Most people don’t take me seriously. Came with the territory of being the jokester and the town flirt, but that was precisely what I wanted people to think. If they didn’t believe I was a threat, then they didn’t see me coming when shit got real. It made me dangerous in my book and was a whole lot more fun than having a stick stuck up my ass.
The Elite had two rules.
Protecting each other. No questions asked.
And never screwing with the same girl. Standby girls excluded—girls we could fuck around with but never date. This was a fairly new rule that came about when Brock decided to fall off the deep end for Josie James.
Our fearless leader in love. Who would have thought, and with his best friend's sister too? How cliche. Talk about crossing all the lines, but Josie wasn’t any girl. Even I could admit she was different.
She was one of us.
The first girl we ever adopted into the Elite.
Josie had changed us.
Brock, Fynn, Grayson, and I had protected a girl before her, and it had ended badly. Left scars not just on us but the girl as well, who happened to be Grayson’s sister, Kenna. None of us ever forgot how we had failed her—never forgave ourselves either.
Perhaps that was why Josie was different—why she became so important to the four of us.
We hadn’t wanted to fail a second time.
It helped that she was cute as fuck, and so damn spunky. She was also damaged, something I related to on so many levels.
Truth be told, if Brock hadn’t claimed her first, I might have done more than flirt with her. But that was all. Josie and I were better at being friends who edged the line into something more but never crossed it.
That was all before Mads gave me a second chance, of course. I wasn’t sure I deserved another opportunity to make her happy, considering how I had colossally fucked it up before. I had my reasons for what I had done, but they didn’t excuse the hurt I caused.
I never wanted to inflict that pain on her again, but the reality was my world was brimming with shit that could do more than hurt her.
For me, it had always been Madeline Clarke, the girl who had constantly been there. I had many regrets in my life, things I’d done and choices I’d made that I had to live with every day, but none of which I regretted more than seeing the pain in Mads’s eyes. She deserved someone better than me, and I tried to stay away, tried to keep her at a safe distance. But I couldn’t. It took one moment of weakness for all the walls we’d both built to come crashing down. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. This playboy had retired.
I would do everything in my power to make sure Mads never hurt again.
And that meant protecting her from guys like Sterling. Or protecting her from me.
Just how the fuck did Mads know him? He’d made a point to make sure I knew.
Brock and I had arrived at the Chi Sigma house, easily the largest on campus, and I didn’t just mean the size of the house, which was expansive. Perhaps that was why there were so many people inside and outside the two-story colonial. I stared at the Greek letters on the front of a stunning brick house with black shutters and white columns. The front porch had a balcony above it that circled over the section where the entrance was.
“Isn’t your dad an alumnus of this fraternity?” Brock asked, adjusting his ball cap as we lingered outside, eyeing the house.
I was surprised he made the connection or remembered. Alexander Bradford still kept a photo of his fraternity brothers in his home office. Nothing big or flashy, just a frame that sat on the bookshelf. The corners of my mouth hardened as I replied, “It is.”
“And he wanted you to pledge,” he concluded, putting more pieces together and knowing just how my father thought, what was expected of me. Brock understood my feelings about my father. We didn’t always see eye to eye. In fact, my father and I hardly did. He wasn’t an easy man. Not in business, and not on his family. I learned at a young age how to deflect his sternness and disapproval from my mom to me. She didn’t deserve it, and if he was going to dish it out, why should we both suffer? Alexander Bradford was a man who didn’t take no for an answer and knew how to push people past their limits.
For me, it had been school and football, and now college. Going to KU hadn’t been an option. It was expected. Part of my growing up as a Bradford meant attending KU and getting into Chi Sigma just as my father, grandfather, and generations before had.
I despised having to live up to someone’s expectations or dreams. And I had no intention of following the Bradford legacy.
“He did.” It was why I knew who Sterling was, but after seeing him, I hadn’t liked what I saw. Not the way Sterling looked at Mads or the interest I saw on his face. Mads was a beautiful girl, and I didn’t fault other guys for looking, but when things went beyond an appreciative glance, that was when it got my attention.
“Then what the fuck are we doing in front of his house? I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
I appreciated Brock looking out for me. “We’re just scoping him out.” I wasn’t here for my father. This had nothing to do with him. “If there’s nothing to be worried about, then we leave. That simple.” I needed to make sure this guy didn’t get Mads mixed up with his fraternity shit. Although I didn’t know the details from my father, I knew him and his less-than-honorable business discussions. He had hinted at the importance of this fraternity for too long, and it had made me both curious and suspicious then. Now, I was on full alert.
Brock’s scowl deepened. “It’s never that simple.”
A handful of guys and two girls hung out on the front porch. This was a drill I knew well. The beefy linebacker dude was security, and the scrawny guy wearing sunglasses at night was in charge of finances—cover charges. That wouldn’t go over well with Brock. The Elite never paid to party. “Do you think I’m overreacting?”