Page 11 of The Fallen Ones

I glanced over to see Caleb had finished his food and was staring down at his phone. His dark Henley strained against his muscles, his chest rising and falling evenly.

“Yeah, maybe,” I murmured, making her squeal again.

“Get it, girl. Let me know how it goes.”

“Sure.” We said our goodbyes to another of her excited squeals. I placed my phone back on the coffee table and stared through the same window Caleb had been looking through.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting forward, his phone discarded.

“Jace had sex with Jessica Meyers tonight. Damien wasn’t lying,” I said, the words hurting my entire being.

“I’m sorry,” he answered softly. “What can I do?”

“Tell me more about this party.” I turned to face him. “I think I want to try.”

A tiny smile worked its way onto his lips. His first genuine smile of the night. One that made me want to say to hell with it and just finish closing the distance between us the phone call had ripped me away from.

“Well, it’s at Satan’s Hollow,” he started. “And you wear a mask so no one knows it’s you.”

“And if I want whoever fucks me to know it’s me?” I bit my bottom lip.

His gaze darted to the motion before he looked back into my eyes. “Then let them, Lily.”

My heart lurched at his words, him using my name doing something to my already confused heart.

Then let them.

Maybe that would become my new mantra.

Maybe I could convince Caleb to come with me. Maybe…he’d get a key to my room.

I pushed the thought away, embarrassed by it, but I couldn’t keep it at bay for long.

It plagued me the rest of the evening.

Chapter 5

Jace

Jace: Meet me outside the commons after classes end.

Caleb: Fine.

Istared down at the text I’d sent Caleb hours ago before checking the time again.

He was late. Classes let out thirty minutes ago. I was willing to give the asshole the benefit of the doubt about foot traffic and shit, but this was ridiculous. He wasn’t answering my calls either. Deciding I’d give him another ten minutes, I leaned against a tree next to the science building, taking in all the people coming and going. The place was packed with students going about their business.

A text flashed across my screen from Jessica.

I rolled my eyes and stuffed the phone back into my pocket, not interested in hearing from her. It was all over campus that Lily and I were broken up. Of course all the fucking vultures came out to prey.

I knew the rumors going around about me and Jessica because I’d started them. Wanting to light a fire beneath Lilyprompted it. I considered it a little incentive to see if her sadness and jealousy would be motivation to come to the party as a way to fuck someone new to get back at me. I hadn’t really fucked Jessica. I’d kissed on her and made it look real, but I’d walked the moment I could and hadn’t looked back.

She was a complete bitch anyway. From what I’d heard, she was in trouble currently with the university for plagiarizing someone else’s research paper and was looking at getting dropped from a required class over it. The rumors circulating about that said she’d take other student’s work as a means to critique and help them only to steal the best ones and turn them in as her own.

I wasn’t surprised. Her father was a fucking thief too and had tried to screw my old man out of some money. Guess the cunt apple didn’t fall far from the cunt tree.

I hoped everything fucked her life over. No one deserved it more than her.

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