I Dare You (The Hook Up #1)(47)

She arches her brow. “There are ways to find out who he is. Ever hear of reverse image search on Google? Besides, I asked Carson and he told me his name was Leslie Brock. Guess who I’m going to look up when I get home?”

I’m baffled by why she would even care.

Anxiety eats at me, imagining her blabbing around campus about who Leslie is. I know exactly what she’ll find out if she tries hard enough: he owns casinos.

“Don’t start something you don’t know anything about,” I say tightly.

An insinuating expression flits over her face. “Just a heads up, Ryker leaves his phone out constantly. I just happened to take pictures of some messages you’ve sent him that came across his lock screen—texts about fighting in Tunica and a man named Leslie, and then lo and behold, I ask Carson who you’re with and he says Leslie. Not smart to meet your bookie so close to home.”

Fuck. I can’t breathe.

I bark out a laugh. “He isn’t my bookie.”

She’s off base, but dangerously close…

“Yeah, right. You’ve been gambling.”

“It’s not what you think it is,” I say. “I’ve never gambled.” There’s so much more I want to say to her—I want to fucking go off on her—but I’m terrified.

“Whatever. You’ll say anything to protect yourself.” She’s managed to get in her car now. “I’ll see you,” she says as she slams her door and cranks her engine.

I stand back as she jerks out of her parking spot and squeals off.

Everything feels wrong.

I scrub my face and head back into the gym. I have to find Ryker and figure out what the hell is going on.





Delaney



It’s the Thursday night before spring break and the library is a dead zone, except for the diehards who aren’t leaving early for a quick trip to somewhere.

It’s seven o’clock, so I have two more hours before I can hightail it out of here and head to my house, where I’m supposed to meet Maverick.

Voices drift in from the front, and I look up from the circulation desk I’m manning, expecting to see my co-worker who’s been working on the main floor downstairs, but it’s Martha-Muffin and one of her sorority friends.

She sees me and changes her trajectory, making her way over to the desk. She practically flounces in a pair of white cutoffs and a lace top that barely covers her boobs.

I exhale. “Mensa meeting for two tonight? Please don’t let me interrupt. Choose a table, any table.” As long as it’s far, far away from me.

“You think you’re so smart.” She shakes her head. “It all might just fall down around you.”

I arch my brows. “Okaaaay. Am I supposed to be scared?”

“You would be if you knew what I knew,” she says, twisting her lips.

I sigh, not in the mood for her antics. I just want to get out of here and see Maverick. “Unless you’re here to check out a book—which I highly doubt is the case—or need help finding a book—which I also highly doubt—then I’ll leave you to your ridiculously vague comments and go do something productive with my time.”

I skirt around the edge of the counter, my goal to get as far from the toxicity as I can, then I hear her voice calling behind me in a singsong tone. “I know something you don’t.”

I push my glasses up and turn around. “I already know you slept with my ex. Over and done. I’ve moved on.”

She laughs, but it isn’t a pleasant sound, and by now the group of guys back in the corner openly stare at us.

“This is about Maverick.”

She’s toying with me, I tell myself, but part of me—the insecure side of me—wants to know exactly what she means. My old anxieties tug at me, reminding me that Alex cheated and saying maybe Maverick has too.

“Fuck off, Martha.”

She rears back in surprise. “Well, you do have claws. I was beginning to wonder.”

I flip back around and head down an aisle.

Her parting shot follows me. “Just ask him why he’s been training at Carson’s Gym so much. Ask him who Leslie is.”

Leslie? Is she someone he’s seeing at the gym? He’s been telling me he goes to the field house to work out…

But I did see him at Carson’s all those weeks ago when Han was lost.

I take the stairs two at a time, her comments niggling at me, digging under my skin. I try to pack them away and store them in a back corner of my mind, but when my phone pings with a text from Maverick and I read it, the uncertainty yanks at me even more.

Rain check on tonight? We’ve got a big scrimmage coming up and I need the rest.

Fine, I say.

You okay?

I type Yes, but then delete it.

I’m not okay, not at all, and I need time to think. I don’t respond, instead just tuck the phone back in my pocket.





Delaney



The next day, Ryker opens the door, this time with some clothes on. It makes sense since it’s the afternoon and after classes, but in a dorm with athletes, you never know. I’m here to pump him for information, and I’m not above using food to get what I want.

“Mav isn’t here. Already left for the gym.”