Chapter 14
Kylie
I turned right out of the hotel and just kept walking, wanting to turn back and talk to the guys but knowing it could only make things worse. What kind of luck was that? We had an amazing night, expressing ourselves to each other, having amazing sex, and then bam, we run head-first into the dean and provost of the college. It would have been bad enough if it were a student, but these men pretty much ran the place for the president of the university, and they held all the cards now. We had been so careful, and I knew it was nobody’s fault. How could we have known they would be at the same hotel in the same town at the same time as us? It was seriously bad luck.
When I got to the car, I got inside and let out a deep breath, feeling almost suffocated by the anxiety. I pulled my coat off and turned off the heat before pulling out and heading toward home. My mind wandered my entire drive, taking me down all sorts of different roads. They couldn’t actually prove anything other than us being in the hotel at the same time. I needed to take a deep breath and calm down. When I got home, I went inside, happy that Piper wasn’t there. I really didn’t want to have to explain to her what happened. She would freak out worse than I was, especially since she really was proud of me for getting my graduate degree from an Ivy League school and would kill me if she knew I had put it all on the line for these guys.
I went into my bedroom and lay on my bed, still dressed in my coat and shoes. I rested my hands across my stomach and stared up at the ceiling, feeling like I had fallen into the Twilight Zone. I was worried about Jeffery and Arthur and what they might be thinking. They had stumbled onto a gold mine, especially since they always seemed to be on a witch hunt. I had seen more than one student leaving Jeffrey’s office in tears, and though I had only seen the nice side of him, I could tell he had a mean streak inside of him waiting to get out.
I sighed and got up from the bed, wanting to clear my mind of all of this, at least for a little while. I took off my coat and hung it up, heading over to my desk to peruse social media for a little while. There was always enough mind-numbing crap on Facebook to keep my mind occupied for centuries. I opened up my account and scrolled through the different posts. I noticed that I had a notification, so I clicked on it and waited for the picture to pop up on the screen. As my fingers moved over the keys, I froze, staring at a picture of me, Grant, and Ben standing in the lobby of the hotel talking after Arthur and Jeffrey had walked away. My mouth fell open, and I leaned back in my chair, completely shocked at what was on the screen.
I’d always hated social media. It was an excuse for people to air their and others’ dirty laundry for the entire world to see. I had never had an issue with Facebook, though, especially since I was a really chill person with very little drama, until now at least. I scrolled down and saw the note at the bottom that read, “I think Kylie is sleeping with these professors. Who else agrees?” Oh god, what in the hell was going on? I clicked on the comments and gasped, seeing that over two hundred people had commented on it. Some people defended me, some people commented on Ben and Grant, but the majority of them voted that I was sleeping with them. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.
I stood up from the desk quickly, knocking over a cup filled with pens and watching them as they fell to the floor at my feet. Everything was going in slow motion, and I felt like I was having a full-out anxiety attack. I walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, tears filling my eyes. All I’d wanted was to fulfill a fantasy, and then after that, I’d actually started to fall for both Grant and Ben. I felt like it was something real, and that had made me think I was invincible. From the picture on social media, though, I could tell I was absolutely not invincible. I didn’t even know who the girl was who posted it or any of the commenters. Maybe that was a good thing.
I walked back over and sat down in front of the computer, taking in a deep breath and closing my eyes. I let my nerves fall to a simmer and clicked on the icon in the top right of the picture. Maybe I could report it and have it taken down for cyberbullying or something. At least at that point, no one I knew would have seen it, or at least I thought so. As I scrolled down the list, I noticed it gave me the option to untag myself. Untag myself? I clicked on my face, and it took me to my page where I was staring at the same picture in my feed. She had tagged me in it, and it had been on the front page of my feed for at least two hours.
“Fuck,” I screamed, slamming my hands down on the desk.
I quickly untagged myself, hoping that my mother hadn’t been online that day, checking up on me like she did on a regular basis. Not only that, the dean was my friend on Facebook along with many other prominent figures at the college. I had used my account for networking not gossiping like everyone else. I picked up my phone and conference-called Grant and Ben, completely panicking.
“Hey,” Grant said, answering.
“I’m here too,” Ben responded.
“Guys, it’s terrible. It’s fucking terrible,” I said in tears.
“Calm down,” Grant said sweetly. “What is terrible? Take a deep breath.”
“Okay,” I said, breathing deeply. “I got home and went online, trying to get my mind off everything that happened. When I got there, I noticed I was tagged in a picture. It was a picture of the three of us in the lobby of the hotel after the dean and provost had left. People are saying that we’re sleeping together, and it was on my personal page for two fucking hours before I caught it. The dean is on my friends list.”
“Whoa,” Ben said.
“Okay, calm down, both of you,” Grant replied. “They can’t fire or expel anyone for a stupid rumor. Did you ask to get it taken down?”
“Yes, I sent a note to Facebook before I called you,” I said quietly.
“Hopefully, they will do that. I need you both to just relax,” Grant said. “It is what it is, and we will handle it as it comes. Now, both of you get off the phone and go do something else. Take your mind off it. We will all talk soon. Okay?”
“Got it,” Ben said, trying to force a confident tone.
“Yeah,” I replied with a sigh.
“Kylie, we will be okay. I promise,” Grant said before hanging up.
I hung up the phone and sat back in my chair, feeling completely lost and helpless. How had this spun out of control so fast, and who the hell had taken that picture? It was just a picture of us talking in the lobby. How bad could that really be? I knew the school had a zero-tolerance policy with fraternization between students and professors. It was one of the first things they told us when we went to orientation my freshman year, but they didn’t have any real hard evidence. Still, the sight of me online with that tag was disheartening, and I felt like I had been violated in some way. This was the first time in my life that anyone had put me under attack, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I sat back up in my chair and scrolled back to the picture, clicking on the girl’s page who had posted it. She was a pretty girl, not a student at the school but who lived in the area. I hadn’t ever met her before, so I had no idea how she would even know who I was, much less put all of that together from a picture. I decided I needed to find out, so I sent her a message asking her if she was at the hotel. I could tell she immediately read the message, and I held my breath as those little bubble marks flashed across the screen, showing me she was typing back.
“No,” she said.
“Then how did you get that picture?” I typed back.
“My cousin was there and took the picture,” she typed back. “The one you dated last year.”
I switched back to her page and stared at her name, but it didn’t ring any bells. I clicked on her pictures and started to scroll through them, trying to figure out who she was talking about. I only dated like three guys the year before and none of them were worth my time. As I scrolled through, though, I stopped, staring at a picture of her with a tall, sandy brown-haired boy. My mouth dropped open and my eyes closed, realizing exactly who she was talking about.
“Fuck,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Unbelievable.”
His name was Tory, and I had been on six or seven dates together. We had waited to sleep together, actually really enjoying our time with each other. One night, we got drunk and started talking about sex and the things we had never done that we wanted to. I had brought up being submissive, and he’d seemed really into it. One thing led to another, and we’d slept together. Unfortunately, he took the dominant thing a little too far, and I felt really uncomfortable with him the next day. I ended up breaking it off with him, even after talking about everything, knowing that I would never get that want back with him again. He didn’t take it too well and spent the next month sending me nasty texts. When they ended, I figured he was over it, glad to get back to life and leave the past behind us. I guess I had been wrong.
I switched back over to the message and tapped my fingers on the desk, unsure of what to say back. I figured she probably already thought I was a terrible person and writing anything would make her mock me harder, so I decided to leave it be. I had submitted the request to Facebook and untagged myself. Now, I had to hope none of the wrong people had seen the picture. I closed my laptop and sighed, walking back over to the bed and falling into it face-first. This was exactly what we had been trying to avoid, and we walked straight into it.
I pulled myself up on the pillow and lay in the fetal position, completely done with that weekend. Everything had blown up in my face, and now I was facing something that could completely ruin me. No one recovered after being expelled from an Ivy League school, and no one recovered from being fired from one either. Grant and Ben were as screwed as me, if not more, and even though Grant had told me to relax, I was finding it really hard to do. I wanted their comfort at that moment, but it was the last thing I could do. It was all up to the dean now, and I had a really bad feeling about that.