Page 15 of Say It Slowly

Lucas blinks up at me. “Yo, Lux. What are you doing here?” He looks surprised to see me here, and honestly, I’m right there with him. I never thought I’d be walking into Rush Housevoluntarily. I’m usually here because Roman has lured me somehow.

“I need to talk to Roman. Where is he? It’s urgent.”

I have everyone’s attention now, and Christian chimes in. “Have you tried texting him?”

“No,” I say exasperated. “I just came straight here—”

I’m cut off by Jackson, who has his phone pressed to his ear. His consort looks annoyed by the interruption. “Yo, Roman, your chick is here at the house, in the living room.” There’s a pause, and he looks at me, his stoic gaze taking me in. “No idea, but she looks upset.” Another pause. “Bet.” Then he hangs up. “He’s coming down.” Then he returns to his scrolling.

“Uh, thanks,” I say awkwardly, stepping away from the TV. Everyone just kind of goes back to what they were doing while I wait. I scan the room and see Nathan with the guts of a computer spread out on a table in front of him. I consider waving at him, but he doesn’t even look up at me. He’s got his headphones on, and he’s laser-focused on what he’s doing. I don’t even think he knows I’m here.

Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long for Roman to show up. Two minutes later, he strides into the room, and his assessing gaze immediately falls on me.

“Lux,” he says, approaching. Everyone in the room stops what they’re doing again. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Um.” I hesitate, shifting on my feet, and glancing around. It’s weird saying this with everyone in the room staring at me. “I, uh…”

Roman gets it, thankfully, and turns to face the room. “Ladies, guys…” He claps his hands together once. “Give us the room, please.”

With a collective moan, everyone gets up and leaves the room. Everyone except Lucas, Christian and Jackson. AndNathan. He’s listening to something on his headphones and clearly has no idea what’s going on.

Christian glances over at him. “What about Nathan?”

Roman dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. “He’s my brother’s friend. He’s fine.”

“Yeah, he’s cool,” Lucas says.

With that settled, Roman turns his attention back to me, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He looks genuinely concerned, his dark brows pinched together. “What’s going on?”

I swallow. “I saw Tyler. He was in the dining hall and he was staring at me.”

Roman widens his stance. “Tyler has been expelled from ExU. I confirmed that with the Undergraduate Dean two days ago.”

It sounds like he’s trying to convince me that I didn’t see him, that I was seeing things.

“Well, that may be the case,” I say, looking at the other guys to gauge their responses. “But Isawhim. I did.”

Christian is leaning against the pool table, his blond hair messy, the blunt hanging from his lips. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Tyler is lurking around campus.”

I lift my hand at Christian, like,see.

“Uh, yeah, we did find something on campus this morning that might confirm what Lux saw,” Jackson says, rising off the sofa. He pulls something up on his phone and turns the screen toward us. I step closer and so does Roman. It’s a photo of graffiti on the Humanities building.

Death to the queen, string her up and watch her swing.

The words are accompanied by a crude drawing of someone who looks like me, hanging from a noose. The image is so shocking, Isuck in a breath and stumble back. I knew Tyler was pissed, but this is something else. This is revenge.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Roman asks Jackson, anger edging his tone.

“We already took care of it,” Jackson says, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “It was up for all of an hour. We didn’t really think it was worth mentioning.”

Roman drops his hands and pushes out a breath. “Thanks for handling it,” he says. “But this shit is escalating.”

“Tyler will move on eventually,” Lucas says, totally unconcerned. “He’s just trying to save face, let off a little steam.”

Seriously? Calling for my death seems more serious than justletting off steam. “He was staring at me like he wanted to dive across the dining hall and strangle me. That feels like more than justsaving face,” I bite back.

And then there’s the whole trying to flatten me like roadkill thing, which everyone seems to forget about, conveniently. Granted, we can’t prove it was Tyler, butstill.

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