Her Spite: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Forgotten Elites Book 2) by Eden Beck (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

big deal,” I say, walking up to him and reaching a hand out to put on his arm. It probably isn’t the best way for me to react, but I’m just not sure how to handle this situation.

“It’s cool,” he says as he shrugs it off. “We shouldn’t have sex anyway.”

“Why not?” I ask, cursing myself for the ache of disappointment I feel at his words. I tell myself it’s just the lingering wine.

“We just shouldn’t. Wouldn’t be good for your reputation.”

I know it’s meant as a joke, but it falls flat.

“I should walk you home.”

I just nod.

The walk back to my dorm room is painfully awkward. We walk next to each other in uneasy silence. Despite my whole master plan with things, I keep finding my mind returning to the look on his face in that moment.

I’ve never seen such a genuine moment of emotion from Sterling.

It’s made me replay the entire evening over and over in my head. Maybe I was wrong. If this is an ongoing problem … well then … maybe I am the first girl he’s invited up to the suite.

Maybe he did set it all up for me.

Somehow, the idea just leaves me feeling worse.

We part ways in the same awkward silence, and I’ve never been so thankful to see Bridget already asleep as when I get back up to our shared room.

I suddenly feel no desire to share the details of my date.

I lie on my back and look up at the ceiling thinking about the way things played out tonight. I think about what Alaska and Clark said about taking things too far, and I am pretty sure this is exactly what they meant.

At first, this was all just an attempt to bully back the people who had bullied me. I wanted to find out their secrets. I wanted to harm them.

But as much as I want to make them all pay for the way they treated me last semester, I just can’t do it at the cost of turning into a monster myself.

Chapter Eleven

On campus the next day, Sterling is definitely not acting like himself.

In the morning when I see him at the bookstore café, he seems to be in a good mood—happy and upbeat, and almost as if he has completely forgotten about what happened last night. But then later at lunch, his behavior has done a complete one-eighty. He’s lethargic and leaning his head against his elbow at the table. He grumbles when Warren asks him why he missed the study session, and then practically bites Chase’s head off when he says something about prepping for an upcoming exam.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I ask. “Not enough coffee this morning?”

I am trying to lighten the mood, but my remark is quickly met with hostility.

“You saw me get coffee this morning, Aubrey,” Sterling snaps at me. “Am I that unremarkable that you’ve forgotten already?”

I look at him with my jaw open, completely stunned about why he is acting this way, but Warren and Chase don’t seem to notice anything different at all. Maybe Sterling’s erratic behavior is par for the course since they’ve known him a lot longer than I have. But I can definitely tell that something’s wrong … and I don’t think it’s just the fact that his ego was bruised over what happened in his dorm room last night.

It’s something more than just emotional. Especially if he’s all but falling asleep at the lunch table. I think he’s having some sort of physical side effect to something, and I really hope this doesn’t have anything to do with his drug problem.

But if last night was any indicator, I’d be a fool to think it’s anything else.

Later in the day, I run into Sterling one more time before heading back to my dorm. He’s walking across the pathway heading in the opposite direction and since I assume that he’s still in a bad mood, I don’t really stop to talk to him. But much to my surprise, he reaches over and gives me a hug which nearly makes me drop all of the books in my arms.

“What was that for?” I ask when he lets me go.

“I just thought that a hug in the cold weather would be fun,” he says with a smile flashed in my direction.

This must be what it feels like to get whiplash.

I eye him more carefully, but he just squints back at me. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

I shake off my thoughts from earlier. Maybe he was just in a funk, or maybe I was making it up.

I have to remind myself that I don’t really know him … like at all. This could all be par for the course with Sterling.

If Bridget is any indicator, he’s certainly more complicated the closer you get to him.

Just thinking of her for a moment makes a sour pit settle in my stomach. Right. I have to keep my mind focused.

I don’t want to be a monster, but I don’t want to be a fool either.

“I’m getting excited about the gala,” I say, thinking that maybe he’ll walk with me for a bit now that he seems to be in a better mood.

But as soon as the words leave my mouth about the gala, Sterling’s mood catapults downward again. It looks as if all the blood has just drained out of his face and a frown immediately tugs at the sides of his mouth.

“I have to go,” he says as he abruptly turns around on the path and heads back toward his dorm building.

I’m left standing in shock, unsure of what I’m supposed to do now.

I’m going to try to get to the bottom of this—about his mood, and the drugs, and his dad.

Or at the very least, as close to it as I can.

As close as he lets me.

Though there are soon other things occupying my mind.

First and foremost, Halloween.

Somehow, I completely forgot it was coming up, and