Chapter 30
Noah
Dante paced once across the room before he spoke.
“Tell me you didn’t do it.”
I took a seat on the couch, checked my phone, saw I had no new texts, and rubbed my thumb across the edge of the screen before I finally looked up at him.
“I helped.”
For a second, he just stared at me like I’d said something in another language. Then he let out a breath that sounded halfway between a laugh and a swear.
“Jesus, Noah.”
“Relax.”
“Relax?” He dragged a hand down his face. “The entire department is getting tagged in corruption posts, and you want me to relax?”
“They’re allegations,” I said.
“They’re our allegations.”
That part wasn’t technically wrong. Dante turned and paced, slower this time, like he was trying to decide whether to shout or punch something.
“You know what happens if this blows back on us?” he said.
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
He stopped again, staring at me like I’d grown another head. “That’s the problem,” he said. “You think you know enough while not knowing enough.”
I leaned back slightly, resting my hands on either side of the couch.
“Nothing was happening,” I said. “You know that.”
“That doesn’t mean we start lighting fires.” He gave me a look of barely concealed frustration. Dante was a leader, and he spoke to me like the captain he was on the football field.
“Not lighting fires. Not big ones. All we did was make people look.”
Dante shook his head slowly. “You don’t make people look by dragging the whole program onto social media, Noah.”
“You do if the people running it care more about reputation than truth.”
He held my gaze for a long moment.
“Savvy and Hadley are never going to stop,” he said. Concern for them both shone in his eyes.
“I’m hoping so. Aren’t you?”
“And when the athletic department decides they need someone to blame?”
“They won’t know it’s us.”
“You sound really confident for someone sitting in a dorm room waiting for the hammer to fall.”
“I need to shower before we do this.” I stood and made my way to my room. “I’ll be five minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I showered as quickly as promised. I resented washing the scent of her off my skin, but sentiment wasn’t going to win me any battles with Dante, and I needed the shower to calm myself and think everything through.
I didn’t regret leaking information on social media. It was working. The platform was buzzing. More comments kept coming from people saying it had happened to them or from others who knew someone else who had gone through the same thing.
There were too many to ignore. I knew it, and I was sure more than the administration of Wrighton U was watching it unfold across the platforms.
My resolve hardened as I quickly got dressed. Dante was pissed, but so was I. My plan was working.
I went out to confront him, but as I walked back into the living area, my phone buzzed in my hand. The sound cut through the room like a whistle.
Dante noticed immediately. “What now?”
I glanced down. The message was from my brother, reminding me I still had his situation to fix. Not that I’d forgotten, but concerned roommates had overtaken my priorities.
Tate: What the heck is happening at your college?
For a second, I didn’t say anything. Dante watched me quietly.
“What now?” he asked again.
“Nothing. It’s, um . . . it’s Tate, my brother.” I turned the phone over in my hand.
He straightened slightly. “What happened?”
“Suspension,” I said, my voice flatter than I intended.
“For what?”
I filled him in briefly.
Dante ran a hand through his hair. “Christ.”
I crossed to the kitchen counter, setting my phone down harder than necessary.
“They suspended him for a week, and it’ll stay on his record.” I held up my phone. “And he’s texting me asking what’s going on at my school.” I snorted.
“He read a tutorial?” Dante asked. When I nodded, he grinned. “Jesus. Go Tate.”
I smiled at that. “So this weekend I may have started some fires, and I need to get to Texas to talk to the administration to fix Tate’s issue and put out that fire.”
The room went quiet. Dante leaned against the wall, arms folding across his chest.
“How will you fix Tate’s problem? No offense, Noah, you’re not . . . diplomatic. Or his parents.”
“I know. I was hoping Savvy would give me some advice. But she’s pissed at me, too.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise at my grumbling. “You get why, though, right?”
“Yeah.”
“This isn’t how it works, Noah.”
“It’s how it starts. Rumor and suspicion, and then watch it spread.”
He studied me for a moment, the irritation in his expression slowly shifting into something more sympathetic.
“You know, you might not need to go to Texas,” he said thoughtfully.
“Should I be scared?” I asked him cautiously. “Last time you had that look, we got in a bar fight, and I almost got kicked out.”
“I’m thinking dangerous thoughts,” he said as he scratched his chin. “Are you feeling . . . reckless?”
I shrugged. “Usually?”
“This is why I love talking to you, Noah, you’re so fluent in the art of conversation.”
I let out a quiet laugh, shaking my head. “And I’m the difficult one? You’re impossible.”
“Some may say efficient.” He pushed off the wall and walked around his room. He came back with his sunglasses in hand and headed for the door. “Want to walk with me?”
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, picking up my sunglasses from the counter. I paused with my hand on the handle as I prepared to follow him out. “Whatever this is, if this blows up in our faces, I’m blaming you.”
“That’s fair.”
I closed the door, and as we went down the stairs, he glanced back once. “And Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you decide to start a war?”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Give me a heads-up.”
We walked outside into the mid-morning sunshine, both of us putting our sunglasses on at the same time, and headed across the quad.
“The plan?” I asked.
“Still working out the basics,” he told me.
We left the main campus and crossed a street, and I tugged on his arm to stop him.
“Wait.” She was at a window in a restaurant, eating alone.
“Noah . . . She looks like she wants to be alone.”
“I’ll just text her.”
When she gave her phone the finger, I couldn’t resist letting her know I could see her. I wanted to go in, but Dante wanted to keep moving.
“You can fix this later, yeah?” he murmured. “I don’t think it’s a two-minute conversation between you two.”
“Yeah.” I watched her pretend to ignore me. “I’m coming,” I assured him. “Where are we going?”
“Still thinking,” he murmured.
“Well, we’re heading somewhere, Dante, or are we just having a stroll on a Sunday afternoon?”
He smiled as we rounded a corner, and the Dean’s Residence was at the corner of the street.
“Here? Why?” I thought about it. “Did you take us the long way to get here?” I asked him suspiciously.
“I did. I needed to walk it out and see how it would play.” He turned his head to look at me. “Follow my lead, don’t be too honest, but don’t lie.”
“Dante!” I hissed at him as we reached the path that led to the main door. “There’s reckless, and then there’s Russian roulette with a loaded gun.”
He grinned. It had a slight tinge of crazy. Shit. But Dante didn’t usually smile like that unless he had something.
“Trust me.”
I did trust him, but I wasn’t sure I trusted this. Going to the dean was the kind of move that could collapse the whole thing if it went wrong.
Or it could work.
He rang the doorbell, and I looked behind us to make sure we weren’t standing out.
I mean, of course we were. Why the heck would he and I be standing in the spring sunshine on the dean’s doorstep on a Sunday?
The possibilities were endless, and there was a plain fact that there was no possible reason why either of us would be here.
Dean Cole answered the door wearing a pair of light stone chinos and a short-sleeved checked button-down. He looked about as casual as I had ever seen him.
“Spence?” He glanced at me. “Matthews?” His eyes flicked between us, and then a frown line appeared on his forehead. “Do I want to know?”
“Dean,” Dante greeted him.
The dean stepped back to let us in, and I looked around his home as he led us to a study. Dark leather, dark wood — everything felt very oppressive. The large window behind his desk overlooked a garden, and it was open to let in fresh air.
He sat with his back to the window.
Figures. The view was outside, and he opted to look inwards. I struggled to see how he and Savvy were related, never mind father and daughter.
“Sit.” He pointed at the two seats across from his desk.
We still hadn’t said a word about why we were there, and he hadn’t commented.
Dean Cole looked at us over his steepled fingers, and then his gaze rested on Dante.
“Do I guess, or are you going to tell me why you’re here? If it’s to ask for Savannah’s hand, the answer is no.”
I’d been taking my sunglasses off and almost dropped them. I looked at Dante to see if he was offended, but he was grinning.
“Not yet,” he told her father with a casualness that I envied. “Don’t write me off, though.”
Dean Cole snorted. “Seen you play — only a fool thinks you’re out of the game before the final whistle.”
Dante’s grin widened.
Dean Cole’s gaze settled on me. “Matthews?”
Dante sat silently. Right, this was all me then.
“I need some advice.”
“Does the advice need a lawyer?” he asked, and it wasn’t asked unkindly.
“I didn’t do anything,” I assured him. “My brother did.” I saw he was confused.
“My little brother goes to Cedar Hill U in Texas, and he’s a good kid.
He’s only seventeen, very smart, and advanced in everything in his classes.
” The dean nodded in approval. “He was bullied through high school. I managed to dissuade the guy once or twice, but unfortunately for Tate, his bully also attends the same college.” I saw the dean’s eyebrow rise. “Not intentionally, I’m sure.”
“That’s unfortunate. No, I will not be your alibi if something has happened recently to this bully.”
I didn’t have an answer to that. “Um . . .”
“Noah has been here all weekend,” Dante spoke smoothly. “We played the spring game yesterday.”