Page 44 of Beneath the Surface

“Good. We’ll speak no more of it.” The hardness left his face, and he clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m gonna be in the den watching game footage. Can I trust you to prepare dinner?”

“Yeah. I was going to anyway,” I said, but he’d already gone, his interest in me lost now he’d said what he came to say.

When I was sure he was downstairs, I opened my closet and Ava stepped out, throwing her arms around my neck.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “He’s awful. You don’t deserve to be treated that way. I hate that he speaks to you like that.”

“Me too.” Wrapping my arms around her, I allowed myself to feel her comfort. When I drew back, I sighed. “Come on. We’d better get out of here. My dad will be too busy picking apart the game footage to notice anything else. I’ll say I’m going to the store, and I’ll take you back to the sorority house, okay?”

She nodded, but her mouth twisted. Her eyes met mine, and I could see the trepidation in them. “Micah? How did your dad know about the track?”

Good question, and it was one I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to.

27

GRAYSON

“Fuck, yeah. Look at her tits.” Miller thrust his hips forward, his half-hard boner at eye level, and that was a view I’d be happy to never see again.

“Fuck off. Get your dick away from me. And why the fuck are you streaming your shit porn to the communal TV? Go and play it in your room.” I swiped the remote, flicking off the TV and cutting off the loud, fake moans coming from the speakers. Porn was hot, but it needed to be the right kind. I was a connoisseur. A porn-oisseur. A hot girl with a guy with a similar build to me, so I could put myself in his place. Both looking like they were actually into it, rather than faking it. Sometimes I hit up the threesome or group categories, if I was in the mood for something a bit different.

I adjusted my stirring dick, which hadn’t seen any action other than my hand for way too long. Maybe I needed to call one of my past hookups, someone who wouldn’t expect anything more from me?—

“Looks like you’re the one with the dick issues.” Miller leered at my crotch, and I flipped him off. He laughed, leaning in to ruffle my hair. “C’mon. I know what you need—other than to getlaid.” After a dramatic pause, during which he spread out his arms and widened his eyes, he finally spat it out. “You need to help me plan the Halloween party. This is gonna be the social event of the year, bro.”

I groaned but clambered off the couch, following him into our large kitchen where he jerked his head toward the kitchen island as he headed over to the fridge.

“Take a seat. Want a Gatorade? Or water, or Prime—no, fuck that asshole Tony. He took the last Prime, I know it. The fucker’s always stealing them.”

“Water’s fine,” I said. Maybe this was what I needed, to take my mind off everything else. The note I’d received was still stuck in my head, but nothing else had happened since, other than what I thought I might have seen at the game, and I was beginning to wonder if that had been my imagination. Our search for missing or deceased people hadn’t turned up anything yet, and every day that went by, the more the doubts crept in. Had we really seen a hand in the water? Or had it been something completely innocent we’d mistaken for a hand? Was the bump we’d felt really a rock beneath the surface? Was someone just fucking with us for a laugh?

Rubbing my hand across my face, I groaned again. I was sick of thinking about this. This was supposed to be a good year. Win the conference title, hang out with my teammates, party, hook up with hot girls… Y’know. A good time.

“Hey, if you don’t wanna do this, I’m not forcing you.” Miller slid a bottle of water across the island to me, his brows pulled together.

“No, it’s not that. Just got shit on my mind. Nothing important.” Uncapping my water, I took a swig. “Tell me about this party. What’s been planned so far?”

Truth be told, Ishouldbe involved in the planning since it was officially hosted by the Blackwell Lake UniversityBarracudas and I was the captain. So I listened as Miller gave me a rundown of everything that had already been organized, throwing out my own suggestions every now and then. Smith and Johnny wandered into the kitchen in the middle of our planning session, which somehow ended up with everyone piling into my SUV to go on a supply run. The party wasn’t happening for another week, but they were all so excited, and I found myself getting caught up in it all. Their excitement was contagious, and after a while, I realized I wasn’t having to fake my happiness. It felt like a ton of weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Fucking around with the guys in the Halloween store, picking up all kinds of random crap that I’d never have been able to get back in the UK, trying on creepy masks and daring Miller to buy and wear a sexy nun’s outfit for the party…

For that brief moment in time, everything was good.

Back at the house, we pulled into the driveway and unloaded our bags, dumping everything in the garage for now. As we entered the house, my phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, swiping my thumb over the screen absentmindedly as I continued my heated debate with Smith about whether we should serve pumpkin spice ice cream at the party—it was a no from me.

A loud gasp came from my teammate and my body jerked, my gaze flying to my screen.

What. The. Fuck.

“You got people sending you porn?” Smith peered at my phone, his brows raised, and I fumbled with it, frantically hitting the button to turn off the screen and nearly dropping it in an effort to shove it in my pocket as quickly as possible.

“It’s not porn. I’ll be back,” I muttered, taking off for the stairs at a jog. In the safety of my room, I opened the message again.

It was from an unknown number.

A different number to the one that had sent the previous messages, but with the same pattern, and my hand shook as I read the words on the screen.

1…2…3…4…

See what happens behind closed doors.

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