The Prey's Playbook

My boyfriend posted my nudes in his group chat. [Julian: A treat for the boys!] Later, he stood in a courtroom and got two and a half years.

The evidence that buried him came from his two best friends. After I found out about the photo, my clothes got smaller. My camera angles got bolder.

My best friend couldn't wrap her head around it. "He humiliated you like that, and you're not even mad?" Mad? I pictured his face. A face that could start wars.

The anger never stood a chance. She shook her head. Called me hopeless. Down catastrophically bad. So I pulled up my friendrequest screen and turned it toward her.

A whole column of boys. Every one of them his best friend. "Haven't you heard? Birds of a feather flock together." "The brooding one. The unhinged one. The golden retriever.

All in one collection. Beats any dating sim on the market." "We women have plenty of fight in us.

And even better tricks." Chapter 1 "Ivy Calloway, you are beyond saving!" Nora's voice came roaring through the phone, furious at me for my own good. I killed the screen.

Laughed, just a little. I was in love with a piece of garbage. Beyond saving sounded about right.

The night I saw the group chat on Julian Harrington's phone, my life jumped its tracks and never went back. He'd begged for that photo on his birthday. Begged.

Swore up and down it was for his eyes only, that it would never leave his phone. That's the only reason I gave in. He turned around and dumped it in the group chat.

A treat for the boys. The messages under it were worse than the betrayal. [Rhys: Holy shit. THIS is the scholarship girl?? The little genius you've been hoarding?

I had her filed under bookworm. Who knew she was packing all that under the skirt.] [Elliot: She's got it, I'll give you that. Looks pretty wild in the photo.

But Julian, weren't you the one whining to us that scholarship girls are all uptight little prudes? Boring.

Flinch if you breathe on them.] [Julian: I really thought a girl like that would be untouchable. Figured she'd cost me serious time and money.

Turns out a few cheap gifts did the trick. Way cheaper and easier to handle than advertised.] [Julian: As for wild...] [Julian: Please.] [Julian: Like a dead fish.

I do all the work, every time. If I wasn't her first, I'd have gotten bored months ago.] [Julian: But hey, the face and the body still photograph well.

Might as well share with the boys. Put her to good use.] Reading it, my blood went cold in a single beat. All of it. At once. Nora was right.

Any sane person would end it on the spot and run from these people as far as her legs could carry her. But why should I? I'd handed him my whole heart.

In his ledger, it was the price of one photo. Content for the boys. I did think about the cops. But I was a scholarship kid with no family behind me and no money to my name.

What was I supposed to bring against Boston old money? They wouldn't even have to lift a finger. The family legal teams would grind me into paste and bill it as a rounding error.

They'd teach me what asking for it really means. And just breaking up? Walking away clean, letting it go? Far too cheap for them. So I didn't make a sound.

I set Julian's phone back exactly where it had been, lay down beside him, and let the night close over both of us like nothing had happened.

I stopped dodging his invitations into his circle. Started asking to come. Weekend party. Julian's arm around my waist, showing me off to his childhood best friends. "My girlfriend.

Ivy." I'd worn a white dress that day. Neckline cut just so: a sliver of skin, the clean line of a collarbone. My makeup was the expensive kind of invisible.

Innocent at first glance. Hooks in the details. "Whoaho. Jules, this is the famous little genius?" A wolf whistle from a boy with dyedgray hair. Rhys Donovan.

I shrank into Julian's chest, right on cue. Shy. Skittish. "Hi." Soft. Barely a breath. Julian lapped it up.

His arm cinched tighter, chin coming to rest on top of my head, his voice fat with ownership. "You're scaring her. Behave." I pressed my cheek against his chest, sweet as they come.

He had no idea. Every name that had ever appeared in that group chat, I'd written down. Chapter 2 I lowered my lashes and buried the flash of ice behind them.

The private lounge at ONYX was dark, the bass loud enough to live in your ribs. Julian got pulled into drinking games with his friends and left me alone in the corner of the couch.

It took Rhys all of a few minutes. He slid in next to me carrying two drinks. "Little genius. Sitting here all bored and lonely?

Have one." I scooted away on instinct, tugging my hem down. "I... I don't really drink." "You can learn." His grin was pure trouble.

He tipped the glass toward my lips. "It's not strong. Sweet. Girls love it." His fingertip grazed my mouth. Accidentally on purpose. I jerked back like I'd been burned.

The juice in my hand sloshed. All over him. "Oh my god. I'm sorry!

I'm so sorry!" I shot to my feet, fumbling for napkins, dabbing uselessly at his very expensive shirt. "I didn't mean to—" He caught my flailing wrist. "It's fine.

It's a shirt." I looked up at him then, eyes swimming, one blink from spilling over. The kind of look that makes any man want to be a hero.

And in the corner of my vision, exactly where I'd placed him: Julian. Watching. Jaw set. Not pleased. He'd just watched me get "bullied." Julian crossed the room.

He yanked me behind him. Nothing gentle about it. "Rhys. What are you doing?" Low. Flat. Unreadable.

Rhys raised both hands, the picture of innocence. "What could I possibly be doing? Your little genius spilled juice on me.

I said two nice words." He glanced down at the wet bloom across his shirt, then at my red eyes, and smiled like he was enjoying a private joke. "Jules, your girlfriend's a little delicate, no?

Blushes if you touch her. Cries if you talk to her. Like a porcelain doll. Better keep her somewhere safe." A compliment on the surface.

Underneath: you're overreacting, and your girl can't take a joke. I tugged Julian's sleeve from behind him, my voice pitched for exactly two people. "Julian, it's not his fault.

I spilled it, I wasn't careful... please don't fight over me." A few months with Julian Harrington and I had him mapped down to the wiring. Arrogant.

Contradictory, all the way to the bone. He could serve me up as a cheap toy for the boys' entertainment, and then burn alive because another man looked at me two seconds too long.

Male ego and possessiveness. The two easiest fuses on earth. He stared Rhys down, cold. "She's my girlfriend. You're going to teach me how to take care of her?" "Fine, fine. Yours.

All yours." Rhys shrugged and let it go, but everything in his slouch said the warning hadn't landed anywhere that mattered. The temperature in the booth dropped to freezing.

The other boy, Elliot Hayes, hurried to smooth it over. "Okay, okay, it's nothing. Come on, drinks. Jules, you are not losing this round too!" Julian didn't answer.

He pulled me back down beside him, face like a storm front. Then he took a long pull of his drink, gripping the glass hard enough to crack it.

Chapter 3 For the rest of the night, Julian barely let me out of arm's reach. He kept me tucked against him, posture loud, staking his claim for the whole room.

Rhys didn't come back over. He just glanced our way now and then, amused, openly entertained by Julian standing guard over his food bowl.

I played my part without a single dropped stitch. The frightened little lamb, clinging to her boyfriend. They drank. I sipped my juice like a good girl.

They talked cars, watches, women. I stared quietly at my phone and never said a word. Near the end of the night, I went to the restroom.

I was at the mirror touching up my lipstick when Rhys appeared in the doorway. He leaned against the frame, hands in his pockets, watching me like he had all night. "Little genius.

Doesn't the act get exhausting?" My lipstick paused for half a second.

I found his eyes in the mirror, my face wearing exactly the right amount of panic. "What... what are you talking about?

I don't understand." "You don't understand." He huffed a laugh and started toward me, one unhurried step at a time. "You dumped that juice on me on purpose.

Cried on purpose, right where Julian could see. All to make him jealous.

Make him hold on tighter." He boxed me in between the sink and his chest and dipped his head to my ear. "Not bad, honestly." His breath was warm against my ear.

Warm, and edged with something predatory. "But that little routine only works on an idiot like Julian." "With me? Drop it." My whole body went rigid. My heart slammed.

I didn't push him away. Instead I lifted my chin and looked straight into his eyes, close enough to count his lashes. Those flirty, laughing eyes weren't laughing now.

They were digging. Certain. So I stopped performing.

The softness drained out of my face all at once, and what was left underneath was cold. "And if I did?" I watched his pupils contract.

Clean and clear, like a camera catching the exact frame. He hadn't expected me to admit it. Not like that. Not that fast. "You're not scared I'll tell Julian?" One eyebrow up.

A threat, dressed casual. "You won't." I let the corner of my mouth curl. Quiet voice. Every word landing. "The second you tell him, you're confessing you want his girl.

And you know Julian. You think he'll believe you, or break you first?" Rhys laughed once.

He looked me over, eyebrow still cocked, rocked back on his heels with his hands in his pockets.

Cocky to the last. "Where does the confidence come from, little genius?" "What makes you think I'd go after Julian's girlfriend for you?" I dragged one fingertip down the juice stain on his shirt.

Slow. Bored, almost. "The lock screen on your phone. I saw it just now.

It's my photo." "And—" I leaned in, dropping my voice until it was barely sound. "Instead of being the fool kept in the dark... wouldn't you rather be an accomplice?

So much more fun." Rhys went completely still. He stared at me. Stared through me. Shock in his eyes. Calculation.

And underneath both, unmistakable, exactly where I knew it would be: excitement. Then, from the end of the hallway, Julian's voice. Impatient. "Ivy?

You in there?" Chapter 4 Rhys's face changed in an instant. He stepped back on pure reflex. He hadn't planned on Julian coming to find me.

For one unguarded second, there was actual panic in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something. I rose onto my toes instead.

My fingers hooked his collar and yanked him down, and I pressed one fast kiss against his cold mouth. There and gone. Rhys froze solid. His breath cut off midinhale.

Pure disbelief detonated in his eyes. He was a full halfbeat too slow to even push me away. By then I'd already let go, turned, and was running toward Julian's voice.

Leaving Rhys standing there. Alone. The pinned post on the campus gossip app had changed again. The headline screamed in bold red type: [BREAKING!

Finance heartthrob spotted with new girl!] I tapped in. The top post was one crisp candid shot. A treelined path at dusk.

Julian angled sideways, his body blocking most of the sunset for a girl. A pink backpack dangling from one of his hands.

His other hand hanging loose at his side, close enough to almost brush hers. The girl gazed up at him, her face tuned to the perfect frequency of adoration and shyness.

Her name was Serena. A freshman in finance. She'd given the student address at convocation. Her story read like a photocopy of mine. Same kind of small town nobody's heard of.

Same federal loans and scholarships holding up her spot at Ashcroft. And the same clean, harmless, innocent face.

The replies underneath had stacked past a thousand. [Commenter: Hold on. Did Julian trade up?? Isn't he dating Ivy Calloway?] [Commenter: They broke up ages ago, obviously.

When's the last time anyone saw them together?] [Commenter: Is nobody going to say it? The finance heartthrob has a TYPE: scholarship girls. Ivy's one, the new girl's one.

Out with the old model, in with the new.] [Commenter: LMAO. Rich boy likes his toys fresh, swaps them out when he's bored.

And scholarship girls really think they're marrying into that family?] I scrolled through the comments without a flicker and shut the screen off.

The black glass caught my reflection. Perfectly calm. Not one ripple. My roommate poked her head down from the top bunk, careful, testing the water. "Ivy, are you... okay?

People on that app have too much free time. Don't let it get to you." I looked up and gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm fine. People are going to talk.

Am I supposed to stop every mouth on campus?" Right on cue, Julian called. I picked up, my voice as warm as it had ever been. "Jules." Background noise on his end.

The dining hall, by the sound of it. He grunted. There was a thin layer of impatience under it, the kind he thought I couldn't hear. "Something came up tonight.

Dinner's not happening." "Okay." I paused, then asked, light as anything, "Student government stuff? Recruiting again?" "Why are you asking?" "No reason.

Just making conversation." I let out a soft laugh and made my voice even gentler. "Go be busy, then. Remember to eat." I hung up. The smile drained off my face by degrees.

Julian was cooling on me. Exactly like the comments said. A little colder every day. Over the next few days, the rumors about Julian and Serena caught fire.

Someone saw him swiping his card for her lunch in the dining hall. Someone saw him pull off his jacket in the rain and drape it over her shoulders.

Someone saw him walk her to the campus health center, stand in line for her, wait on her hand and foot. Every last item on that list used to be mine. Now he'd copied all of it.

Pasted it onto another girl. Chapter 5 Julian's patience with me was running out by the day. He used to pick up on the first ring.

Now he declined the call and texted back two words. Busy. Later. Today was my birthday.

Last week, he'd still had his arm around my waist, voice all sugar. "Babe, Friday's your birthday. What do you want?

We'll do it right, just us, at the apartment." I'd been curled against his chest watching a movie.

I just smiled. "I only want you there." He kissed my forehead. "Then that's a promise." From midnight on, his phone stopped connecting. My texts went nowhere.

Not even a read receipt. He had vanished off the face of the earth. I sat alone in his offcampus apartment with an unopened cake box in front of me. Until nine p.m.

That's when one of his friends posted a story. A shaky tensecond video. The private lounge at ONYX. The camera swept past a corner, and I caught them in half a frame. I never miss.

Julian, angled back on the couch, with Serena tucked entirely into the shelter of his body. Serena, face tipped up at him, cheeks flushed, eyes wet and shining. Adoring. Shy.

Every dial set exactly right. I watched those ten seconds again. And again. And again. Then I laughed. I picked up the beautiful cake, box and all, and dropped it in the trash.

Back at the dorm, I changed into a thin little dress. No coat. Then I walked straight out to the far edge of campus.

I picked a bench on the empty stretch of lawn where nobody goes and sat down. I opened Instagram and posted a story.

One photo, me on the bench, and a caption: [Thought this year, I wouldn't be spending my birthday alone.] Close friends list: one person. Rhys Donovan.

Then I tossed the phone aside on the bench. I was gambling. Gambling on how deep that halfsecond kiss in the restroom had sunk into him.

Gambling on whether he'd see the story and come. The minutes crawled. The wind got colder. Cold enough that my teeth started to chatter for real.

I was maybe two minutes from giving up the performance and going inside when a jacket dropped onto my shoulders. Still warm from a body. Clean soap scent. "Ivy Calloway.

It's the middle of the night. What are you doing out here alone?" Rhys's voice. He was breathing hard, and trying to hide it. I lifted my head slowly.

My eyes were already full, tears balanced on the brink, catching the dim lamplight like crushed stars. "Rhys..." My voice came out wrecked, thick through my nose. "What are you doing here?" He looked at my redrimmed eyes and his brow pulled tight. "Saw your story.

Today's... your birthday?" I nodded. And the tears finally slid loose, right on schedule. "Where's Julian." Not a question. His voice had dropped somewhere low. I didn't answer.

Just shook my head. The tears came harder. That said everything. Rhys went quiet. His hand rose, like he might touch my face. It stopped in midair.

And then, behind us, a voice like a slammed door. "What is this?" Elliot Hayes.

Chapter 6 He crossed the lawn in a few hard strides, seized Rhys's arm, raked one sharp look over me, and then locked onto Rhys. "Rhys. What is this supposed to be?

Middle of the night, hands all over Julian's girlfriend?" Rhys's face iced over.

He wrenched his arm free. "Watch your mouth." I clutched the hem of the jacket and rose slowly to my feet, trembling. "I...

I wasn't—" "Wasn't." Elliot let out a cold laugh and stepped in, a full head taller, looking down at me. "You think we can't see what you're doing?" "Stringing Julian along wasn't enough.

Now you're working on Rhys?" His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.

Every word went in like a poisoned blade. "Did you decide our friendship was something a woman like you gets to play with?" I bit my lip and made myself look pitiful, while somewhere underneath, I was laughing.

Cold and clean. Oh? The brotherhood is sacred, is it? Then let's test it. Let's see how unbreakable it really is. "I'm warning you, Ivy Calloway." "Pack up the cheap little tricks.

Stay away from what's between us." "Or the consequences will be more than you can carry." My tears started falling then. Big, heavy drops. Unstoppable. I didn't argue.

I didn't get shrill. I just stood there and cried without making a sound. Fragile. Helpless. Like the whole world had turned its back at once.

Elliot clearly hadn't planned for that. Whatever cruel thing he'd loaded next jammed in his throat. "What are you crying for?

Playing the innocent victim now, is that it?" I cried and answered in pieces, my voice breaking apart between words. "I wasn't..." "I really wasn't trying to come between you..." "I just didn't want to be alone...

I've never had a birthday cake. My whole life, not once. Julian said today he'd give me my first real birthday. I just wanted one.

One birthday where I'm not alone..." I dragged my hand across my face, trying to wipe away tears that would not stop. The more I wiped, the faster they came.

In the end my hand just dropped, and I let them run. It was a mess. Graceless. Ugly crying, the real kind. Elliot went stonestill.

Those distant, disdainful eyes churned, for the first time, with alarm, and helplessness, and a thin thread of guilt he didn't even know was there. "Enough, Elliot." Rhys had hit his limit.

He stepped forward and put himself between us, cutting off Elliot's stare like a wall going up. Then he reached out and pulled the jacket tighter around me.

The one already carrying his warmth. And he took my hand and walked me straight past Elliot without a backward glance. I let him lead me.

And as we passed, shoulder brushing shoulder, I turned my face, just slightly, and gave Elliot one look through eyes soaked red with crying. Just one.

Chapter 7 The night wind had needles in it. Rhys didn't say a word. He just gripped my wrist and walked, fast, pulling me along. His palm burned.

The heat poured out of it and into me, and the cold everywhere else made it feel louder. I stumbled after him, his jacket still hanging off my shoulders. Clean soap scent. Warm.

Really warm. But I knew what this warmth was. Sugar coating. Bought and paid for with careful math. I kept my head down and let him tow me through one empty path after another.

The lights grew brighter. We'd reached the strip just off campus. "Wait here." He bolted into a dessert shop that hadn't closed yet.

A few minutes later he came charging out of a different store, emptyhanded, jaw tight. And that's how it went. Store by store. Door by door.

Almost everything on the strip had shut for the night. A couple of convenience stores still glowed at the far end, and that was it.

Rhys stood under a streetlight, brow knotted, dragging a hand through his hair. I'd never seen him like this. Not once. He yanked out his phone and started tearing through the map.

I stood where he'd left me and watched him cut back and forth through the thin late crowd. This was the man who'd rated my body in a group chat.

In the filthiest language he could find. And now he was sprinting down a midnight street because I'd said five words about never having a birthday cake. The irony was exquisite.

I lowered my head and laughed without a sound. Finally, at the end of the street, in front of a bakery halfway through rolling down its shutter.

He came out carrying a small paper box. He held it out to me, breath still ragged, and there was something in his face I'd have called nerves on anyone else. "Sorry.

Tried half the street. This was all they had left." It was a tiny fruit cake. Four inches, maybe. Clearly the last one of the day. The frosting sagged on one side.

The fruit had gone a little dull. I cradled that little cake, and my fingertips tightened on the box.

When I looked up, my eyes had gone red again. "It's perfect." "This is... the first cake I've ever had. That was mine." I dropped my lashes and let it all show. The fragile thing.

The shame under it. Every carefully measured ounce. "Growing up, I just watched other people have birthdays. Watched them blow out candles. Make wishes.

Cut the cake." "I was always at the very edge of the room. Watching them laugh." The unloved kid. Sensitive, ashamed, hungry for scraps. I performed it down to the last decimal.

Rhys's expression froze over. Something moved behind those lazy, laughing eyes. Something I couldn't name.

He raised his hand and wiped the corner of my eye with the pad of his thumb. Clumsy. Careful.

Both at once. "Stop crying." "Keep going and you'll look like a raccoon." He pulled me down onto a bench by the street and set the cake between us like it might break. "Almost midnight." "Close your eyes.

Make a wish." The small flame trembled in front of me, throwing gold on the clean lines of his face. I closed my eyes, obedient. His breathing, low and close.

The wind whining down the empty street. I made a wish. Chapter 8 I wished that Julian. Rhys. Elliot. Every man who saw that photo. Everyone who laughed.

I wished that every humiliation they tossed at me so lightly would come back on them a hundredfold. A thousandfold.

That they would live through worse than they gave me, and know exactly how it felt. "Done?" Rhys's voice, right at my ear. I opened my eyes.

And looked straight into a gaze so soft it could have fooled anyone. "What did you wish for?" he asked. "If I say it, it won't come true." I ducked my head away from his eyes, picked up the little plastic fork the bakery had thrown in, and cut a clumsy wedge of cake.

He didn't push. He picked up the other fork, and we ate that tiny cake together, bite by bite. The frosting was sweet. Sweet to the point of cloying. I ate slowly. Small bites.

Making it last. When the last bite was gone, he gathered up the empty box and dropped it in the trash can beside us. "Come on.

I'll walk you back." We walked slowly on the way to the dorm. Neither of us spoke. The silence stretched and settled between us, and it wasn't an empty silence.

Almost at my building, Rhys suddenly stopped. His voice came out low, scattered a little by the wind. "Ivy Calloway." "Hm?" "You're not what I thought." My stomach dropped.

He tilted his head.

The dim streetlight cut shadows across his face, and the careless playboy look sharpened into something that was studying me. "I thought you were really that bold.

Like in the restroom." There it was. A test. He wanted to know which one was me. The vixen who grabbed his collar and kissed him first.

Or the trembling little lamb crying her heart out over a fourinch cake. I stopped walking. I didn't answer right away. I turned around and faced him.

I sniffed, voice still thick from crying. "That was because..." A pause.

A catch in my throat. "Because I saw Julian's phone." "Turns out while he was with me, he was sexting half the girls in his contacts. All of it.

The whole time." "I couldn't stand it.

I was so angry I couldn't see straight." "Why does he get to take everything I give him and still play the field like it's his birthright?" "So I... I wanted revenge.

I wanted him to taste it. Being betrayed." By the end of it my whole body sagged, shoulders shaking like the strings had been cut. "So..." Rhys's voice came out dry.

Disbelieving. "When you kissed me in the restroom. That was revenge too?" I looked up at him, eyes rimmed red, chin stubborn. "I know using you was wrong.

And today I finally figured out that I—" I never finished the sentence. He stepped in and pulled me into his arms. The hug came out of nowhere. Every muscle in me locked.

Clean soap scent, everywhere, all at once. Rhys drew a long breath, like a man making up his mind about something. His arms tightened.

He lowered his head to my ear, and his voice was more serious than I'd ever heard it. "The truth is, I—" I knew what was coming. I like you. I'm not like Julian.

Let me take care of you. Some arrangement of those words. It was time. Chapter 9 One second before the confession left his mouth. I shoved him away.

I put my whole body into it, breaking us apart, tearing open the distance that had just been zero. Rhys staggered back a step.

Shock all over his face, and under it, hurt he couldn't file anywhere. "Ivy?" I looked at him through swimming eyes and shook my head. Hard.

My voice came out barely above a whisper, and it came out broken in a way that sounded final. "Rhys. Thank you." "For the cake. For tonight.

For all of it." "But..." I drew a long breath, like I was scraping up the last of my strength. "I won't be the thing that breaks you and your brothers apart." "Julian...

Elliot... you. You're best friends. You've been best friends your whole lives." "You already fought with Elliot tonight. Because of me." "I can't...

I won't let it get worse because of me." Then I turned and ran into the dorm without giving him one second to answer. Without looking back.

And left Rhys standing there, rigid, alone. Standing in the flickering pool of the streetlight, his face unreadable in the dark. I did not expect Elliot Hayes to come find me.

But there he was, at the foot of my building, in the teeth of an earlyautumn Boston wind, wearing nothing but a thin hoodie. Holding a cake box.

When I spotted him from the upstairs window, I honestly thought my eyes were broken. Of all Julian's friends, Elliot was the one who looked down on me the hardest. The upright one.

The cold one. Why would he come? "Do you need something?" He held the paper bag out to me. "This. It's for you." I didn't take it. I shrank back half a step instead.

His throat bobbed. He looked away, and his voice came out sandpaperdry. "About last night. I'm sorry." "I...

I shouldn't have said those things to you." People like him, up on their high horses, only ever say sorry after the knife's already in.

And they think the word wipes the blade clean. They never learn. Some things, once said, don't come back.

I lowered my eyes and let my lashes curtain off everything cold behind them. "It's fine. I've been getting misread my whole life.

One more time doesn't change the math." "Ivy." He said my name like it physically pained him. "I mean it. I came to apologize.

It's just, a birthday, of all days, should be—" "My mother died on my birthday, actually." I kept my eyes down.

My voice stayed very soft. "That day, my father announced he was bringing his son home. The one he'd had with the other woman.

He wanted that boy to have a share of everything that was supposed to be mine. My mother wouldn't allow it. She fought him to protect me, and she would not back down.

And by the end of that fight, she was gone.

She took her own life that night." "She wasn't gone a month before my father moved his mistress and the boy in." "So my birthday became the anniversary of my mother's death.

And their happy little family reunion day. Same date. Every year." "That thing you said, about how birthdays should be treated right?

That's always been a joke where I come from." I raised my eyes to his. A thin film of tears.

A voice flat almost to the point of indifference. "Birthdays were never something to celebrate." "A birthday is just a reminder. One more year survived.

Be more mature, work harder, take up less space, and maybe you get to keep living in that house." Chapter 10 Half of that was true. Half of it was theater.

My mother didn't die protecting me. She couldn't swallow being replaced.

She'd lost her position, lost her marriage, lost to the other woman in front of everyone, and she chose the most extreme exit there was. And my mother had always hated me.

She always said I was the one who dragged her down. That I was the reason she lost to that woman. Lost so badly. So publicly. But the truth never mattered.

What mattered was what Elliot believed. I needed this guilt to grow into him like a vine. Around the ribs. Into every breath. A thorn in each inhale.

So I pinched the inside of my thigh. Hard. The pain did its job. Tears welled up instantly, fat and fast and impossible to fake, rolling down without permission. Elliot panicked.

Completely. "Hey. Don't. Don't cry." He stood there with his hands halfraised, wanting to help, with no idea where to even start. "Thank you...

I really didn't want to cry." "I'm not sad, I swear, I'm just... I'm..." "You're the first person.

The first one who ever told me my birthday mattered." I lifted my tearstreaked face and gave him a smile soaked in gratitude. Elliot let out a breath and stepped in.

A hug landed on me. Stiff. Clumsy. Like he was performing a maneuver he'd only read about. His arms wrapped around me, one careful palm patting my back at half pressure. "Okay.

It's over now. It's all over." I buried my face in his hoodie. And the corner of my mouth curled where no one could see it. That reflexive little savior complex of his.

It would do all the rest of the work for me. Protectiveness and guilt, braided into one leash. "Elliot, you motherfucker. Some brother you are!" Rhys.

He'd appeared out of nowhere, standing a few yards off. The smirk was gone. What was left was black and very still. "Who was it last night lecturing me with the whole speech?

She's Julian's girl, hands off, bro code?" "One night. I leave you alone for one night, and you've got her in your arms?" He shoved him. Hard.

Elliot's back cracked against the wall behind him. Every drop of color left Elliot's face. "Rhys, calm down.

It's not what you think." "I would never touch Julian's girlfriend." "Not what I think?" Rhys laughed like he'd just heard the joke of the year.

He jabbed a finger at me, then at Elliot. "Then what am I looking at?

She's crying her eyes out, you're wrapped around her, and you want to tell me that's brotherly affection?" His eyes went past Elliot and landed on me. Disappointment. Fury.

And under both, unmistakably, the hurt of a man who thinks he's been betrayed. "Ivy.

What exactly am I to you?" I hid behind Elliot, clutching the back of his hoodie, shaking, saying nothing. To Rhys, the trembling read as guilt. To Elliot, it read as terror.

Elliot's brow slammed down. He planted himself in front of me, and his voice went cold. "Rhys, why are you yelling at her?

She has nothing to do with this!" "Nothing to do with it?" Rhys's rage tipped over into laughter. He stepped in and seized Elliot by the collar. "You're defending her now?

Already?" "Who the hell do you think you are?" And just like that, at the foot of the girls' dorm. Over me. Two best friends tore into each other for the whole campus to hear.

Chapter 11 In the end, it was Elliot who backed down that night. Or more precisely, his selfcontrol surrendered before his fists could.

With Elliot gone, some of the fury drained out of Rhys too. He just stood there, face dark, and warned me. Julian was bad news. Elliot was bad news. Stay away from all of them.

I kept my head down and agreed. Sweet. Obedient. And somewhere underneath, I was laughing. Cold and quiet. Rhys Donovan. You're cut from the same cloth as the rest of them.

Standing there scrubbing your hands clean, playing the innocent bystander. But I remember exactly who it was, in that group chat, who typed the first filthy sentence under my photo.

Julian texted. He wanted me at the offcampus apartment. When I got there, he set a glass of water in front of me without really looking. Casual gesture.

Even more casual voice. "Ivy. The innovation challenge. Drop out." My fingers tightened around the glass. "Why?

I'm already in the final." His eyes slid sideways. "Serena made the final too." "Her family doesn't have money.

That two thousand dollars means more to her than it does to you." I gripped the glass until my knuckles went white. The laugh sitting in my throat almost clawed its way out.

Of course he thought I didn't need it. In his books, I was the cheap little thing a few gifts had bought. Two thousand dollars wouldn't cover one of his dinners.

He'd just forgotten.

I was also a scholarship kid, stitching rent together out of grants and parttime shifts, barely holding my place in this city. "But..." I dropped my gaze, and let the smallest tremor into my voice. "That money matters to me too." "I gave up two weekends of shifts to prep for this." "I—" "Enough." Julian cut me off, impatience all over him.

Nothing irritated him faster than this version of me. Teary. Counting pennies. Making small money into a big conversation. "It's money? Fine. I'll send you five thousand.

That cover it?" One of his jackets, grabbed off a rack without checking the tag, ran a few thousand dollars.

And he thought five thousand, tossed at me like a tip, closed the subject. And the money was only half of it. The final placement fed straight into next year's scholarship review.

My scholarship. The one I lived on. I said nothing. I just bit my lip and looked at him with reddening eyes. That look made his skin itch.

He raked a hand through his hair. "Whatever. Do what you want." He threw the words over his shoulder, walked into the bedroom, and slammed the door. We didn't eat dinner together.

I boiled a cup of instant ramen. Julian ordered delivery from the expensive sushi place nearby. He ate all of it without asking me a single question.

The air in the apartment went arctic. He gamed for hours, teammates screaming through his headset over gunfire.

I sat at the other end of the couch, quietly leafing through a textbook, as if the afternoon had never happened. Except the page never turned.

At eleven, Julian finished his last match, showered, and dropped into bed trailing steam. He turned his back to me. Within minutes, his breathing evened out.

I stayed exactly as I was. On my side. Not moving. I waited until his breath went deep and long and slow. Then, slowly, very, very slowly, I reached out.

I lifted his phone off the nightstand, still tethered to its charger. His passcode was still my birthday. Of course it was. Chapter 12 I opened his messages.

The pinned conversation at the very top: Serena. Just a name. It burned anyway. I tapped in. The most recent messages were three hours old. [Serena: I'm still so nervous...

I really don't think I can beat Ivy in the final. She's too good.] [Julian: Don't be scared. Relax. Treat it like a fun day out.] [Serena: But that prize money really matters to me.

Next month's living expenses...] [Serena: I'm sorry. I shouldn't be dumping this on you. I'm being a burden.] Sweet. Considerate.

Weakness deployed in exactly the right dosage, at exactly the right angle. Every single word stepped precisely on a man's instinct to protect.

And Julian's reply did not "disappoint" me. [Julian: Relax. I said it's yours. So it's yours.] Absolute certainty.

As if he were the judge of this competition, free to hand the trophy wherever he pleased. So this afternoon, when he told me to drop out. That had never been a discussion.

It was a notification. I was about to close out of his messages. My finger stopped. At the top of the screen, another app was still running. The campus gossip app.

I'd been with Julian long enough to know him down to his reflexes. A golden boy like him thought that app was where bored little people went to waste their little lives.

He never read it. He would never, ever install it. Something cold walked up my spine, and I tapped. The page loaded. It was a post. Halfwritten. Unsent.

My breath stopped dead the second I saw the headline. [EXPOSED: Ivy Calloway, the Fake Saint of the Finance Department — what's really under the goodgirl act