The Deal (Off-Campus Book 1)

My blood roars between my ears. I hear Hannah calling after me but I can’t stop moving. It’s like I’m watching the world through a red mist. I’ve gone on autopilot, turning into an asshole-seeking missile that travels in a straight path toward Rob Delaney.

The bastard who helped Hannah’s rapist get off without so much as a slap on the wrist.

“Delaney,” I call out.

His shoulders tense. Several people glance our way, but there’s only one person I’m interested in at the moment. He turns around, dark eyes momentarily flickering with panic when he notices me. He saw me talking to Hannah. Probably figured out what she told me.

He says something to his friends and takes a hasty step away from the group, and my jaw turns to stone as he warily approaches me.

“Who the hell are you?” he mutters.

“Hannah’s boyfriend.”

His expression conveys unmistakable fear, but he still tries to play it off cool. “Yeah? Well, what do you want?”

I draw a calming breath. It doesn’t calm me down. At all. “I just wanted to meet the asshole who aided and abetted a rapist.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Then he scowls at me. “Fuck off. You don’t know shit about me, man.”

“I know everything about you,” I correct, my whole body trembling with barely restrained fury. “I know you let your friend drug my girl. I know you stood by while he took her upstairs and hurt her. I know you committed perjury afterward to back him up. I know you’re a piece of shit without a conscience.”

“Fuck off,” he says again, but his bravado wavers. He looks stricken now.

“Really? Fuck off? That’s all you have to say? I guess that makes sense.” I swallow the acid coating my throat. “You’re a fucking coward who couldn’t defend an innocent girl. So why would you have the balls to defend yourself?”

The bitter accusations trigger his anger. “Get out of my face, man. I didn’t come here tonight to get railed on by some dumb jock. Go back to your slut girlfriend and—”

Oh hell no.

My fist snaps out.

After that, everything is a blur.

People are shouting. Someone grabs the back of my jacket, trying to yank me off Delaney. My hand throbs. I taste blood in my mouth. It’s like an out-of-body experience that I can’t even describe because I’m not there. I’m lost in a haze of unchecked anger.

“Garrett.”

Someone slams me into a wall, and I instinctively release a right hook. I glimpse a flash of red, hear my name again, a sharp, emphatic “Garrett”—and my vision clears in time to see the blood spurting from the corner of Logan’s mouth.

Oh shit.

“G.” His voice is low and ominous, but there’s no mistaking the worry swimming in his eyes. “G, you’ve gotta stop.”

All the oxygen in my lungs shudders out in a rush. I glance around and find a sea of faces staring at me, hear hushed voices and confused whispers.

And then Coach appears, and I’m suddenly hit with the gravity of what I’ve just done.

Two hours later, I stand in front of Hannah’s door, and I barely have enough strength left to knock.

I can’t remember the last time I reached this level of intense exhaustion. Instead of a post-game celebration with my team tonight, I sat in Coach’s office for more than an hour and listened to him shout at me for starting a fight on school property. Which, by the way, earned me a one-game suspension. To be honest, I’m surprised the punishment wasn’t stiffer, but after Coach and a few other Briar officials got the whole story out of me, they decided to go easy on me. Hannah had given me permission to tell them about her history with Delaney, insisting that she didn’t want them to think I was some psycho who went around attacking random hockey fans for no good reason, but I still feel like a shit for sharing her trauma with my coach.

One-game suspension. Jesus. I deserve a helluva lot worse.

I wonder if my dad has heard about the suspension yet, but I know he must have. I bet he has someone at Briar on his payroll to feed him information about me. Luckily, he wasn’t around when I left the arena, so I was spared from dealing with his wrath tonight.

Logan was there, though, waiting for me outside, and I’ve never been more ashamed in my life as I apologized to my best friend for hitting him. But Hannah had also given me the okay to share the truth with Logan, and after I told him who Rob was and why I went after him, Logan was ready to go after Rob himself, and then he apologized to me for pulling me off the bastard. That’s when I realized how much I fucking love the guy. He might be crushing on my girlfriend, but he’s still the best friend I’ve ever had. And hell, I can’t even fault him for the girlfriend-crushing part because why wouldn’t he want to be with someone as incredible as Hannah?

I’m nervous as hell when she opens the door to let me in, but she surprises me by immediately throwing her arms around me. “Are you okay?” she says urgently.

“I’m fine.” It sounds like I’m speaking through a mouthful of gravel, so I clear my throat before continuing. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”

She tilts her head to look up at me, regret etched into her face. “You shouldn’t have gone after him.”

“I know.” My throat closes up. “I couldn’t stop myself. I kept picturing that bastard sitting on the witness stand, calling you a whore and saying you took drugs and seduced his friend. It made me sick.” I weakly shake my head. “No, it made me crazy.”

She takes my hand and leads me to her room, closing the door behind her before joining me on the edge of the bed. She reaches for my hand again, and gasps when she sees the state of my knuckles. They’re cracked and caked with blood, and even though I washed my hands thoroughly before coming here, the little cuts have opened up and are now dribbling with blood.

“How much trouble are you in?” she asks.

“Not as much as I deserve. One-game suspension, which shouldn’t hurt the team too bad. Our record is solid enough that we can afford a loss if it comes down to that. And the cops weren’t called because Delaney refused to press charges. The Buffalo coach tried to get him to change his mind, but he told everyone that he provoked me.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “He did?”

“Yeah.” I let out a breath. “Too much of a hassle dealing with the police, I guess. He probably just wanted to go back to whatever hole he crawled out of and pretend it never happened. Just like how he pretended that his best friend didn’t hurt you.” Bile bubbles in my throat. “How the fuck is that fair, Hannah? Why aren’t you angrier? Why aren’t you furious that your rapist is walking around free? And his slimy friends are the ones who helped him get off.”

She sighs. “It’s not fair. And I am angry. But…well, life isn’t always fair, babe. I mean, look at your father—he’s every much a criminal as Aaron is, and he’s not in jail either. If anything, he’s still revered by every hockey fan in this country.”

“Yeah, because nobody knows what he did to me and my mom.”

“And you think if they knew, they’d stop idolizing him? Some of them might, but I guarantee you that a lot of them won’t care, because he’s a star athlete and he won lots of games, so that makes him a hero.” She shakes her head sadly. “Do you realize how many abusers are walking around unpunished? How many rape charges are dropped because of ‘insufficient’ evidence, or how many date rapists get away with what they’ve done because the victim is too scared to tell anyone? So yeah, it’s not fair, but it’s also not worth agonizing over.”

Sorrow clogs my throat. “You’re a better person than I am, then.”

“That’s not true,” she chides. “Remember what you told me on Thanksgiving? How your father isn’t worth your anger and revenge? Well, that’s the best revenge right there, Garrett. Living well and being happy is how we get over the shit in our past. I was raped, and it was awful, but I’m not going to waste my time or energy either, not on some pathetic, screwed-up guy who couldn’t take no for an answer, or his pathetic friends who thought he deserved to be rewarded for his actions.” She sighs again. “I put it all behind me. You really didn’t have to confront Rob on my behalf.”

“I know.” Tears sting my eyes. Shit. The last time I cried was at my mom’s funeral, when I was twelve years old. I’m embarrassed that Hannah is witnessing it, but at the same time, I want her to understand why I did it, even if it means falling apart in front of her. “Don’t you get it? The thought of anyone hurting you rips me apart.” I blink rapidly, fighting the tears. “I didn’t realize it until tonight, but…I think I was broken, too.”

Hannah looks startled. “What do you mean?”

“I was broken before I met you,” I mumble. “My entire life revolved around hockey, and being the best, and proving to my father that I didn’t need him. I didn’t let myself get close to girls because I didn’t want to be distracted from my goals. And I knew that if I did get close to someone, I’d leave them in a heartbeat once I got drafted. I didn’t let a single person in, not even my closest friends, and then you came along and I realized just how fucking lonely I’ve been.”

I drop my head on her shoulder, so tired of…of everything.

After a beat, she pulls my head into her lap and strokes my hair. I curl into her, my voice muffled against her thigh. “I hate that you saw me lose it tonight.” A rush of self-loathing sears my flesh. “You told me I wasn’t capable of hurting you, but you saw what I did tonight. I didn’t go over there planning on hitting him, but he was so fucking smug, and then he called you a…he said something nasty, and I snapped.”

“You lost your temper,” she agrees. “But that doesn’t change the way I feel about you, or what I think about you. I said you’d never hurt me, and I still believe that.” Her voice shakes. “God, Garrett, if you knew how badly I wanted to rip his eyes out tonight…”

“But you didn’t.”

“Because I was in shock. I didn’t expect to see him there.” Her fingers slide over my scalp in a soft caress. “I don’t want you to hate yourself for this.”

“I don’t want you to hate me for it.”

She bends down and brushes her lips over the top of my head. “I could never hate you.”

We stay this way for a while, with her fingers in my hair and my head in her lap. Eventually she coaxes me into bed and I slide between the sheets fully clothed. We’re spooning now, except she’s the one holding me and I’m too fucking tired and ashamed to move.

I fall asleep with her hand stroking my chest.