Game (Gentry Boys, #3)(68)

“Hey, buddy,” said a voice and I looked up into the friendly face of Brayden McCann, the boy who’d once valiantly tried to punch me to avenge his cousin’s honor. I struggled to smile at him.

“What’s up, McCann?”

Bray sat on the ledge next to me. “Seems like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Well, I’m a popular guy.”

Brayden must have heard the bite in my tone because he looked at me sharply. Hopefully he already knew it wasn’t directed at him because I didn’t have the energy to actually tell him so.

“You okay, Chase? You need to talk?”

“I’d like that. I would.” I stood up and he glanced up at me with a worried look. “But right now I have to go to class and stare at the girl who may or may not still love me.”

“Ah,” he breathed, obviously understanding a little better.

“How do you make it look so easy, Brayden? I mean, you and Millie. Whenever I see you guys you’re in perfect sync.”

“Well, you don’t see everything,” he told me in a stern voice. “No one does, Chase. Millie and I love each other. We’re complete. But we’re not perfect, not in the idyllic Hollywood sense. But then, out here in reality there might be no such f*cking thing.”

It was probably only the second time I had ever heard Bray McCann drop an F bomb, the first occurring outside a girls’ bathroom in Emblem High School some six years earlier.

“No such f*cking thing,” I repeated. “You’re a wise man.”

“And you’re not just living for today anymore.”

“I concede the point. I’m not.”

“So let it be a good thing.”

“I’m trying, Bray. I’ll keep trying.”

As I made my way to the class where I’d first laid eyes on Stephanie Bransky I removed my phone from my back pocket. I thought about texting her to ask if she was on her way but I didn’t. Again I was reminded about how similar some of her manners were to Creed’s. They both tended to be stubbornly distant to those around them and they both had the power to shred me with a few short words.

When I sat on a bench and waited for the prior class to release I noticed a few people looking at me. At first I blew it off but then it kept happening. I recognized a few of them and the furtive glances they were throwing my way were getting on my nerves. I was sure I wasn’t sitting here with my dick flopping out so what the hell did they want?

“Chase!” It wasn’t Stephanie. It was Robin, an old hookup who’d kept her distance since it became clear that I wasn’t going to look away from Stephanie. But now she approached me with a bright smile and a flushed look in her cheeks. She grabbed my arm. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with her. I leaned back into the wall and closed my eyes but she kept talking.

“Oh my god,” she was saying. “I saw the video. Oh my god. Is she okay? Oh my god, I would die if it were me and it was out there. But then I’ve never stripped for the cameras, haha.”

This girl was speaking another language. I didn’t care to learn it. I grunted and kept my eyes closed.

“Is that why she’s not with you today? Oh my god, did you even know?”

I opened my eyes. “Robin. What the hell are you talking about?”

She was jubilant. She had something to share and she couldn’t wait to share it. My stomach was starting to hurt for some reason.

Robin stuck her face in her phone. She bit her lower lip in anticipation. The she turned the phone around so I could see the video that was already playing. A few other people nearby were also looking. I looked too. I blinked. Then I blinked again because the image was impossible.

Robin pressed a button and the volume rose. Stephanie, my Stephanie, was dancing around on a crappy stage and shedding her clothes. She went about it slowly, seductively. She glanced over her shoulder and appeared to smile at the unseen men who bellowed for more. Then she gave it to them. I saw her do things that she’d never even done in front of me in our wildest moments of passion.

My mouth was dry. My heart was shrieking. Calmly I handed Robin her phone back. “Send that link to me, please,” I said and then left everyone to their gossipy bullshit.

When I got out of the building I walked quickly, taking wide, deliberate strides without any idea where I was going.

What the actual f*ck?

Stephanie, who could barely bring herself to get naked for me when we first started fooling around, had been gyrating like a porn star in front of a room full of men. These were men who yelled out all the disgusting things they wanted her to do as she touched herself on camera on f*cking camera so that everyone in creation could have something to jack off to. Had she been high? Drunk? She sure as shit hadn’t been acting like it. She’d been purposefully playing to the crowd, following filthy instructions and smiling the whole time like she was having fun.

Acid bile rose in my throat and I had to cover my mouth with my forearm out of fear I’d be sick. A buzzing in my pocket announced the arrival of the link I’d asked Robin to send me. I couldn’t make a nickel of sense out of any of it. None.

Abruptly I turned on my heel and returned to the psychology building. Class had already started. I flung open the door and quickly surveyed the crowd. Some of them looked at me curiously. Others nudged one another and laughed. Stephanie wasn’t in there so I left. Maybe she was embarrassed over how much attention the video was getting. Obviously the thing had gone f*cking viral. But when she’d taken off her damn clothes in front of an audience with cameras she had to know what was likely to happen.