Block Shot (Hoops #2)(15)

“Oh my God.” I squint against the sudden brightness of light after being in the dark for so long and instinctively fold my arms across my breasts.

“What the hell!” Jared yells from behind me.

His voice galvanizes me, and I grab the panties tangled up with my tennis shoes and fumble to get the sweatshirt on. I can’t find the holes for the arms, though, and it’s turned inside out. I’m turned inside out. My thoughts are so scrambled I can’t even run for cover. My hands are shaking too badly to execute even this basic motor function.

Jared takes the sweatshirt from my trembling fingers and jerks it over my head, pushing my arms through. He turns me so his broad shoulders block out the rest of the room, a brick wall between me and all those greedy, curious eyes. He presses his forehead to mine, his fingers gripping the nape of my neck through layers of hair. I look at him for the first time since he turned off the lights. I’ve never seen this look on his face. Desperate, almost afraid.

“Ban,” he says urgently, still clutching my neck. “You have to let me explain.”

“Explain what?” I ask, confounded by him, by them, by tonight. I’m on another planet, floating because the Law of Gravity doesn’t apply here.

“You actually did it,” Prescott says.

I peer around Jared to meet the mocking malice of William Prescott. Why is he here? How are they here?

“I didn’t think you had the balls, Foster,” he says, running his eyes over my bare legs disparagingly. “Or the stomach for it. But you did it. You’ve earned it. You’re in.”

Jared wheels around, fist raised and lunges for Prescott, but Bent steps between them.

“You don’t want to do that, Foster,” Bent says, his voice pitched low but still reaching my ears. “I know this is fucked-up. I’m only here to keep you both out of jail.”

“You son of a bitch,” Jared growls over Bent’s shoulder, straining against his hold. “I’ll kill you for this.”

“Now, is that any way to speak to your new brother?” Prescott asks, a wide grin spreading over his face. “I told you to fuck the fat girl and you did, so you’re in. I’ll excuse all this drama. I understand you trying to protect her feelings. I wouldn’t have come and made this awkward, but you understand we had to verify you completed the last rite of passage.”

Fuck the fat girl.

Rite of passage.

The words sledgehammer my head, muddling my thoughts. But one thing is clear. Jared’s in? He had to fuck the fat girl, me, to get into the stupid fraternity he’s been chasing all semester? I press one hand to my swimming head and one to my heaving stomach.

“I’m gonna be . . .” I focus on swallowing my nausea and not further humiliating myself.

“You’re gonna be sick?” Prescott asks, his glance falling over the length of my body. “Maybe it was something you ate.”

The cruel barb punctures the balloon of humiliation and shame that has been swelling inside ever since they barged in. And with a pop, my fury explodes.

All the high pressure and hot air whooshes from my mouth in one gush. I’ve had about enough of these animals who think they’re better than I am because they have dicks and I don’t. My mother may not have known what to do with a little girl asking about the Theory of Relativity or been able to teach me Russian, but one thing she did instill in me was her take-no-crap fight, and it claws its way past my embarrassment. My advisor wants killer instinct? Well here the hell you go.

I’m standing in a roomful of frat boys, wearing a sweatshirt that barely clears the tops of my thighs. They might see my panties and my knees are shaking. My palms practically drip sweat. Every doubt and insecurity about my body crowds in on me, but I force those aside. I shove past Jared and my humiliation and fear until I’m standing directly in front of Prescott. He’s several inches taller, and I have to look up at him. I’m at eye level with his huge Adam’s apple that threatens to poke through his skinny neck with one big gulp.

“This is about the internship, right?” I demand, stepping so close I smell his repugnant after shave. “You’re pissed that I beat you out for the Bagley? Well tough luck, you sorry, entitled, Ichabod Crane looking motherfucker. I beat you with something you wouldn’t recognize if it hit you. Hard work. If it wasn’t for your daddy’s generous donations, you wouldn’t even be on this campus.”

I poke his chest, and he stumbles back a step, disconcerted that the wounded animal is fighting back.

“So you told the hottest guy on campus to fuck me for your little fraternity or whatever you boys have created to compensate for the fact that you’ll barely make it in the real world.” I force a laugh that’s the absolute opposite of how my heart is banging and breaking. “That’s your revenge? You repay me in orgasms? Feel free to take your resentment out on me anytime, Prescott.”

I step another inch closer and go up on my toes until we are practically nose to nose, until I can fire-breathe the words over his lips.

“As you know, I’ll be off campus in New York next semester for our department’s most coveted internship, but for the last few days I have left here, stay out of my way,” I grit out, shaking my hair back and widening my eyes for good measure like the crazy Latina shrew he probably stereotyped me as. “Where I’m from, we eat little boys like you for breakfast, and I have no doubt, if pressed, I can kick your narrow ass.”