Taking in a subtle breath, I slammed my pain down deep, where it had been for two years. I wouldn’t allow it to resurface. This wasn’t the time nor the place nor the person to let emotions run freely. Peters was a parasite, feeding off any weakness I exposed.

“Sydney, please.” He lowered his head next to mine, rolling his forehead against the glass shower stall door. “Please, just be a decent person for once.”

I turned my head toward him, and we locked eyes.

“No,” I said calmly, then blew a puff of air over my shoulder, causing the hair to blow off and up toward his face.

“Jesus… fuck… shit.” He swatted his face, and I regretted leaving my cell phone in the other room. A picture of this would have been priceless.

I couldn’t help the joyous laughter escaping my throat, taking in this scene. A six-foot-two meathead prancing around in a circle, whacking himself in the face.

Eventually, he stopped, sending me a dark glare.

“You dumb bitch.” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “Apparently, you have all the balls in the family. But remember, Jack looks up to me.” He jabbed a thumb in his chest. “He’ll do whatever I say, and one day, Sydney, your worst nightmare will come true. Jack will be me, and before you know it, he’ll be fucking and drinking and leading stupid girls back to his dorm room with the cliché strum of his guitar.”

My chest tightened until it ached. Peters was mocking me and our night together. My first reaction was to cry. My second reaction was to murder him. I wasn’t sure what would be more therapeutic. Shit, Sydney. But I remained in control, allowing my ears to drift toward the music in the other room.

“Jack doesn’t play the guitar. He plays the flute.”

Peters let out an infuriated growl. “Of course Jack plays the fucking flute. Jesus Christ.”

The beat picked up, and I could hear cheering through the walls. Jack was doing a good job all on his own. I’d taught him some things over the last few years, and I could tell he was confident out there. Peters thought Jack lacked spine, that his confidence should come from being an ass and swinging his football status around campus, but Jack was better than that. He was better than all of them.

“Jack has it in him. He doesn’t need your help.” I finally lifted my eyes to him, and he looked into the shower stall, avoiding my stare. “Jack’s a good kid. I know you guys think he’s weak, but he’s not. His ability to care for others, to open his heart to people and hope for the best, is not naïve. It’s beautiful.”

He released another long sigh.

“You and I might be ruined, but he doesn’t have to be. He can have it all. You don’t know half the shit he’s been through.”

Peters’s eyes were still locked on the shower stall, but I saw the slow rise of his Adam’s apple and heard the clicking run from chin to cheek as he swallowed. He knew I was right.

Raising my hand to his face, I turned his chin, forcing eye contact. “You and I are fucked.” I said it slowly so the message would resonate. “We had a one-night stand, and you made me feel cheap and dirty. I’d never felt so worthless in my life. You can go be with your whores, Peters, and you can go to hell, but I’ll be damned if you take my brother with you.”

Chapter Ten

“Porter!” I pounded on the kid’s dorm door. “Porter, open the door!”

Shuffling noises as graceful as a bull in a china shop came from behind the door.

“Let me in, asshole. I know you’re there. We have practice in ten minutes, and if you’re late, I have to do extra sets of core drills. You hung over?”

Finally, the door opened and Porter appeared in his boxers, rubbing his eyes like a sleepy toddler. “Fine. I have to piss. I’ll be right back.”

“Did you tie one on last night, Baby Porter?”

He flipped me the bird and started a slow walk down the dorm hall.

“Hustle up!”

No sooner had Jack left than the elevators popped open to reveal a certain widely despised DJ. I saw her first. She was balancing two coffees and a donut box along with her messenger bag. She was wearing leggings, a pair of Converse, and a graphic T-shirt. I couldn’t make out the writing, but I was sure it was something ironic or political. Hipsters. Before she looked over at Jack’s door, I stepped back, slamming it shut.

A second later, a light knocking started.

“Dimebag, you up?”

Dimebag? I made a mental note to get that out of Porter later.

“I brought coffee and donuts. Two maple bars for you. Your favorite. I seriously don’t understand how you can eat like that, but whatever.”

Another knock at the door.

“Jack?”

“Gooooo awayyyy,” I mumbled in the best rendition of Jack Porter I could muster. It landed somewhere between a man’s groan on his deathbed and a screeching owl.

“Jack? Are you okay? You sound sick.” I heard her foot tap outside the door. “Okay, well, if you’re sick, I don’t want to come inside, so I’ll leave your coffee and donuts outside the door. I have the coffee spout set up right over the crease of the paper cup. If that isn’t how you find it, don’t drink it. Also, the donuts are arranged in a T shape. The stem of the T is fatter rather than longer. Should they not be in the aforementioned T form, consider them altered and, again, don’t eat them.”

I shook my head, wondering what Sydney’s dorm room was like. She was like a police detective who’d been kicked off the force after losing it. Solving the crime from home, just a basement full of red string connecting suspects. A web of deception and lies—trust no one.

I heard a low thump, followed by a short breath, but she remained by the door.

“Hey, I brought you something else. It’s a new mix for our birthday.” She shot a CD under the door, and I caught it under my foot. “Also, I did what you suggested. I sent a copy into that record label. It’s a long shot, but the worst they can say is no, right? Or I guess they can tell me to toss my mixer off a roof and go fuck myself. Which is a real probability.”

She let out a deep sigh.

“Also, and just to hedge my bets, I sent a copy of my old radio personality work to the local broadcasters in the city. I might have a chance at a summer job with one, but the 98.7 KRUG one is a long shot.”

“Shit.” She kicked the doorframe. “I’m talking to a door. This is ridiculous. Okay, love you, shit stain. FYI, Allison had a real good time last night, and Nick liked you too.”

Then her footsteps faded down the hall.

Yes, last night. Threatening Fernando’s scholarship. Well, that’s how I saw it, so I had to stop her. I probably shouldn’t have shoved her back into the bathroom. That could have been taken the wrong way, but I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling. And then she put her hand on my chin, turning my cheek so I had to look into her saucer-sized brown eyes, and tells me to fuck off. That I’m ruining Jack Porter. That I made her feel worthless.

I have no idea what she’s talking about. Two years ago, I left to get water, and when I came back with two bottles and a bag of gummy bears from the snack machine (because she said she liked them—now I ask you, what kind of asshole remembers that amount of detail from a one-night stand?) she was gone. Like nowhere to be found and disappeared into thin air. I ran the two flights to her guest dorm room, and her friends were there, but no Sydney. She left without an explanation. It took me weeks to push her toward the back of my mind. Now she was here accusing me of wrongdoing?

Last night at the party it took me a good ten minutes to calm myself in the Kappa bathroom, and when I came back to the rec room, Nick Sharbus was hovering over her. I caught him rubbing her back in a circle. He did that move where you start off high up on the shoulders, circle twice, then lower your hand to the small of the back with the fluidity of liquid—my move.