Page 66 of Good Girl

“Well, they should have thought of that before they decided to bully Paul and make his life hell, shouldn’t they?” Haley sneered. She glanced at me, her lip curling in disgust.

“But helied—”

“Don’t,” Haley snapped. “It’s quite simple, Charlotte. Suck a bit of dick, change some grades, and we canallgo back to our little lives sleeping a little easier. You want a future with your pretty professors? Paul and I want a future too, and the only way for us to all get what we want is for you to give us a helping hand. It’s the generous thing to do, don’t you think?”

Having calmed down from my frantic sprint, I could only nod. Haley saw no fault in her plan. It was perfect, and I was certain that she was even enjoying it a little bit. I had nothing to push back against her, no leverage I could use to make her back off, so all I could do was keep her and her psychotic ex in good spirits so that my men remained blissfully unaware.

“Okay,” I said, sinking down onto my bed with tears prickling hot behind my eyes. “I’ll try again.”

“Don’t forget Samuel, too,” Haley added, leaning into the mirror on the dresser.

“What?”

“Well, Samuel makes Paul’s life hell, and since you’re banging both of them, fixing his grade with Derek from last year, and his grade from Samuelthisyear, should be a piece of cake.” She dabbed at her lips with her gloss wand and fixed me with a pointed stare in the mirror. “Easy, right?”

“Easy,” I repeated weakly.

“Don’t look so glum,” Haley remarked dryly. “You should be thanking me that I didn’t go to the dean straight away. In fact, you should be thanking Paul. Without him, you’d be back home with Mother Dearest right now.”

Haley’s chuckle cut through me as I slumped back onto my bed, rolled over, and curled into a ball.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. On one hand, doing Haley and Paul’s dirty work ran the risk of the guys catching me like Derek had, assuming the worst and ending things with me. On the other, not acting would have Haley telling the dean everything, an investigation would be issued, and I would be cast aside either through guilt or anger that I'd allowed our secret to be discovered.

Either way, I lost.

And on top of that, there was a baby inside me.

The door slammed as Haley left, and I allowed the building tears to fall, ignoring my phone as it buzzed away on the dresser.

I had more people in my life than ever before, and I had never felt more alone.

32

MATT

The acrid stink of smoke filled the air, clinging to my clothes and the wall despite the multiple windows I’d opened in an attempt to rid the office of the smell. The wall closest to the door now had a dark burn streaking high up to the ceiling, but the fire, thankfully, had been put out in time before it could cause any irreparable damage.

It was a stroke of luck that Samuel hadn’t been in here when the fire was lit.

“What do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” Derek’s furious yell cut through the air like a smooth razor, and I glanced over at him. He was deep in conversation with the head of campus security, and from the sounds of things, that conversation was not going well.

“Look, Mr. Hansen, this is nothing more than a childish prank. Yes, I understand your safety concerns, but setting a trash can on fire isn’t cause for the heavy investigation you’re asking for.” The guard, a portly man with a wiry mustache and thinning hair, didn’t look too thrilled to be on the receiving end of Derek’s anger, but I couldn’t blame him.

It was by sheer chance I had caught the smoke drifting out from underneath Samuel’s office door and pulled the alarm before the fire could get out of control. He’d lost a few books and his trash, but all in all, it was small-scale.

“It was a fuckingfire,” Derek snapped furiously. “Someone came in here, lit that fucker up, and who knows what could have happened if Matt hadn’t caught it?”

“Derek...” I understood his anger, I really did. If Samuel had been in here napping like he usually did, then there was no telling how awful this could have been. “No one got hurt. Samuel wasn’t even here.”

“That’s not the point!” Derek rounded on me, but the moment he caught my eye, he restrained himself and pressed his lips together. His shoulders rose as he inhaled and held it, then he turned away from us and stalked toward the desk.

“Sir.” I approached the guard. “I hope you can understand that where you see a prank, we see a threat to faculty safety.”

“And I understand that,” the security guard replied irritably, “but this is likely nothing more than some passing punks letting off some steam because exams are around the corner. I assure you, we will look into it from every angle we can, but the full-scalemanhuntthat your colleague is asking for” —Derek grunted in the corner— “just isn’t possible.”

“I understand.” Out of the corner of my eye, Derek’s shoulders rose once more as he got a second wind of anger, so I quickly stepped between him and the guard. “Is there anything else you need from us?”

“I’ll need your witness statement in writing for the report,” the guard explained, “but other than that, no.”

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