Boyfriend Material (Hawthorne University, #2)(4)

I shake my head as disbelief rises. “You, wow, you’re female and excusing his behavior? Gross. Hormones have nothing to do with it. He has self-control; he just chose not to use it. He has zero respect for any of you.” I tick off what happened on my fingers. “He asked for a private dance. I gave it. He went too far. Then he tried to run away without paying. Scott is scum. Scott is probably a rapist.”

That gets their attention.

“She’s a lying bitch,” Scott sneers. “She came out of that strip place on Easton Street, and I just walked her back from the bars to be nice because she was alone. And this is the thanks I get?”

My blood boils.

That Strip Place Back on Easton Street is where he’s been spending most of daddy’s hefty allowance this summer.

I lift my hands in exasperation. “I just want to collect what’s owed me.”

He laughs. “You’re owed jack. Get out of here.”

“Yeah,” his girlfriend mutters. “Before we call the cops and tell them you’re soliciting.”

“Go on, now,” the brunette calls in a haughty voice. “We don’t want your kind here. This is a decent place. Kappa doesn’t tolerate sluts.”

Frustration hits as my predicament slowly dawns. What cop is going to believe me over him? Over the girls?

Scott was easily tossing dollars at me in the club, but now I’ll have to pry the money he promised me out of his slimy hands.

Connor is going to be livid.

And with that horrible realization, I panic. I rub the scar on my wrist as my vision swims. A cold-sweat breaks out on my forehead. My anger ebbs into fear.

“Don’t come back to my place of work, Scott,” I yell as I back away. “The boys will toss you out.”

I turn to leave and the second my bare feet hit the curb, a black, tricked out Toyota Tundra pulls right in front of me. It’s one of those trucks with every upgrade and modification to make it look like it was used to cross the Sahara, but it’s never been off-road. I stumble and reach out to steady myself against one of the big tires.

The driver’s side door opens, and out steps a six-foot-four-inch wall of perfection—and he knows it. Eric Hansen.

He’s clearly been hitting the gym during the offseason, but it doesn’t look like he had time to shop. His arms burst against the gray Henley stretched across his chest, and his thighs strain against his black jeans. He truly is built like his nickname, Eric the Everest. He’s broad-shouldered with a rugged face and wavy dark red hair. Long ago, I used to run my fingers through those unruly curls.

Whoa. His beard is gone. I’m able to see the chiseled lines of his jaw, the skyscraper cheekbones, the fullness of his lips.

I try to step around him but he stops, recognition sparking.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Julia? Hey . . . I haven’t seen you in a while. You going in? Looks like the party is in full swing.”

This might be the most we’ve said to each other in years.

He tucks his big hand in the pocket of his jeans, a movement so smooth and sexy it appears choreographed. Confidence surrounds him. He’s rich. Beautiful. Popular.

That’s right.

He’s charming up until the last moment, then he pulls your heart out and rips it to pieces.

He’s speaking in that easygoing way of his, playing Mr. Nice now, but just wait . . .

“No, I was just leaving,” I mumble, my voice drowned out by the music wafting out of the mansion.

“Are you okay?” he asks, pivoting with me as I move around his truck.

I cut a look at him, and I mean to glance away, but his topaz eyes hold mine. They aren’t regular topaz; they’re a brilliant gold with layers of gray, green, and blue as if his creator didn’t know what color to give him. They’re the softest part of him. I used to think they reflected a deep person, someone vulnerable, someone who had a side to him no one knew.

I was wrong.

He glances at my feet, and I lift my hands and heave out a sigh. “Nothing to see here. I lost my shoes.”

“Ah.” He frowns, looking back at the Kappa house, then again at me. “Did someone take them?”

“No.” I huff out a laugh and shake my head. “They weren’t worth stealing.”

“You seem upset,” he says and moves closer until there’s only a foot between us.

The tension sizzles—or at least it does for me.

He’s staring at me, hard, and I swallow thickly as the silence builds between us.

For three years, every time we’ve seen each other on campus, we’ve purposely avoided one another. He’d see me coming and turn the corner. I’d see him in the cafeteria and choose a table on the other side—behind a plant. Even when our roommates, Z and Sugar, started dating, we kept our distance.

You should keep it that way, a voice says.

I whirl to leave.

“Bye, slut,” one of the girls from the porch calls behind me.

“If you ask me, Eric should’ve hit her with his truck,” another says as they burst into laughter.

Tears sting my eyes.

If I don’t get some money soon, I’ll be in for a lot worse.





2





Eric





Julia’s long mahogany hair flies behind her as she dashes away, the glitter on her shoulders sparkling as she runs under the streetlights. I guess she wears it when she strips.