Mads was gone when I woke up, which wasn’t surprising. I was a heavy sleeper and didn’t get up before ten unless I had to. I imagined her alarm going off and her sneaking out of my bed, trying not to wake me.
Had she lingered at all, watching me sleep? Or had she bolted out the door, wanting to get away as fast as possible and pretend the whole thing never happened?
I frowned at that idea.
Maybe she was confused about her feelings for me, but . . . I wasn’t. Yeah, it’d be easier and safer—as she’d said—if we didn’t like each other, but that ship had fucking sailed. I didn’t want to any more than she did, and I got that it was messy, that it made things more complicated than they already were, but denying it wasn’t going to magically stop it from being true.
I liked Mads.
And I liked her a lot more than I’d liked anyone else in a long time.
My thoughts were interrupted when one of the doors in the large set at the front of the building swung open and Elijah stepped out. He made it to the bottom of the steps before I caught up to him.
“Elijah,” I said.
His expression brightened when he recognized me. “Hey, Colin. How’d you do?”
He was asking about the media strategies final we’d just finished. “Crushed it. You?”
“Yeah, same.” Except his answer came slower and less sure than mine.
That was Elijah in a nutshell. He was such a follower and people pleaser, I’d sort of worried he’d never fully developed his own personality. I’d met him last year when he’d been my randomly assigned partner in our psychology class, and we’d hung out a few times. He’d wanted to rush Sigma Phi Alpha, and although he was nice enough, he wasn’t Sig material. He was never going to get a bid, so I’d encouraged him to rush TKE instead.
No good deed went unpunished, and from then on, he seemed to think we were closer friends than we were.
“That’s good,” I said. “Hey, man, I’ve got to ask you something.” My tone turned serious. “Why’d you let Riley cheat in the Fidelity Cup finals?”
His smile froze. “What?” And then his gaze darted away. “I didn’t.”
I’d meant what I’d said when I told Mads I believed her, so I was both relieved and pissed off to have the truth confirmed. Elijah couldn’t have looked more guilty if he’d tried.
I jammed my hands into my pockets to keep myself from balling them into fists. “Tell me why,” I demanded.
Finally, he looked at me, and there was so much regret in his eyes, for a split second I was concerned he might get emotional. But he sucked in a breath and let it fill his chest.
“I screwed up.” It poured from him in a rush. “When he threw her baton, I was so surprised, I just . . . I don’t know. I kind of froze.” He scrubbed his fingertips over his forehead. “I should have blown the whistle, but I didn’t, and as soon as she was gone, Riley was all up in my face, telling me I was his hero. Saying how awesome I was for helping out the Sigs and keeping the cup from going to the Lambdas.”
Son of a bitch. The muscles in my arms went taut. “That’s why you defended Riley when Mads said he cheated?”
Confusion pulled his eyebrows together. “Who?”
“Madison Perry,” I growled. “The girl you fucked over.” Wait, that wasn’t accurate. “The Lambda we all fucked over.”
“I panicked, man. You beat her to the finish line, and all the Sigs were celebrating. I hadn’t done what I was supposed to, and, shit, how was I going to explain it? If I’d said, ‘yeah, he cheated,’ then I was going to be taking that win away from all of you.” He had the audacity to look at me like I was being unreasonable. “You’re my friend, you know. Plus, we’d both rather have Sigma Phi Alpha win over those”—he said it with pure disgust—“Lambdas.”
Oh, fucking shit.
Hadn’t he told me something earlier this year about a Lambda he’d tried to ask out? I vaguely recalled the conversation. He’d been at a tailgating thing and tried to get a Lambda girl’s number. Instead of giving it, she’d laughed at him in front of her sisters.
“But they would have won if Riley hadn’t cheated.” I’d barely beaten Mads to the finish line, and there was no telling how far ahead of me she would have finished if it had been a fair contest. “They did win, and you helped take that away from her. From them.”
He didn’t like hearing that. His shoulders snapped back. “Yeah, well, it’s over.” He lifted his chin, trying to look confident. “Nothing’s going to change it now.”