Rival (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 1) Page 8

  “I could confiscate that, you know,” Dr. Luke says.

  “I dare you,” Piper says with a devilish grin.

  “Don’t tempt me, Miss Harrington.”

  Their glares clash across the room. I should creep out of here and leave them to it. But Piper is the first to interrupt their silent war. She stands.

  “Dr. Luke.” She smiles coyly. “You and I both know my parents pay Headmaster Marron way too much money to be associated with such silly drama like lunchroom misunderstandings. Callie and I both consider it ridiculous we’re even here. We made up, like, yesterday.”

  I may be mute for the moment, but I’m not dumb. I purse my lips at Piper.

  “Is that so?” Dr. Luke crosses his arms. “Miss Ryan? Care to add to this dog-and-pony show?”

  “I’d like to focus on my studies,” I say. If I side with Piper, I’m an idiot, but if I side with Dr. Luke, I’m a brownnoser. Either way, I can’t win.

  Piper makes a sound of disgust. “I’m telling you to leave, too, Callie.”

  “What about the all-important chemistry homework?” Dr. Luke asks Piper. As he says it, his expression goes back to what I’ve come to recognize as his usual sexy and relaxed self.

  “Take it up with Headmaster Marron.” Piper swings her bag over her shoulder and sashays to the door, her short skirt covering her ass-cheeks by half an inch.

  “Do not push me, Miss Harrington,” Dr. Luke warns, but Piper keeps on striding.

  Dr. Luke stares at Piper while she leaves, but it’s not at the hem of her flapping, plaid skirt, like most red-blooded males would. It’s directed at her shoulder blades.

  I’m not as focused, and I hitch in a breath when I notice who’s waiting for Piper at the doorway.

  Chase.

  He’s not watching Piper saunter over. His attention is on me, unwavering, cat-like, wild.

  It’s like he’s the magnet, and I’m the poor piece of broken metal that can’t move out of his pull. His utter charisma creeps into my bones, and his expressionless face seems to have memorized every twitch, every blink, every heartbeat I emit.

  I feel, deep in my bones, I’m supposed to recognize what he’s communicating, but for the life of me, I can’t grasp his request.

  It’s unnerving and … hot.

  Boys don’t pay attention to me like this. Normally, they don’t look twice, unless you count my old friend Matt’s and my brief, drunken sexual encounter when sneaking into his dad’s closed bodega last Halloween.

  That was amateur fumbling compared to Chase's scrutiny. I’ve never felt hunted like this, but it’s not like the physical target Piper’s painted on my back. I can’t say I hate the way Chase's lips part every time he lays eyes on me.

  Piper glances over as she passes by, and once she notices where my attention is, she slams the door behind her, ensuring Chase’s hardened, calculating features disappear behind the frosted glass.

  15

  My final period is independent study, and I use those minutes to get caught up on the day I missed, hoping to get out in front of the lengthy assignments and high expectations of each professor I come across.

  Once finished, I head back to my dorm for some quiet before dinner. My gut feeling is that Piper’s not there. She’s too popular and involved in sports to be in her room much, even if she’s determined to claim both bedrooms as her own.

  Ivy isn’t at the front desk when I arrive, and I’m coming to learn that during school hours, it’s usually a hired employee—or a nearby college student hoping to make some quick and easy cash while they keep our dorms “secure” and study their own shit.

  On a quick flash of my keycard and ID that the girl doesn’t lift her eyes from her textbook for, I enter the elevators and let out a whoosh of air.

  I did it. I made it. First day of school: check. And there’s not one deliberately inflicted stain on my uniform, either. Bonus!

  My backpack is heavy on my shoulders as I traverse the hallway to my new home. I don’t trust using the student lockers available at the school yet, since it’s on a combination lock attached to the door, therefore, anyone fluent in bribery can access the code.

  My card beeps its entry, and I step into the central room, the beige sectional calling my name. Now that the adrenaline from constantly looking over my shoulder has faded, my bedroom seems too far away. And … the rose is still there, on my nightstand, asking its unanswerable questions as to how it got here.

  My bag lands by my feet with a thump, and I fall onto the couch, arms spread, and face the ceiling. I let out a long sigh.

  “Ugh. You’re here.”

  I slow-blink at the ceiling, having no urge to allow my head to fall forward and find the statement’s source.

  “It’s my space, too,” I say to Piper.

  I hear Piper walk into the room through the door I must’ve accidentally left open. Clangs and rattles sound out as she fishes through our kitchenette.

  “I need coffee,” she mumbles. I’m not about to believe she’ll offer me any.

  “Rough day?” I ask, my voice full of sarcasm.

  “No more than usual,” Piper says on a sigh.

  My head lowers. Is Piper initiating small talk?

  I decide to take advantage. “Hey, do you know anything about the new furniture in my room?”

  “You have new furniture?” Piper asks it with the flat tone of someone who Does. Not. Care.

  “Yeah … someone came into our apartment and set it up. I figured you’d be aware of it.”

  “Nope.” Piper flips her hair off her shoulder. “I just assumed you whined to your daddy about all the mean girls and got him to shell out for new shit.”

  The way she baby-voices the word daddy sets my teeth on edge. She can’t know about my lack of one, or how the one I’m unrelated to couldn’t wait to be rid of me and start fresh with a baby.

  In response, I’m desperate to shout, you are such an ignorant, superficial bitch.

  Yikes. Even the logical part of my brain is shocked at my vitriol.

  Instead, I latch on to Piper’s mistake. “I thought you said you didn’t know about any delivery?”

  Piper’s expression freezes for a fraction of a second before she sculpts it back to her uppity mockery. “I don’t. But if you’re talking about a new bedroom set, then obviously someone had to pay for it. That someone must be your father. Or heck, your mom.” Piper shrugs. “I’m all for boss bitches. Maybe she holds all the cash and your dad has to beg for it.”

  My teeth scrape together. “You are something else, you know that?”

  The Nespresso machine gurgles to life behind Piper as she faces me.

  “Are we gonna do this assignment, or what?” she asks.

  I’m pissed, so I say nothing.

  “It has to get done some time,” she continues, “which means I have to acknowledge your existence. Can we get this part over with so I can get back to the people who matter?”

  “Wow.” I raise both brows. “What a proposition.”

  “They’re your grades, too.”

  “True,” I say, shaking off the clinging animosity. Piper has a point. “How do suggest we go about this?”

  Piper pulls her fresh cup of coffee out from under the machine, grabs her backpack, then wanders over and perches on the other end of the couch.

  A waft of cologne comes with her, a mix of cedar and an indeterminable musk. I squirm when I realize what it could mean.

  Sex.

  Recent sex.

  Recent sex with Chase.

  For a veritable host of reasons, I do not want that image in my head, but Chase comes uninvited anyway, sculpted torso and all.

  I grunt and rub at my eyes, hoping to erase what my imagination’s conjuring up in front of the one person I don’t want to give any evidence to.

  Piper stills beside me, and I open one eye to find her staring at me. “You look more and more like a possum each hour that goes by,” she says in awe, shaking her head.

/>   “I have a headache,” I snap. “And I’m in total agreement with you—let’s get this over with so we can retreat to our designated sides of the apartment.”

  “Yes. Let’s,” Piper says tartly, then pulls out her laptop and gestures at me to do the same.

  Once she wakes up her computer, she adds, “I suggest we do our paper on Rose Briar, Thorne Briar’s wife.

  “Waaaaait a second, a couple named Rose and Thorne founded Briarcliff?”

  Piper blinks at me. “Yeah, why?”

  My mouth falls open. “Can you not picture the shipping that would happen in this day and age with those names?”

  “Oh-em-god.” Piper rolls her eyes. “You are such a sad weirdo. They’re not the only founders. Thorne Briar had two brothers, Richard and Theodore, and they had wives, too. Sophia and Martha.”

  “Not nearly as shippable,” I observe while bringing up a blank document on my screen.

  “We can’t write our paper on the popularity of combining couple names, Callie.”

  “I’m aware,” I say. “Which is why I’m looking up Rose Briar.”

  “Don’t bother, I already have a whole list of bookmarked pages I can email to you. When I was paired with Violet and Falyn, I suggested Rose Briar, but they wanted Thorne, since his photo is hot.” Piper shrugs. “For an old, dead guy, he is kinda cute.”

  I say, straight-faced, “And I’m the weird possum in this scenario.”

  Piper shrugs me off. “I’ll send you what I’ve found.”

  “While I wait with bated breath, why don’t you give me the Cliff Note’s version of why we should profile her.”

  At this, Piper turns to me, eyes gleaming. I’m so thrown by the sudden activity to her usually resting bitch face that I recoil.

  “I’m obsessed with this story. Have you ever wanted to know why the cliff nearest to us is called Lover’s Leap?” she asks.

  “No…?”

  I mean, I assume it’s because of all the co-eds banging there, but since I’m including Piper in that assumption, I don’t want to say it out loud and risk offending her. I still smell like red sauce from “stealing” her dorm room.

  “Rose was full of telenovela issues,” Piper continues. “She was always fragile, sick as a child, and you know what that’s like in the nineteen-hundreds.”

  “Not personally.”

  “Obviously, Callie. Jesus. So, she marries Thorne young—I have a theory it’s arranged. Then, they try to have a baby. Throughout her entire life, all Rose wanted was a child.”

  “Oh,” I say, and I have the heavy feeling I know where this is going.

  “They couldn’t conceive. Not initially. Then, when she managed to get pregnant, she miscarried. Six times…” Piper pauses for dramatic effect, then adds, “some at a later term than others.”

  “That’s terrible.” I’m so appalled, I can’t even type notes as Piper speaks.

  “One stormy night—and I’m talking brutal, with rolling thunder and insane flooding and blinding rain, Rose disappears. It’s said that she jumped off the cliff.”

  “God,” I say.

  Piper nods, then flaps her hand. “In between all that, Thorne was accused of having an affair and further disintegrating his wife’s mental state, but let’s focus on the mystery. On the leap, if you will. There’s something so cruelly romantic about it, don’t you think? Like, why jump? Why not take a vial of poison or slit your wrists? Personally, I think she was pushed.”

  “You are darker and more twisty than I ever gave you credit for,” I say. “And I gave you a bunch of credit.”

  “Well, it’s way better than a hot, dead guy who died of a boring heart attack, isn’t it?”

  “I guess,” I say. And because I haven’t researched any founders to argue my case with, and the paper’s due too soon, I suppose this is what we’ll write about. “Why do you think it was murder and not suicide?”

  “I’ve been looking forward to this paper since, like, last week. I found these old notes in the library that point to a completely different story than Rose’s official obituary. Don’t you get it? There’s a piece of history the school doesn’t want revealed, and it’s a big one. Briarcliff Academy is hiding a scandal, and out of every professor at this stuffy library of a prison, Dr. Luke is the most open to out-of-the-box theories. I’m practically guaranteeing us an A. He wants to unearth some skeletons? We have one. So, listen close. I think Rose might’ve had a—hang on.”

  A buzzing sounds from Piper’s bag, and she pulls it out. Her lips pull up when she reads the notification, then she sucks her lower lip under her teeth as she responds.

  “Unless you’re video chatting,” I say dryly, “No one can see your Come-Fuck-Me face but me.”

  Piper ignores my remark, finishes her text, then drops her phone in her bag. “I’ll take the mystery and questions surrounding Rose’s death. You can do Rose’s biography.”

  Piper smacks her laptop closed and stands.

  “Wait a sec,” I say. “According to you, we’re about to write a scandalous exposé on Briarcliff Academy, and you’re giving me the vanilla?”

  “Oh, like you care that much, Callie. Rose Briar’s background will be a breeze compared to the rest of the student load you didn’t have the summer to prep for, and I don’t need some new girl screwing up my life and my GPA. Got it?”

  She doesn’t wait for my answer and strides toward her bedroom.

  I don’t stop her. Piper’s given me the easiest and most boring part of the paper, yes, and while it won’t get me five stars from Dr. Luke, it keeps me away from tragedy and gore, something that’s all too real in my flashbacks.

  I decide to let Piper walk out of neutral ground and into her territory, thinking she’s won.

  “Don’t breathe in my direction for the next hour, okay?” Piper says. “I have to prepare. There’s somewhere I need to be.”

  When Piper shuts her bedroom door, I fixate on the wood paneling, my grip tight on my laptop. Piper can dissect poor Rose’s sordid past all she wants.

  Especially if it distracts her enough to never get to mine.

  16

  Falling asleep in a foreign room is hard.

  I would’ve thought bunking in the Wolf’s Den was worse, but I slept better there. The echoing sounds and ricocheting creaks were easily attributed to the cavernous space, yet the enclosed air felt fresh, the ceilings untouchable, the walls less likely to shrink in.

  This morning, I greet my ceiling, hands behind my head, wondering if I blinked enough times last night for it to be considered sleep.

  I skipped dinner in the dining hall yesterday, opting to sneak one of Piper’s granola bars instead. After, I had a quick shower and debated starting my research on Rose Briar but opted for bed. Unfortunately, I was too attuned to Piper’s noises once she came back from wherever she went, showering, then padding around for what I supposed was a midnight snack. Each shuffle made me afraid of my knob turning, of Piper and her friends filling my doorway, armed with their next attack.

  Then, as the night grew darker, I worried about the people in cloaks and whether they were students who saw me, and if they wanted to make me pay for witnessing such a secret ritual.

  Rolling over, I check my phone for the time, noting the missed text messages from Ivy asking where I was at dinner last night.

  My phone feels hot in my hand, but it’s not real heat. It’s more because it lay close to a mysterious, hidden object all night.

  I’d shoved the rose in the drawer of my nightstand, having nowhere else to put it. I didn’t want to display it in a makeshift vase, nor could I throw it out. It’s shrouded in too much mystery to toss it aside without understanding its origins.

  I’d rather leave it to wilt in the closed-off walls of my drawer than have it be discovered by Piper. Why I don’t want her to see it, I’m not too sure, so I chock up the passing chills on my skin to not wanting Piper to ever see anything of mine.

  I slip out of bed, fixing my wrinkled
, oversized tee, then unlock my door with a yawn.

  My yawn turns abruptly into a choke.

  “Morning, sunshine.”

  Chase lounges on the couch, bare except for his briefs.

  I cover my mouth, swallowing, but it does nothing to control where my eyes go, straight to his morning wood.

  Which I swear he makes twitch once he notices my attention.

  Chase smiles, his blond hair in disarray, one muscular arm behind his head, and glasses on his nose. He’s holding a book in the other hand.

  He’s sexy. So, so sexy, and I hate it.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, hovering in my doorway.

  Chase cocks his head. “Nice stems, Calla Lily.”

  My bare thighs instantly clench together. “This is a girls’ only dorm,” is the one stupid thing I think to say.

  A low quiet laugh sounds in his throat. “I’m known to work around that rule.”

  And sleep with Piper.

  The thought doesn’t sit well, so I busy myself by veering into the kitchenette and making a cup of coffee. I don’t cover myself, since he’s already seen me half-naked and isn’t overly concerned about the erection between us.

  I am, though. Oh boy, I am, because he’s … large in that department.

  “I’ll take one, too, new girl.”

  “Whatever,” I mumble, then make a mental note to leave campus at some point and buy groceries. “Since I’m your unofficial butler today, does your girlfriend want one, too? Where is she, by the way?”

  Chase's answering smile is slow and indecent. “I take mine with a splash of milk. And Piper isn’t my girlfriend, and she’s in the shower.”

  I can’t ignore the strange leap of faith in my stomach before I smash it with a stern, what the fuck is wrong with you, Callie?

  It shouldn’t matter whether or not Chase is taken, because I refuse to be a girl who’s taken in by him.

  But, now that he mentions it, I hear the soft spray of the shower behind the closed bathroom door. I’m unable to fight the instant questions my mind flings at me—is Chase's hair wet? His body damp with steam? Was he in there with her?