“He fits the bill,” Colin said. “Pretty sure he failed the class I had with him last year, and it was a fucking cake walk.”
“It wasn’t even worth it,” Jenn whined. “He sucked so hard on my boob it left a bruise.”
I snorted. “I believe when that happens it’s called a hickey.”
She ignored me. “After it was over? Oh, my God. He would not shut up about how much money he’d just won from some bet he’d made. Thousands of dollars off a stupid baseball game.”
Her statement hit me hard, knocking all the amusement clean from my body, and an eerie sensation replaced it. When my father had gotten banned from the casino, he’d searched for other ways to get his fix. Betting on sports had been his main focus until my family finally convinced him to get help.
“When was this?” I asked.
“Three weeks ago? A Friday.”
Hadn’t it been a Saturday three weeks ago when Colin had seen Parker at Judy’s house?
Alarm bells clanged in my head.
TWENTY-THREE
Colin
Mads shifted on the bed, rolling into me, and made a cute noise in her sleep. It was weird I was awake before her, but she’d had more to drink last night than I had. I glanced at the empty glass on her nightstand. I’d filled it with water and gotten her to drink it before we’d collapsed into her bed and gone to sleep.
I doubted she’d get a hangover anyway, but I was glad the water was gone just in case.
Last night, I’d introduced her to my friends. We’d gone out to the bars with Preston, Troy, and his girlfriend Erika, and because of her connections and his rising fame, we’d been ushered into the VIP area of the club. Preston and I were happy for Troy, but Preston was a little more excited than I was, because he’d taken full advantage of our friend’s celebrity status to lure women over to our table.
I glanced at Mads asleep beside me and grinned. My friends didn’t know it, but we had celebrity status, too, except ours was as Annika and Carter. Nina had created a section of Petal’s website that was for our exclusive content, and it currently had the most followers.
Which reminded me—it’d be a good idea to shoot something else soon. We had a few videos banked, but the fall semester was starting soon, and I wanted to keep the buffer in case either of us got hit with a hard class.
Maybe when she woke up, we could shoot it on my phone, passing it back and forth as we took turns going down on each other. Our followers really liked the authentic stuff we’d been putting out recently.
But would I have enough battery? Since we’d crashed in Mads’ room, I hadn’t plugged my phone in last night. I pulled it off the side table to check and saw the notification for a text message that had come in after we’d fallen asleep. I tapped the icon.
Shit. It was from Riley.
I knew I should block him, but not knowing what he was up to made me uneasy. It was better to just deal with the sporadic messages he sent. They’d been all over the place, though. Some were apologetic and others whiney, but they all had the same goal. The guy was fucking delusional if he thought I’d help him break into the business.
This message wasn’t text. It was a video, and I didn’t understand what the thumbnail was showing me. I was too curious not to click play—even as I sensed I’d regret it.
Oh, fucking, shit.
It was shot selfie style. The camera had been up close, and as the video started to roll, it pushed out to reveal Riley sitting in a chair.
He was naked.
And while he held his phone in one hand, he used the other to stroke his stubby dick.
“Yeah.” His over-the-top sexual voice had me cringing. “You like that?”
I was frozen in place with horror. Was . . . was this the thing he’d wanted me to pass along to Petal? I’d already told him no, so why the fuck did he think sending me this was okay?
“I’m going to use all of this big dick to fuck you,” he said.
Mads stirred when I jolted, and her voice was sleepy. “What are you watching?”
I scrambled to stop the video and lock my screen before she saw it. The image was unfortunately seared in my brain now, but I could spare her from it.
“Just a stupid video,” I whispered. “Sorry, I thought I had it muted.”
She flopped over, turning away from me, desperate to go back to sleep. I held perfectly still, waiting until the cadence of her breathing slowed, before unlocking the screen again.
Beneath the video, there was a message telling me to send it to Petal Productions. He wasn’t even asking—this was a demand. It felt like there was an implied threat too. Send it to Petal Productions or else.