Page 60 of Beneath the Surface

Glancing down at Micah, seated in my desk chair, I shook my head. “Nah. I lock my door when I’m not here, and when I am here, no one comes in without invitation. Everyone knows my room is my sacred space.”

“What about girls?”

“Girls?” Good question, and fuck, had it really been that long—? “I haven’t been with any girls since…since before we got that first text. I haven’t even made out with anyone.”

“Other than your kiss with Ava in the library,” he reminded me, the corners of his lips kicking up.

“Other than that,” I confirmed, smiling back at him.

His tongue swiped across his lips. “Boys?”

I leaned down, planting my hands on either side of him, wrapping my fingers around the arms of the chair. “Definitely no boys.Neverany boys.”

“Except me,” he whispered.

We stared at each other for a long, charged moment before I straightened up with a sigh, rubbing my hand across my face. I couldn’t go down that road. Not now. Life was complicated enough as it was.

And it was only one day until the Halloween party.

A chill went through my body as my gaze was drawn to the printed copy of the message I’d received.

Happy Halloween, Grayson.

35

AVA

My body was starting to get used to running on less sleep, which obviously was a huge problem for me. If I wanted to go to nationals and win, I needed rest. I needed my mind to be in tip-top shape.

The joy I felt skating was slowly taking a back seat to the mess I found myself in. Being on the ice was my escape, to try and not think of that night, but with each new discovery, it was getting harder.

A part of me wished I could have stayed with one of the guys last night, finding comfort in someone else. Maybe that was why there seemed to be a push and pull with all of us. Our human nature was finding comfort with another human in the same situation as us.

When my eyes landed on my clock, I groaned. I was going to be late for practice. I only had two hours if I wanted to get any practice in before the hockey team began their drills. For the life of me, I couldn’t find it in myself to care. By the time I convinced myself that not going was doing a disservice, I was missing a good chunk of the time I had slotted away for myself.

My phone pinged and my body went taut with panic, as it did nowadays whenever I got a new message.

Zeta Gamma Theta:

Meeting tonight at 6, don’t be late

I swear I wanted to kill Livy. The hockey team and their annual Halloween bash was something we never interfered with. Livy was trying so hard to kiss Grayson’s ass she had volunteered our help.

The hockey boys weren’t stupid. Why should they do all the hard work when they had pathetic girls to do it for them?

“Fuck,” I groaned when I realized I had yet to find a stupid outfit.

I loved Halloween, I loved getting to dress up as someone different every year, but right now my mind was a bit too preoccupied to think of what character I could sluttify for the evening.

Then my mind took a turn toward dates. I didn’t want to go alone to this thing. I knew Grayson and Micah would be there. For obvious reasons, Grayson and I couldn’t interact there. On top of a stalker, I had Olivia on my ass, and I could only handle one person on my ass at a time.

All of us had to be at the party. Grayson, Micah, and me more than others. It was a good thing that Miller had invited Cruz. He was not Greek row material. Would it be the end of the world if I invited him as my date? It might get Olivia and the other girls to get off my back. Maybe when she saw me with Blackwell’s bad boy, she might stop riding my dick about trying to steal Grayson away from her—even if he wasn’t hers to begin with.

Fuck. Had she asked Micah as her date? I knew she had been thinking about it, and why did it matter if I was thinking of bringing Cruz?

At this rate, I would wind up giving myself a headache. Cruz had to be there, because whoever was fucking with us had made a point to let Gray know something would happen that night. There was strength in numbers, and it would make the most sense if he went as my date.

Not letting myself think twice about it, I picked up my phone and called him. I was sure it would send me to voicemail, but he picked up at the last second.

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