“Micah.” I grimaced. “You’re not talking about…” I made a slicing motion across my throat.
I could tell he didn’t mean to smile because he tried to cover it up and failed. Then he gave up entirely and chuckled, shaking his head. “Is that what you think we do? Off people? We’re not the mafia.”
Shaking out my damp hair, I cursed myself for not remembering a hairdryer. “Close enough in my world,” I muttered.
Leaning back on his hands, he eyed me. “Doesn’t Grayson tell you anything?”
“No more than you do, and it’s frustrating as shit.”
Micah flicked the end of my nose with his index finger. “Good.”
Sighing, I asked, “What shouldIdo, then?” I couldn’t just sit around and pretend like life on campus was normal, waiting for Sterling to make his next move. I’d go nuts.
The muscle along his jaw tightened. “Nothing. Just avoid him as much as possible. And don’t get worked up,” he added as if I could flip it off like a switch.
I snorted. “You realize what you’re asking from me is unreasonable. I’m already worked up.”
His lazy smile washed over me, my heart fluttering at the dimples. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”
He would regret those words. Lunging at him, I hooked an arm around his neck and used my body weight to tumble us backward onto the bed. Resting half on top of him, I glowered down at him. “Cute isn’t going to make Sterling leave me alone.”
Gentle fingers brushed at the strands of hair curtaining around my face, all traces of humor gone from his eyes. “No. You need to be the exact opposite of cute around him.”
Monday morning, Josie and I had Econ together, a class neither of us was looking forward to. I get we had to take general education courses, but economics? Who in their right mind actually liked this stuff?
I was sure there were a few weirdos out there who did. That was what made us unique as individuals, but if Josie and I had it our way, we’d be sitting in Pottery or Film 101, a class with more color and less drabness.
We stopped and grabbed an afternoon coffee before heading to the business building. The iced Americano cooled my hands, beads of water dampening the cup from the afternoon sun that beat down over our heads.
Josie sipped her drink. “You feeling better?”
The rest of our weekend had gone by without a Sterling sighting, and I should have been relieved instead of stressed out. What surprised me the most was how much I didn’t want Grayson and Fynn to leave. Having the four of them here made me feel safer, and now that the Elite had split in half again, I felt weaker somehow.
I swirled the ice in my cup. “Truthfully, I don’t know how I feel. I’m all jumbled up inside.”
“Confused about Sterling or Micah?” she asked, the wind picking up pieces of her pink hair.
I chewed at the end of my paper straw—the college had implemented a no-plastic movement a few years ago. “Both. But mostly Sterling. I can’t make sense of it. And Micah always makes my head spin.”
Josie frowned as she toyed with her straw, stirring around the ice that floated on top of her coffee. “It’s creepy enough that he has nudes of you on his phone, but to also have pictures of you stashed secretly in his room is next-level disturbing.”
My gut clenched, and the clear cup slipped an inch in my hand. I barely managed to keep from dropping it. “He has what?”
Her gaze flew to mine, and the change in her expression said it all.Oh shit. “I thought you knew.”
The pit in my stomach hardened. “Knew what, Josie?”
Her dark brows bunched together. “This is why we can’t have secrets. Brock told me that the night of Chi Sigma’s first party of the year, they went snooping around in Sterling’s room.”
I shook my head. “Of course they did.”
She huddled in closer to me as we walked, our shoulders brushing, and kept her voice lowered as she revealed, “Micah found a picture of you hidden in a book.”
I grabbed Josie’s arm, which happened to be the one she held her drink in, and the melting ice sloshed in the cup. “I’m trying to stay calm, but this crap is starting to make me paranoid.”
Her eyes found mine, a cloud of disbelief darkening her chocolate eyes. “At first I thought he might have a crush on you or that the picture was some weird souvenir or something, like guys who steal girls' panties.”
It was clear my friend needed to lay off the true crime shows, something I always found strange considering she’d actually lived one of those episodes. “And now?” I prompted, my brain still processing how unusual her thought process was.