Jubilation beats like a rhythmic drum throughout the entire bar, the energy of that stellar win suffusing everyone and everything within a fifty-mile radius of Jade Mountain’s campus.

The Croc is packed, the building overflowing with people crammed at tables, smashed up against the bar, sandwiched on the dance floor. Smiles light up their faces, liquor invades their pores. The feelings of excitement and victory tick all of my boxes too, making me feel as giddy as a school girl.

That is, until Colton texts me, his written words striking fear through my heart in the middle of the crowded room.

My stomach drops, the strawberry martini I just gulped down turning to bile in my throat. He’d disobeyed an order from some seriously frightening people … or so I assumed. The way he spoke about these men, in the conversations since he’d come clean about his mother and the money … I could tell that Colton, a confident, strong man, was deathly afraid of them. And while I was proud that he’d chosen himself and his team over those thugs, I was scared out of my wits now too.

If only he’d let me help. I could solve this so easily. But he was proud, and dammit did I find that attractive. Proud enough to get either of us seriously hurt, but I knew where he was coming from. We were cut from the same cloth; I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same in my days of living in Liverpool, when my family was in dire need of our next meal ticket. Colton felt the world on his shoulders and he’d dealt with it the only way he knew how, and I understood that.

“Have another drink with me!” Abby slams into me, jostling my chair and hijacking the other stool at my hightop.

“Sorry, love, I’m leaving in a few.” I smile warily at her, but she’s probably too drunk to notice my odd temperament.

“Oh, come on, you can wait to celebrate with that hunk of a boyfriend of yours! Two cosmos!” She calls out to a passing waiter, who takes the twenty she waved at him. Who knows if he’ll even come back with drinks.

“Right … just can’t wait to be alone with him.” I try to play it off like the hair on the back of my neck isn’t standing up, like I don’t feel the need to look over my shoulder every five seconds.

“You got the best catch of them all, it’s not fair. Jaden got kicked out for failing to secure a boyfriend, and I’m over here stuck to Oliver from Yardsley. Sure, he’s packing down below, but he’s a bit of a brick upstairs.”

I can’t help but laugh, because drunk Abby is kind of funny. “Wait, Jaden got kicked out?”

She nods. “Yep, Gretchen revoked her pledging privileges after Mountain Day … the girl had refused to get a boyfriend for some ‘stupid club.’ Her words, not mine.”

Why hadn’t I known that? I guess I’d been in my own bubble since Colton and I had become exclusive, and I’d never been one to really keep up that much with the Charter girls. But now … my curiosity was piqued again. Each time I decided I didn’t care about these petty ladies and their rules about what was in and what was out, just seemed to pull me back in. Jaden had struck me as someone who didn’t necessarily want to give up all of the notoriety that Charter had to offer, and yet she’d all but disqualified herself.

And then the memories of the whispers, of what Blair had told me, come back. For some reason, I couldn’t drop the niggle in my head that told me to keep searching for the truth about that poor girl.

“Well, I guess that leaves more room for us.” Abby lifts the drink that the waiter sets down on our table.

“More room? They had five people pledge to start with, weren’t they going to take all of us?” I don’t touch the drink, and my eyes dart around the room for Colton. I suddenly wanted to get out of here.

Abby makes a face I’ve never seen grace her kind features before. It’s almost a snarl, a sarcastic kind of mocking expression. “Oh, come on, Eloise, don’t be naïve. They were always going to cut down the herd. It’s what they do, it’s what they get off on.”

I’m shocked to hear those words coming from her mouth. A chill goes up my spine, and I need to go. Now. I’m not sure why this feeling of dread swamps the nape of my neck, but all I want at this moment is to hold the Goliath of a man who has become more of a rock to me than I ever realized until this very moment.

And then he’s there, wrapping his hands around my shoulders. I smell him before I see him, the soap of his freshly showered skin consuming my senses. Instantly, the sickness I’d felt just moments ago vanishes, replaced by pure contentment and safety.

“You okay?” he mumbles into my hair as I turn into him, scooting off my bar stool and into his embrace.

Colton’s big body surrounds me, his long limbs almost lifting me off my feet as I snuggle into him. To anyone outside of our bubble, it just looks like PDA after his big win. But inside our connection, we know now that it’s so much more. I could have run when he’d told me about his mother, told me about what he was involved with. But I’d stayed, dammit I’d had no choice.

I hadn’t been looking for someone, much less a hotshot jock like Colton Reiter. But he’d worn me down, he’d surprised me. And instead of a short vacation to the States, I was wrapped up in something much more than I bargained for.

“Let’s get out of here.” Those mixed blue-green eyes gaze down at me, serious but also reverent.

“Not back to your place … what if they’re waiting for you?” I rest a hand on his cheek, loving the feeling of his stubble under my fingertips.

Colton turns his head, sucking my pointer finger between his lips. “We could always go back to your place.”

I wink at him, trying to lighten the moment a little. “My dorm room, eh? We’ll have to put a, what do they do? A scrunchie on the door? That’s so American, I love it!”

He laughs lightly as he laces our fingers, leading me out of the jam-packed bar. “It should be entertaining trying to fit us both into a twin bed.”