Chapter 3 3

CHLOE pov

Is there a proper way to react when you learn that two years of "I love you" were built on nothing? When the guy you trusted turns out to have been sleeping with your best friend this whole time the girl who shares your address, wears your clothes without asking, eats off your plate, and claims to tell you every single detail of her life?

Because if there is a right way to handle it, this definitely isn't it. This isn't fake-smiling your way back onto a dance floor while your insides feel scraped raw. This isn't protecting their secret. This isn't letting them walk away thinking they pulled it off clean. And it sure isn't reaching for whiskey the one drink I swore off years ago and have never touched since.

Yet here I am. Several shots deep. My thoughts have gone soft and slow, my balance is questionable at best, and I already know tomorrow is going to feel like punishment from above. I don't care. If there's enough alcohol in me, maybe this crushing feeling in my ribcage finally quiets down.

"Careful there, birthday girl." Austin's voice makes something in me recoil. He laughs quietly, grabbing my arm as I nearly go down.

"I get that it's your special night," he says, leaning in close enough that I catch that cologne the exact scent I've spent two years being stupid over "but I'm guessing faceplanting on the dance floor wasn't part of the plan."

His palm settles against my hip. It used to feel like electricity. Now it just feels wrong. "Your brother would end me if you got hurt tonight."

The joke almost makes me laugh for entirely the wrong reasons. If Tyler knew the truth about his own teammate, ending Austin would be the merciful outcome. I'm halfway to opening my mouth and saying something that would erase that smug look permanently when an arm links through mine from the side.

"Dance with us!" Cole's voice is all sunshine, her smile so sweet and clueless-looking it makes my stomach turn. "You only turn this age once!"

Traitor. Two-faced, backstabbing traitor. I pull my lips into a smile anyway. "Couldn't agree more."

Kelly and Sam fall in around us moments later, completely in the dark about the fact that my entire life just collapsed in the span of ten minutes. The music's loud enough to drown out thought, bodies packed together, moving in time with whatever's blasting through the speakers. I move too. Or fake it well enough. My feet know the rhythm. My head is somewhere entirely different.

How far back does this go? Weeks? A whole season? Did the two of them joke about it about me after? Every time Austin kissed me, had he just come from her? How many nights did he whisper he loved me while she was already a fixture in his bed? How many hugs did Cole give me while calling herself my best friend, sleeping one wall away, lying every single day she looked me in the eye?

The questions won't quit, each one sharper than the last. I glance toward Austin he's cracking up with a couple of teammates, totally relaxed, not a care visible on his face. Then, just briefly, his gaze slides toward Cole. Nobody else would've caught it. She catches it though, and sends back the smallest smile. That's it. That's all the proof I need.

I let my eyes stay on her longer than I should. What's she got going for her that I don't? Is she funnier? Prettier? More interesting somehow? Was I simply not enough, this whole time?

No.

Stop it. Why am I even letting that thought exist? I wasn't the liar here. I wasn't the one creeping around. He's the one who threw everything away, she's the one who helped him do it. So why does it feel like I'm the one who screwed up?

No I refuse to hand them that win. Not tonight, not my birthday. Something has to happen. Something so loud, so unmissable, that neither of them forgets it. That nobody in this building forgets it.

"Hey." Sam's voice snaps me out of the spiral. "You with me?"

"Totally fine." The lie comes easy, paired with a convincing smile.

"Uh-huh." He clearly doesn't buy a word of it, but rather than push, he just edges closer as we keep moving, quietly making sure I don't topple over. That becomes the whole evening for a stretch dancing, drinking, mostly the second one, mostly me. Someone starts circulating tiny colorful shots and I stop bothering to ask what's inside them. Alcohol means it goes down. The sting in my throat is nothing next to what's already burning in my chest.

Somewhere in the middle of what's probably tequila could be jet fuel at this point, honestly I lean toward Sam. "Question for you."

"Shoot."

"I want to destroy something."

"You mean that in a metaphor kind of way?" His eyebrow lifts. Somehow I still catch the gesture despite everything I've had to drink.

"Not entirely sure anymore."

He starts to laugh, then stops cold when he realizes I mean it. I lean in further. "Let me finish before you say anything."

"...Alright."

"If a person wanted to pull off something so loud, so shameless and petty, that it stuck to someone for the rest of their time in college," I whisper, "what exactly would that look like?"

Sam doesn't answer right away. Then, quietly, "I already know."

"Know what?"

"I trailed you outside earlier." My chest tightens hearing that. "You were out there too long. I got worried."

His tone gentles. "I saw the two of them too."

I go completely still. "You saw?"

He nods, just once. "Figured you were heading out there to confront them."

"Same. I thought that too."

"You want him to feel this?" Sam asks, no accusation in it.

"Yes." No hesitation.

"Not with a punch, though."

"Wasn't going there."

"Not shouting, either."

"Not that either."

"Good." He takes the empty glass out of my hand, sets it down somewhere nearby. "Answer me one thing." His eyes cut toward Austin across the room. "Out of everyone on this campus who does Austin despise the most?"

I answer instantly. "Mason."

"There it is."

"So what?" I ask, confused.

"So everything."

Sam's grin spreads slow and just a little unhinged, and it puts me immediately on alert. There's a reason this man's reputation for terrible ideas is basically legendary.

"You ever wonder why Austin can't stand the guy?" He nods toward the other side of the room. "There he is now."

I follow his gesture and land on Mason, currently and unsuccessfully trying to peel away from a cheerleader who apparently has history with him from last semester. Her hand won't leave his arm; his expression says he'd rather be literally anywhere else on Earth. Not far off, my brother Tyler is settled into a booth with some girl comfortably parked on his lap.

Classic Tyler.

Sam keeps talking.

"Austin hates him because deep down he knows he'll never measure up to Mason Hayes."

I huff out a laugh. "That's a stretch."

"You think so?"

He starts counting on his fingers. "Family with money that makes Austin's family look broke check."

Reluctant nod from me.

"Captain of the whole team check."

Another nod.

"Practically acing every class without cracking a book check."

"...Sadly, yes." Honestly infuriating.

"Every single girl on this campus has a crush on him check."

"Don't inflate that ego further."

"And," Sam says, dropping to almost a whisper, "he's basically the only person on Earth with enough clout to actually destroy Austin's golden-boy image."

My gaze bounces from Austin, to Mason, back to Austin again. Somewhere in the whiskey fog clouding my head, an idea starts stitching itself together slow, reckless, and increasingly hard to resist.

Sam's watching my face shift in real time.

"Oh no," he says.

"Oh, absolutely," I whisper back, unable to hold back the smile now tugging at my mouth.

Whatever this plan was about to become, it was going to be monumentally reckless.

And Austin had it coming, every last bit.