With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men #4)(122)

All other thought flushed from my brain. My body responded immediately. I cursed the fact that I’d have to work tonight and couldn’t spend it with her. But maybe…

I’m here now. Want a repeat?

I bit my lip waiting for her answer, hoping she was willing to be as wild and abandoned as we’d been on Tuesday.

I wish. But I’m stuck in the print lab waiting in the longest line ever to get a paper printed. Tonight?

Disappointment had my shoulders sagging. I have to work, remember? Unless you want to come over after… I ended my pleading with an emoticon to show her just how much I wanted her to say yes.

Sorry, my big man. I have a big paper to finish. I promise I’ll make it up to you after you win your game tomorrow. K?

My stomach roiled. Her excuse sounded exactly like the million and one excuses Cora had always given me when we’d been together. A moment of fear clouded my brain. Was Zoey playing me, too? But then I reread the text, and something else odd triggered in my brain.

Big man. That was what Cora had always called me. Surely, Zoey hadn’t been around her roommate enough to glean that nickname off her. But that could only mean…

I swallowed and glanced behind me at my backpack. My phone had not been in that pocket after Rachel had talked to me—after she’d reached her arm around the back of my seat—and then it had miraculously reappeared after Cora had slunk by...and set her arm across the back of my seat.

Realizing I hadn’t been texting Zoey just now, I stared in shock at the words Cora had written to me. I fisted my hand and set it against my mouth. She knew about what we’d done in the library…which meant she knew about us, period.

This couldn’t be good. I started to text Ten to ask him for Zoey’s number, since Cora had apparently cleared it from my phone and replaced it with her own, when I paused. What if she’d messed with more of my numbers? To test the waters, I typed: What’s the first thing you ever said to me?

Ten answered almost immediately. Man, seriously. What the f*ck are you smoking?

I blew out a relieved breath because I already knew without a doubt that I was communicating with my roommate. But I went ahead and explained everything. Just answer the question. Cora hacked into my phone and changed numbers around. I need proof I’m actually talking to you. I’m ninety percent sure she knows about me and Zoey.

Instead of texting back, he rang my number. “Shit,” he muttered as soon as I answered. “I never trusted that f*cking bitch.”

“Well, I wish you’d clued me into her months ago. Now, give me Zoey’s number. Cora cleared it off my phone. I need to warn her.”

Ten obliged. But before he hung up, he said, “Oh, yeah, and the first thing I ever said to you was that steroids made your pecker shrink.”

A grin lit my face as I hung up. That was exactly what he’d said to me on the first day of practice when he’d looked up at me and refused to believe I was just naturally this big.

Before I could text Zoey, Ten texted a selfie of him flipping off the camera. It’s still me!

What a goofball. I shook my head and glanced at the time, only to curse under my breath. I had less than two minutes to get to my noon class. I typed in a warning to Zoey, anyway, gathering my things as I told her to be careful around Cora, that she’d been in my phone, tried to pass herself off as Zoey, and that she knew everything.





Zoey didn’t answer my text before I started calculus, and she hadn’t responded by the time I got out. I had two more classes before I headed straight to practice, and then I had to hustle to work after that. When I’d heard nothing by the time I got off work at two Saturday morning, I began to panic. I would’ve gone to her apartment when I woke, but I had a noon game and the coach had wanted us in early. I didn’t get another moment to check my phone until we’d been excused to the locker room where we were supposed to put on our game uniforms.

Still nothing from Zoey.

Needing answers, I texted Caroline. Is Zoey going to the game with you?

Sitting on the bench in front of my opened locker, with my leggings on but no shirt, I tapped my fingers on my knees waiting for a response.

“Who’re you texting there, Hamilton?” Noel asked, coming up behind me and stealing the phone out of my hand before I could stop him. “You’ve been awfully guarded and yet a little too happy all week. You got yourself a new woman you don’t want anyone to know about?”

Just then, my phone dinged. With a grin, Noel glanced down at the screen. His smile died.

“Motherf*cker.” He dropped the phone and dove at me, tackling me off the bench and onto the floor.

“Wha…?” I lifted my hands over my face to protect myself after my head cracked against the floor and he pinned me by the chest. I could’ve bucked him off, but I was too surprised to see him so mad. Plus, I didn’t want to hurt him.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Ten shouted, rushing over just as Noel wrapped his hands around my neck. “What the f*ck, man?” He tried to pull Noel off me, but Noel wasn’t budging.

“Are you fooling around with my sister behind my back?” he growled.

“What!” Ten cried. He picked up my fallen phone, read the message and let out a groan. Shoving it at Noel, he muttered, “Maybe you should’ve read the actual message, dumbass. He’s fooling around with Blondie. He was just asking Caroline if she’d seen her today, which she hasn’t, by the way,” he finished with a concerned glance toward me.