Page 16 of Tell Me You Like It

“Touch her again, and you’re dead.” Roman’s voice is calm, despite just going ape-shit-crazy. “Do you fucking understand me?”

The guy mumbles something, but it’s inaudible over thechatter surrounding us. Someone mentions calling an ambulance.

Then Roman’s attention turns to me—those cold eyes finding me amid the growing crowd. He always seems to have that power–finding me when all I want to do is disappear.

He takes a step toward me, then another, moving through the people crowding the porch. We’re twenty feet apart, at this point, which gives me the advantage. So I do the first thing that occurs to me.

I turn on my heel and fuckingrun.

CHAPTER SIX

Lux

That night,I don’t sleep a wink. I just stare up at my white ceiling and listen to my roommate snore. I keep checking my phone to see if Bree replied, but it’s not until three a.m. that I finally get a text from her.

Sorry. Going to sleep. Talk tomorrow.

I blink down at the text. It’s weirdly abrupt for her, but it’s late, and honestly, I’m just relieved she’s alive and back in her room. I haven’t texted her about what happened earlier, because, frankly, I’m not in the best mental space to type it all out. I’ll tell her in person tomorrow when I see her.

As soon as I got back to my room, though, I did have a text fromRoman.

Are you ok?

I just ignored it and then blocked his number immediately. It just goes to show how right my first instincts about him were—he’s fucking trouble, and I don’t want anything to do with his twisted world.

I want to stay as far away from Roman Rush as humanly possible.

The next morning, on my way to class, I stop by Bree's door. It’s locked, and my gentle knocks go unanswered, so I assume she’s just sleeping. She was out late, and she’s never been a morning person, so I decide to try back after lunch.

Class is a complete bore, and I’m barely paying attention—thinking about everything that happened last night. What I did wrong, what I could have done differently…

But, honestly, none of what happened was my fault, and people like Tyler shouldn’t be allowed to walk freely on campus—which is why, after class is over, I walk right over to the campus security office.

When I walk in, I address the first security person I see--a woman, around forty, sitting behind a desk, wearing a black security uniform. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

“I was assaulted last night,” I say abruptly. I’m not sugarcoating anything. That fucker needs to pay for what he did. The only thing I deliberately leave out is any mention of Roman. God only knows why, but he was just defending me, and I don’t want to get him in trouble for that.

The woman’s gaze falls to the bruises on my arm, and her expression turns immediately to concern. She pulls meinto a room, and gets my full account of what happened last night, then calls the police.

While we’re waiting for them to arrive, she shakes her head. “Must have been a full moon last night or something.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Security found a sophomore last night, nearly beaten to death on the edge of campus. Took him to the hospital, and it looks like he’ll pull through, but–” she slows out a breath “–he’s going to have a long road ahead.” Her gaze shifts to me. “You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

I shake my head, taken aback by her question. Damn. I knew Roman had kicked the guy’s ass, but I had no idea how badly. Though, truthfully, I don’t even know if it’s the same guy we’re talking about here. “I—I don’t know. I can’t even tell you who attacked me–only that his first name is Tyler.”

She nods, and pushes off the desk, then scribbles the description down on a piece of paper.

When the police come, I file a full report, and they take photos of my injuries, then vow to look into it. They were pretty horrified, as was campus security, so I have confidence they’ll do their best to investigate the incident.

“In the meantime, don’t walk anywhere by yourself at night,” the police officer says. “And we’ll be in touch when we know more.”

I nod. “Okay, thank you.”

As I walk out of the campus security office, I feel a weight being lifted. It felt good to get all of that off my chest, and know I did my part, so hopefully Tyler can’t do something like that again to anyone else.

I missed my second class, so I head straight to my third. It’s still early—I have about fifteen minutes until I can sneak in and grab my usual seat at the back of the classroom, so Ijust wait outside in the hallway. I’m staring down at my phone to check if Bree texted me this morning when I hear a familiar baritone.

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