Page 86 of Frat House Fling

So who did that leave? Tori? I couldn’t really imagine her storming the gates of this big house to rescue me.

The fire department? But I wasn’t a kitten stuck in a tree.

The air grew colder minute by minute as the steam evaporated. I had to contact someone before I froze to death.

A strange thought rising to the front of my mind, and though I pushed it back, it kept coming. If we hadn’t had such a disastrous last conversation, I might have contacted Night Owl. Not that it seemed like a good idea for our first in-person meeting to be when I was naked, but I’d trusted him.

I’d really thought I’d read him correctly.

Some hopelessly naive part of me still kind of felt like that. Maybe he’d just been having a bad day. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe it was a test to see if I’d stick with him even when he was being an incredible asshole. If so, I’d failed the test.

But so had he.

This was stupid. It was a bad idea. But I still opened my texts. Unblocked him. And sent out a plea for help.

My body shook, my arms wrapped around my knees as I waited. Had I just made a huge mistake? After all, he’d been the one to demand nude pictures of me. For all I knew, he’d set this whole thing up and was waiting out in the hallway to see if I’d try to make a dash for it.

But… that stubborn voice in the back of my head didn’t think so. It insisted that I did actually know him. Which was a weird thing to think about someone whose name you didn’t even know but it had still felt that way.

When I heard footsteps in the hallway, I shrank back against the wall behind the door. I wish I had something—anything—to cover myself with.

Then there was a soft knock. “Hailey? I’ve brought you my robe and a towel. I’m going to hand them in without looking, okay?”

My jaw dropped open, and if I’d had a towel, I would’ve fallen to the floor as I stared at the closed door in shock.

It was Grant.

26

GRANT

With my back turned,I reached behind me, pushing the robe and towel through the small crack in the door. Then, still not looking, I retreated a half dozen feet down the hall. The poor girl had to be scared to death, and I hadn’t given her any reason to trust me.

Yet somehow, she had.

Or at least she’d trusted Night Owl—despite the fucked-up things that Bennett had said.

My blood boiled every time I thought of him. There was no doubt he did this. He’d wanted Hailey to feel scared. Humiliated. Unsafe.

No doubt she felt all three.

After at least five minutes, the door cracked open again. No steam came out, and I wondered how long she’d been in there, naked and shivering in the cold.

“I’m over here,” I said, just in case she thought I’d left and then got scared when she saw me. A guy my height could frighten women even under normal circumstances, and this was far from normal.

She exited the bathroom in stages. First her head poking out of the door. Then the towel she held up to her chest like a shield. Then the rest of her body draped in my long black robe.

It was comically large on her, with several inches dragging on the ground. When I got hold of Bennett, I was going to tear him limb from limb—but first, I’d make sure I got Hailey her robe back, the one that meant so much to her.

Like I had before.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. Too late, I realized it sounded like an admission of guilt, but she didn’t take it that way.

“This was Bennett, right?”

“I’m afraid so.” A new thought occurred. “I swear to god, Hailey, I didn’t know he was going to do this.”

“I know.” Her voice was so soft that I strained to hear it.

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