Bet in the Dark by Rachel Higginson
Not that I ever walked along the side of the interstate, but I was kind of captivated by them whenever I drove by.
The early March wind whipped at my face, and I glanced back at my moderately priced apartment building with longing. Abruptly I forgot every reason for leaving my scarf at home and exactly who I was trying to impress.
Which was no one. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
I shivered against the wind and pulled my sweater tight around my waist. This day was not starting off well.
I ducked my head, my hair getting tangled and messy the longer I stood here doing nothing. So I marched forward, crossed the street and entered campus.
The hustle and bustle of morning classes buzzed around me, students moving from building to building, talking, laughing, doing whatever it was that students do in the cold in between space of winter changing to spring. There was some ultimate Frisbee- I mean, this was a college campus after all- happening on a square of muddy, barely green grass, but the players were still in scarves and gloves, their noses red from the biting wind.
I watched them in a kind of disgusted awe and pulled my sweater even tighter around me. And then I saw him across the courtyard. Fin Hunter was surrounded by four of his friends, tall, equally built seniors, equally intimidating men, while they lingered near a bench. The guys around him were actively checking out the female population while he laughed and joked in the middle of it all. I didn’t think he saw me, not from way over here, but I picked up my pace anyway.
No need to run into him before I absolutely had to.
Funny how he was only a myth before last night, rumors attached to a name I heard every once in a while. Now that there was a body and face attached to the urban legends I supposed I was going to have to start seeing him everywhere I went.
Annoying.
I tumbled through the student union doorway, anxious to get out of the cold and away from any remnant of the notorious Fin Hunter. A shudder slithered over my shoulders down to my wrists, and I wondered for the hundredth time in the last eight hours, what I had gotten myself into?
“Hey, you’re late!”
“Sorry, B,” I smiled apologetically at my best friend. “I’m in a war with my wardrobe.”
“Looks like you won,” her overly large mouth twisted into a grin and I felt some pride. Britte was artistically trendy and never approved of my clothing choices. Her and Fin could probably start a club. “You look hot!”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I don’t feel hot. I feel cold.”
Laughter bubbled out of her, loud and infectious. “Where’s your lovey?”
My grin turned tight, “Are you talking about my trademark scarf?”
“Mmm-hmmm,” her expression was innocent and condescending all at the same time. I rolled my eyes again and she batted her electric blue lined green eyes at me. “I hardly recognized you with so much skin exposed.”
My hand fluttered to my neck self-consciously. “I don’t know, I’ve just been thinking maybe it’s time for a change? Maybe I should branch out a little bit.” I finished with a little more confidence than I started with, but at least I almost believed myself by the end of it.
“Does this mean shopping?” Britte’s already supersized eyes grew larger and her dark lashes swept up so that they nearly brushed her dark eyebrows.
“No,” I shook my head quickly. “Definitely not.”
“What? Why not?”
“I’m in serious financial woes, B. I can’t afford to go shopping now, or later or anytime this decade.” I pushed forward, out of the doorway and toward a table in the corner. I couldn’t have anyone over hearing this. I loved my brothers dearly, but it honestly felt like they had spies everywhere. Once, in an emergency, I asked the girl in the stall next to me if she had a tampon I could borrow and later that night Beckett texted to congratulate me on not being pregnant.
“Oh no,” Britte gasped, following behind me. “Tara the Terror still hasn’t paid her share of the rent?”
I ducked under a campus promotional poster that swung precariously from one piece of sticky tack and plopped down into my chair. We were a bit more isolated away from the snack counter/barista station. Most of the influx of students hung out near the cash register or at the full wall length bar that faced out floor to ceiling glass windows and the courtyard I just walked through. We had privacy from any eavesdroppers but also Fin wouldn’t likely catch sight of me if he happened to walk this way either.
“Tara the Traitor has done a lot more than refuse to come up with the last two months of rent,” I growled.
Britte sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chomped down on it. She brushed her full dark mane of hair over her shoulder and reached out a super-tanned-for-Wisconsin-at-the-end-of-winter hand to pat mine comfortingly. “Tell me.”
And so I did.
Britte’s mouth kind of hung unhinged during and after my story. She didn’t make a sound for several minutes; she just kept staring at me. I eventually dropped my head into my hands and groaned. This was as bad as I thought it was. Somehow I convinced myself that this wasn’t so bad, that I wasn’t in too much trouble.
But the look on Britte’s face proved otherwise.
“Ellie!” she finally shrieked. “What are you going to do?”
I winced, “I don’t know!”
“You have to go to the cops, you have to!”
“Britte, I can’t,” I quickly shook my head, my more-wild-than-usual hair flying around my face. “I mean, I can. And I’ve thought about it. But do you know what my family will do to me if this comes out? My parents will freak. My brothers will go insane. They’ll probably make me move in with Grayson and then I’ll have no social life, no love life and no freedom whatsoever!” I laid it out for her, ticking it off with raised fingers.
Her huge moss green eyes grew impossibly bigger and understanding dawned on her. Britte and I met last year at spring orientation when we were both transfers. We became almost inseparable from day one, so she had plenty of opportunity to get to know the Harris family. Although it wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out how overprotective they were of me, their darling baby girl.
And with two older brothers roaming the campus constantly, she had also seen their domineering behavior in action on more than one occasion.
Especially after Colton dumped me.
Part of my two week seclusion was embarrassment, not only for being cheated on, but for what they did to the poor guy afterwards.
Ok, not poor guy. I had to stop feeling sorry for him!
“So you’re just going to let Tara the Terrible get away with this?” Britte demanded, folding her arms across her chest.
“No!” I immediately responded. “Well, maybe. I mean I plan on hunting her down and tearing her hair out, but probably that won’t happen. Plus, she has a real problem, B, a real problem.”
Britte rolled her eyes. “Well, if you won’t tear her hair out, I will. Even if I have to check myself into rehab!”
“Where does one go for a gambling addiction?” I asked pensively.
Britte thought about that for a moment but shook her head dismissively in the end. “I don’t know, but come on, we’re going to be late. We can brainstorm later. And if nothing else, we’ll steal a couple of Becket’s baseball bats and get your money back the old fashioned way.”
“The old fashioned way?” I laughed and she smirked at me.
We stood up, gathered our bags and left the union. We huddled together in the chilly wind and walked toward class. We weren’t in the same major, but we had two of the same gen-eds together this semester. And probably if I didn’t think an undergrad in Bio-Chem was insane, I would have switched majors just so we could have all our classes together.
Britte had aspirations to be a surgeon.
I had aspirations to join the peace corp. Or become a teacher. Or a guidance counselor. Or a psychologist. Or something. I wasn’t really sure yet, but surgeon was not in the what-I-want-to-
“Oh, no,” Britte whispered and then tried to steer my body into the grass.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, skipping forward so she couldn’t push me into the mud puddles lining the sidewalk.
She made a high pitched squeaky sound and whispered harshly, “Colton.”
She was right. Oh no.
I told myself to keep my head down, to focus on the sidewalk and not even look his way, but obviously I couldn’t stop myself. My eyes flickered up and met his almost immediately. Ick.
Britte grabbed my arm with two hands and squeezed tightly. I absently swatted her away while keeping my eyes locked on Colton. Good grief, he was annoyingly good looking with his inky black hair, styled into a short faux hawk, and his startling blue eyes that didn’t seem to match the rest of his tanned skin.
“Hey Ellie-belly,” he greeted as soon as we were close enough. Was there ever a more annoying nickname? His voice was all concerned compassion and it only made my fingers itch to smack him. “How are you?”
How are you? As in, if he was my therapist and I was about to divulge all of my traumatic-post-breakup-secrets. Psht.
“I’m great,” I forced out a smile, feeling how fake it was by how my cheeks nearly cracked.
“Mmm,” he answered thoughtfully. “I heard you skipped the last couple weeks of classes, Els. Is something going on?”
“Are you kidding?” Britte screeched at him.
“Hey come on, Britte,” Colton put his hands up and backed up a step. “That’s not fair.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “Yes, Colton, something is going on.”
“Is it because of me?” his voice dropped to a troubled whisper, it was his signature move. It was how he got me in the first place. Junior year, Lennox stopped by my high school to do this career day thing as a “favor” to me, more like a favor for my parents so they could show off just how big and successful he had become. He utterly embarrassed me by talking to my history teacher about what I could do to improve my grade in front of my class.
If he would have just asked me I would have told him I wasn’t struggling intellectually, that just happened to be the most boring class in the history of the world and I couldn’t bring myself to pay attention.
Instead, Lennox completely humiliated me and then belittled me and by the time Colton found me I was pathetically desperate for a knight in shining armor. Not that he stood up to Lennox, nobody stood up to Lennox, or Grayson or even Beckett, but he did listen to me, gave me a sympathetic ear and then he asked me out on a date.
At the time I thought he was really sweet. Fast forward three years, I’m realizing his whole “listening-ear” thing was just a way to get in as many girls’ pants as he could. Ick. I was such an idiot for wasting so much of my life on him.
Especially when he was the one that dragged me right back into the epicenter of my family drama.
I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him that it was in fact because of him and that he could take all his concern and compassion and shove it right back up his…. butt, when-
“Ellie.”
I shivered. My name on that deep, rumbling voice, I mean how could I not?
“Hey,” I cleared my throat nervously, “Fin Hunter.”
My eyes slid from Colton’s shocked expression to the amused expression on Fin Hunter’s face. His scruff was one day longer, his chocolate brown eyes crinkled and amused and his books held so casually in his arms it was like he was born to be a college student.
“You look nice today, Ellie,” his grin grew. “less-“
“Don’t say it,” I bit out, not even wanting to hear or think or remember the word “missionary” ever again.
He laughed outright at that and then took a step forward. His hand slipped under my back pack strap, sandwiching it tight and hot to my collar bone. He tugged on it playfully, bringing me a stumbling step toward him. And then he looked down at me as if no one else were watching us, as if no one else were anywhere near us.
I gulped.
“Are we still on for later?” he asked in a seductively raspy voice.
I swallowed again, working my throat to complete the action so I wouldn’t choke on spit. I knew what he was asking me and there was nothing, absolutely nothing sexy about owing this man money. But the way he presented it in front of Britte and Colton and anyone else who happened to be anywhere near us, made what we were going to do later sound oh, so dirty.
When I didn’t, or couldn’t respond, he prompted me. “You’re not ditching me are you?” He pulled me closer, his hand still trapped between my shoulder strap and body. Somehow my cardigan was pushed aside, living the back of his hand pressed against my bare skin. “I’m really looking forward to tonight.”
His eyes flashed with something heated and intense. Maybe a warning? Oh because he wanted to make sure I really wasn’t ditching him. Dang it, he pulled me right along with everyone else into his act of seduction. I shook my head, working to clear the lust from my brain. It was just that his eyes were so deep and dark, and he smelled so good and….
“I wouldn’t ditch you,” I promised, forcing myself out of wherever that spiraling train of craziness was going. I smiled reassuringly, but I meant it. I might not be able to give him his money back, but I would help him find it. Whatever that meant. But because Colton was here, and because he had set me up perfectly, I finished with, “I’m looking forward to tonight too.”
“Good,” he grinned triumphantly. His other hand slipped under the other strap and he pulled me one step closer so that the front of our bodies were touching. My chest against his chest, my stomach against his flat, hard, perfect stomach. His expression turned absolutely devilish and then he dropped his head and kissed my neck. It was loud and sloppy and mostly playful and I squealed and then gasped. And then he was gone.
His hands released me and he just walked off.
My entire face was the color of a red tomato and my hands were shaking from something like total humiliation mixed with ridiculously misplaced lust. The place on my neck where his lips had just been was still warm but cold too from the residual slobber, which should have been disgusting but still managed to be hot. Mostly because it was Fin Hunter’s slobber. And my body kind of buzzed with an energy I was completely unfamiliar with.
“So this is not about me then?” Colton snapped, bringing me harshly back to reality.
“Uh,” I coughed, cleared my throat and then coughed again. “This is definitely not about you, Colton.”
His eyes swept over me in a calculating glare but finally he moved passed us on his way to class. Britte’s mouth was hanging open again and her eyes were practically outside her head.
“How exactly is he expecting you to pay him back?” she demanded.
“Oh,” I thought that over, thought over what just happened, but still I couldn’t make sense of any of it. “Oh, no. Oh not like that.” I shook my head vehemently while my light brown hair slashed at my face. “No really, not like that.”
“Uh-huh,” Britte did not sound convinced at all.
Come to think of it, I didn’t really think I was all that convinced either.
Shoot! This was about prostitution!
Chapter Three
I can’t believe you’re already dating someone else. I can’t believe you moved on. Did I mean nothing to you???
Yeesh, three question marks. Colton was serious.
I jammed my finger over the power button of my phone and cocked my arm to chuck it against
the wall. But then talked myself out of it. At this point, I couldn’t afford a new cell phone. And I couldn’t afford any more emotions for freaking Colton.
Seriously?
He was mad that I moved on?
Him. The man-whore with no standards.
This was not worth getting angry over. This was not worth a reply.
Especially since I didn’t really want to be honest about the dating part. Or the moving on pa
Since I wasn’t really doing either.
“You alright, Els?” Beckett called from a few feet away.
My head snapped up and I groaned audibly. Not that it stopped Becket from leaving his friends and jogging over to me. His light brown eyebrows were drawn in concern and he rubbed a hand over his shortly cropped golden brown hair, his signature “I’m going to protect you now” move.
“I’m fine, Becks,” I sighed and then lowered my arm. “How are you?” I smiled brightly at him, hoping to nudge him away from the direction of why I was about to throw my phone into the brick wall of the library.
“Is this about Hunter harassing you this morning?” Beckett took a wide stance and crossed his arms.
As siblings, I was closest to Becket in a way that meant we loved each other the most but showed it through fighting constantly. He was only two years older than me and he used to be the best at treating me like I wasn’t an infant or breakable. But ever since he went off to college and grew up a little bit, that changed. Granted I appreciated that he wasn’t as selfish as he used to be in high school, and that his perspective on the world had widened. But why did it have to widen my direction? Since his freshman year, he joined the ranks with Lennox and Grayson in their overbearing, dictatorial rule over my life.
“Nobody was harassing me this morning,” I explained dryly. I stopped myself from a good, solid eye roll and prepared my brain to go through this routine. “God, where do you hear this stuff?”
“Ear to the ground, Els, ear to the ground,” he broke out into a crooked grin then and I had to laugh.
“You are so crazy,” I giggled.