Page 76 of Hat Trick

Their bodies are a blur of swinging fists and hulking frames.Be calm. Don’t panic. Dave barks out a string of four-letter words as Marshall rolls him over, and I leap back to jump out of thefray.

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole,” Dave grunts, legs swinging up to hook around Marshall’swaist.

In a moment of quick thinking, I glance down to my hot chocolate. Considering the frozen temperatures outside, it’s more chocolate milk than anything remotely hot right now. Not nearly enough to stop over three hundred pounds of angry males, but desperate times and allthat.

Marshall has his brother pinned to the ground when I toss the cup, aiming directly for the wall behindthem.

Chocolate liquid goes everywhere, splattering their heads and clothes. It’s startling enough that Marshall whips around, brown hair plastered to his face, his right eye already bruising from a balledfist.

“Stop. I don’t care which one of you tells me what’s going on. You two want to tag-team it? That’s fine. But if this so-calledwronginvolves me, then I deserve toknow.”

I deserve to know, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Iwanttoknow.

Already I feel the strain in my heart, and there’s a sickening sensation tugging at my gut, indicating that this moment will be my last withMarshall.

Rolling off his brother, Marshall lands on his ass and props his elbows on bent knees. “Get the hell out of here,” he says to Dave. “You’ve doneenough.”

“I don’t think Iwill.”

Marshall’s eyes narrow. “Don’t play that game with me,bro. After the shit you’ve pulled, your ass is mine. One call to the cops and you’re done for.” He jerks his head toward the door. “Get the fuckout.”

The threat must resonate because Dave lurches to his feet and flies out thedoor.

Leaving Marshall and Ialone.

This is sonotwhat I expected to happentoday.

I clear my throat and avoid making eye contact. “What did your brother mean when he said that you made sure to get into class withme?”

His gray eyes meet mine ruefully. “Thebet.”

My stomach sinks, and my feet backpedal into the kitchen. “It was just Adam who was in on it, right?” I ask stupidly, thinking of my college ex-boyfriend. An ex who’d made itveryclear that our relationship meant nothing when I caught him kissing another woman in the middle of my senior year. Even now, I can still hear the nasty note in his voice when he told me I was nothing more than a challenge—a girl like me would never, ever be the real deal forhim.

A girl like me. He’d meant promiscuous, even though I’d been a virgin until him. If it weren’t for a dare, he’d told me, he never would have given me a secondlook.

Marshall had stood next to me—we’d just finished one of our study sessions—an arm wrapped around my shoulders as though he could physically shield me from the hurtfulwords.

Except that, apparently, he’d been in on it all from thestart.

Jaw clenching tightly, Marshall pushes to his feet. “The whole hockey team was in on the bet, not just yourex.”

I can’t breathe. Just like that, the air vacates my lungs and my vision recedes at the corners. “I don’t . . .why?”

“Because your grandfather was Northeastern’s primary donor. Because we were all a bunch of pricks who thought it’d be funny to take the virginity from Mr. Landon’sgranddaughter.”

I never cry—but it seems that in front of Marshall, I’m making a habit ofit.

I feel the heat of tears slip down my cheeks. I itch to wipe them away, to erase the vulnerability from my being, but IwantMarshall to witness my pain. Yes, I may have talked a big game back in college, trying to fit in when I felt so much like an outsider. Adaline had ensured that I never made friends easily—they’ll stab you in the back; just look at what Monica did to me lastyear.

Who would have imagined that Gwen James, the girl who wore diamond earrings and knew all the best makeup techniques, was nothing but a sheep in wolf’s clothing? Yeah, the saying usually had it the other way around—not for me. I wasn’t the girl who I showed to the world, though I tried my damned hardest tobe.

“It wasn’tfunny.”

It’s all Isay.

“Iknow.”

It’s all hesays.

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