She beams up at me. “Yeah! I’d love to!”
“Excuse me, sir.” The dean stands baffled at my side as I reach out for Olive’s hand. She smiles as she places her fingers across my palm and I whisk her out to the dance floor, nudging us into the most crowded part to keep myself from the dean’s view.
“Bleakwood’s been trying to get everyone’s medical records too, huh?” Olive asks.
“Yeah. The whole mono thing, I guess.”
She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, it’s a waste of time.”
“Yeah, it totally is.” And they’re bound to find out some things I don’t want them to, I think, putting my hands on her waist and slow dancing awkwardly.
Olive smiles and steps closer. “I’m really glad you asked me to the dance, Alex,” she says in a low voice. “I was starting to tire of your little game.”
Normally something like that would make me cringe, but I’m only half paying attention to Olive.
I try to smile back at her, but it comes out more as a grimace. I’ve got to keep an eye on the dean, who’s prowling the edges of the dance floor, scowling into the crowd, searching for me. I also pick out Dean Robin skulking around, too, her eyes scanning the crowd. Hell, they’re both here.
I don’t know what they’ll do to get me to give up my medical records. I haven’t even done anything about procuring them. But it’s a mistake to watch them so hard, because I don’t notice that someone’s behind me until a hand clamps painfully down on my shoulder and wrenches me away from Olive.
“Jasper!” Olive yells indignantly.
He whirls me to face him, and I know the moment that our eyes locked that I am totally and utterly fucked.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I did this to myself.
It doesn’t matter that we’re in the middle of a crowded room, surrounded by our peers and professors. Everything snaps into sharp focus as I stare up at Jasper’s rage-filled eyes, flared nostrils, bared teeth. His fingers dig into the joint of my shoulder, his hand pressing into me until my knees start to buckle.
The crowd around us barely takes any notice. A few people pause and look at us with alarmed expressions, but for the most part, they’re a wall of slowly rotating bodies engulfed in the music and their own dance partners.
“What the hell, Olive?” Jasper snaps, turning from me to her.
“I should ask you the same!” Olive yells back, but her face colors rapidly. She’s embarrassed. She should be—she straight up ditched Jasper, after all.
I, however, am in pain.
I grab Jasper’s hand and try to pry his fingers off me, but I only succeed in loosening his grip just enough to make the pain decrease a bit.
He grabs my wrist with his other hand and yanks it away. Behind him, Beck and Heath materialize out of the crowd, and my knees grow weak for another reason—they both look incredibly handsome.
I guess as much as I’ve been trying to write off Beck’s kiss as an isolated incident, as something that doesn’t matter, I can’t ignore the fact now that something about him has changed for me. And somehow, this change isn’t solely in regards to my feelings for Beck.
I didn’t get a good look at Beck before; now, up close, I see him in his tailored suit jacket and dress shirt and want him to kiss me all over again. Heath, meanwhile, looks much more casual in his untucked button-up shirt with half the buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Here, standing in front of the entire Brotherhood, I feel a new complicated web of feelings. Complicated especially by the fact that Jasper’s face is once again screaming murder.
“You stole Jasper’s girl,” Beck says simply.
Heath nods.
Jasper looks at me again and starts digging his fingers even harder into my flesh, any momentary lapse in my own judgement disappearing in a burst of pain.
No. This is The Brotherhood. These are my bullies. I must remember that.
I cry out and stumble sideways and straight into a slow-dancing couple. They yell and get out of my way, and I try to flee, but Jasper’s grasp on me is strong. He comes with me as I fall sideways again and the crowd shuffles out of my way until I fall straight into the Christmas tree.
That little antic starts to draw some real attention.