in the crime.
The Hawthorne cousins are always in the middle of some scandal or another, and if even a fraction of what people say about them is true, they’re incredibly dangerous and have body counts that have nothing to do with how many people they’ve slept with.
“A damn good one too,” Damon says.
“Well fuck me sideways.” I settle back on my bed. “Any other secret talents in the Hawthorne crew?”
“Tons, but none you want to hear about.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Does anyone else know about the drive?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“You should give a copy to Anthony,” he says. “I can’t really say more than that because I promised Xave I wouldn’t, but Anthony and the rest of the royalty need to know about it too.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, a bit taken aback by how serious he is. “I’ll give it to him if you think I should.”
“You should.”
A few beats of silence pass between us.
“So, the mask thing…” he starts.
I try not to let my brain run wild with what-ifs as Damon asks me about our mask play.
I was hoping the files would be a giant nothingburger, but based on Damon’s reaction, they’re very much a thing, and I make a mental note to tell Anthony about the drive the next time I see him.
My stomach clenches, but I brush it off and answer Damon’s mask question.
I have no idea how much longer this thing between Anthony and me is going to last now that we don’t have our project to work on together. I just hope I get to enjoy him for a little bit longer before he inevitably ends things.