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*****

Sophia's P.O.V.

An indescribable desperation rang in Bryce's green eyes, telling me to comply to his wishes. I had more fight left in me, far more. But the tiniest change in his tone, maximizing the urgency woven in his statement, made me stay. He believed my life was in grave danger, for what reason, I didn't know. Holding on to the mere possibility that he was being honest with me, I went with him to his apartment.

I'd win idiot of the year if this was all a scheme to get in my pants.

Bryce unlocked the door and I trailed in after him. "The guest rooms down that way. Walk down this hallway and take a left. I'll be up in my room if you need me. You're welcomed to eat anything inside the fridge if you get hungry."

Staying true promise that he wasn't trying to sleep with me, Bryce ascended the stairs and abandoned me in the living room, not looking back at me once.

"Well, goodnight to you, too, buddy." I whispered bitterly.

I didn't have much of a right to be mad at him for keeping his word. Yet, it would be dishonest of me to say it didn't sting a little as well. Sure, I wasn't a five-foot nine blonde swimsuit model, but I wasn't unappealing either...was I? Bryce raced up there faster than you could say 'not interested' with a mouth full of marbles. 

I peeked at my outfit and examined it, sauntering over to the guest rooms while I did so. My crop-top and high waisted acid-washed dark jeans were cute. The ensemble displayed just enough skin without coming off as risqué. Sadly though, the top wasn't in the daring shade of fuck-me-against-a-wall red.

Bryce went for girls that pushed the envelope. I hadn't seen him eying any of the girls at the party, but if we had stayed longer, I was certain I'd find him wandering towards the sorority girls that weren't afraid to take their sex appeal up a notch.

Heavy foot-falls showering from upstairs amplified into the hallway. Bryce approached me with a bundle of clothing. A maroon Lincoln University sweatshirt twice my size rested on his shoulder and a pair of sweatpants were in his hands. "I don't know if this will fit, but it's worth a try. I figured you wouldn't want to sleep in jeans."

"Thanks." I took the clothes and held them close to my chest. A mist of self-doubt was parted by Bryce as he lowered his hand to my back and ushered us to the guest rooms.

"They're over here." I went to open the first door in the hallway. His hand covered mine "Not that one. That's not a guest room."

I twisted it anyway and found that it was locked from the inside. What was he hiding in there? Watching my intrusive curiosity flow through me like a river, Bryce walked us to the room two doors down.

The room he opens the door to was larger than any bedroom I'd slept in before. It was twice the size of my room at my mom's house and three times bigger than my dorm room.

Powder blue was painted on the walls with white wall panels a quarter above the hardwood floors. Pushed against the right wall, there was a queen size bed with sheets that were the same color as the walls. Everything in the room matched and coexisted in a similar style, only with small accents of white.

"I'm upstairs in the first room to your left if you need anything." Bryce said, clamping down on the golden doorknob. He really was going to leave me here. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I think I'll be fine," I muttered, plastering a faux smile.

Bryce started closing the door. "Okay then. I'll see you in the morning—"

"Am I boring?"

Courageousness – mixed with a deadly injection of insecurity – took a hold of my tongue, uttering the single thing I couldn't shake off. Was I boring? Was that why he had stayed true to his promise of not sleeping with me?

Bryce's first expression didn't seem to answer any of those questions, housed in my mind. He squinted at me, fully leaving the door ajar. "What?"

"Do you find me to be boring?" I asked, lacking the bravery from earlier.

"No, I don't." Bryce shut the door behind him, still wearing his confusion like a mask. I couldn't see through it. "Where is this coming from?"

"It's coming from you."

"I've never called you boring."

"You didn't say it..." I went on, studying the floor. "But I saw it. I see that you think I'm dull."

Bryce tapped his finger to my chin, lifting it lightly, and joined his free hand to my waist. "You're not dull. In fact, I find you to be very interesting."

"No, you don't. You haven't shown any interest in me."

His smirk faltered. "Yes, I have. Where did I go after I left from the hospital? I went to go see you for your birthday - disregarding the fact that I had stitches that were still healing. I stayed with you that night. You, on the other hand, haven't shown much interest in me at all."

I was taken aback. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you said – and I quote – 'I am not sleeping with you, Bryce Matthews' less than thirty minutes ago in the lobby."

"Oh, that." He had a point there. "In my defense, I don't want to be another conquest. Others might be okay with one nights stands, but I'm not."

His gaze hardened, practically offended. "You think I would do that with you?"

"I can't answer that. And that's what worries me, the fact that I don't have any certainties when I'm with you. I can't even get a clear answer from you on what's going on at the dorms and why I have to stay here." I sucked in an airy breath. "Plus, you never explained to me why you got shot that day."

"Again with this." He released his hand from my waist and backed away from me. "I told you before, Sophia. It was an accident. I'm leaving it at that."

"That isn't what happened though. I don't believe you. I have this gut-wrenching feeling that whatever occurred that night you got shot has something to do with what's happening now on campus." My voice wavered. "If my life is in danger, I have the right to know."

"I fucked up." He said, hitting his back to the wall. Like light across the rippling waters in the ocean, Bryce's sharp features were highlighted with the moon, streaming in from the window. His puzzlement molded into something different, something darker. "I shouldn't have mixed you up in this. It's my fault."

"What's your fault?"

"Everything," he mused. "Any decent guy would've let go, but I didn't. I held on. And that's my fault. It's my fault for dragging you into this mess. Now I don't know how to fix it."

"What are you going on about?" I took a step toward him, touching his elbow. He wasn't talking. I'd squeezed out all I could. "Bryce, do you trust me?"

"Yes." Bryce responded quickly to the same question that brought so much hesitation in me. "I do trust you. I don't want you to end up hating me if I tell you, though."

"I wouldn't dream of it." I traveled my hand from his elbow to his neck.

Bryce put his large hand over my own, tracing circles with his nail. "I'll tell you. I have one condition before I can say anything. Don't tell anyone this."

"I swear I won't." I promised.

Bryce walked me to the bed and sat me down on the edge, sitting beside me with my hand in his. He puffed up his chest, inhaling a deep breath. "I'm associated with some bad people."

I arched a brow. "Define bad."

"Bad as in he'll mow down a family with a machine gun if someone related to them doesn't obey their orders." Bryce elaborated. "I don't directly work for him, but I'm on his territory so that means I have to pay my cut or else."

"Or else he kills them?"

"Not right away. He attacks the people closest to you, the ones you show care for. He can't kill the main person first or else how would he get his profit back? He uses this scare tactic to make you do whatever he wants you do."

"And now this guy is after you, right?" Bryce nodded to what I said. "What did you do? Wait – " I had gotten ahead of myself. "Can you stop skirting around the subject and tell me what you do?"

Nicolas told me weeks ago that Bryce was in a gang, but I wanted to hear Bryce say it. Then it would change from being a rumor into being a fact.

Bryce struggled for a moment. "I sell illicit drugs."

"Like marijuana?"

Bryce stifled a laugh. "You think I'd live in a place like this if I sold weed?"

I play slapped his arm. "Stop laughing. I don't know anything about that stuff and profit margins."

"Well, cocaine profits and weed profits are different. It's like two distinctly separate universes."

My skin crawled. "Do you use any of the drugs you sell?"

His chuckling halted. "No, I don't sample my merchandise. I even go as far as running a monthly drug test on the guys that work for me to see if they're taking any. That's bad for business. Other than that, I've seen what it does to people and that's why I've never tried it. That, along with countless other substances. People controlled by it. They search for that next high instead of food, they favor another line instead of water. It's like they're a slave to the drug, and that's something I'll never let happen." His gaze broke from mine. "I've seen it ruin a lot of people I know and love."

I sensed the pain riding through him like a hurricane. "Then why do you do it?"

"It's what I'm good at." He smirked halfheartedly, a residue of his pain lingering. "Some folks strive at math or history, I strive at this. I get that sounds silly, stupid even, but it's the honest to God truth. I'm good at what I do. I don't know any other twenty-three-year-olds that has gotten this far. I understand that I'm risking a lot by doing what I do. I understand that I may not see thirty-one. But at least I know I'm living a life that doesn't have money as a barrier. I can live life to the fullest."

"That's what you think this is?" I cried out, struck by the sheer stupidity in his claims. "This is about greed. It's about cherishing the money more than life. Cherishing it so much that you'd put your life on the line for it—put other people's life at stake as well. Mine included from what you tell me."

"That wasn't what I intended to do." He rushed to assure me. "You have to listen to me when I say I didn't plan on things going this far with you."

I sprang up from the bed. "Wow. Thank you for clearing that up for me."

"Don't twist my words into something they're not." Bryce got to his feet. "I didn't think things would go that far because I was well aware that if I got too close, I'd undeniably get you hurt."

"It's a tad bit too late to back out now, don't you think?" I snickered sarcastically. "Whoever's mad at you is after me now."

"Not for long. I'm going to deal with him and get him what he wants." Bryce said. "Until that happens though, I need you to be in close proximity. The dorms aren't safe –"

"I'm not moving from my dorm room to stay with you."

"You're not going to want to be in the dorms after what happened tonight." Bryce backtracked, spilling info he wasn't meaning to.

"What happened tonight? You keep skipping around on details."

Bryce paused. "That day I got shot, it wasn't an accident."

"I figured that out on my own."

"Well, I got shot because someone stole from me. Someone I didn't know. The guy you saw outside your house today with the gold tooth was my supplier. He's the one who helped me get access to the kilos and it's his territory I'm selling on. When he found out that an unfamiliar gang stole it, he threatened to do something if I didn't follow his orders in retrieving the coke."

"Threatened you how?"

"He knew about you and used that as leverage. That's why I didn't want you to go to that Kappa Kappa Sigma party. I didn't know if he'd show up then. I couldn't just let you walk into that party and get attacked because of me."

That added up to the hysteria he had over the phone. It came off as odd when he demanded that I didn't attend. Things were starting to add up. I started retracing my steps and tried to see if there was anything else I was missing.

Bryce held my head in both of his hands. "That's a lot to take in for one day. I'm going to leave it at that. You can ask me a million more questions tomorrow. Okay?"

I agreed, not saying a word and only nodding.

Bryce planted a subtle, innocent kiss on my forehead and went for the door.

"Can I stay with you tonight?" I mumbled.

Bryce whipped his head around and extended his hand out to me. "Of course you can."

Sheepishly, I folded my hand into his and climbed up the stairs, knots forming in my stomach with each step I took. Bryce's bed was massive in comparison to the one in the guest bedroom, covered in a sapphire bedspread.

I expected to see posters on the wall of half-clad women, sitting on exotic priced cars. I found none of that in his room. The walls were blank, lacking the posters I had in mind. A tall bookshelf wrapped an entire wall and a television was set ahead of the bed.

"I'm going to take a shower before I go to bed." Bryce announced, pulling his shirt off from the back collar and yanking it forward. He didn't wait to head to the restroom to start discarding his jeans either, entering the connecting restroom with only boxers on.

Heat snuck up to my face, seeing how muscular he was underneath. With him gone, I went into his walk-in closet and changed into the sweat suit he gave me. Like I had feared, it was too big for me. It was such an unsexy outfit. Was unsexy even a word? I didn't know. But that was how I ultimately felt after I put on his clothes.

Folding my jeans and crop top into a neat pile, I left them in the corner of the closet and padded over to the bed. I crawled in and did the one thing I could do. Wait. I waited until the shower in the bathroom was turned off and the door opened.

I stole a glance at Bryce exit the steaming bathroom with a towel around his neck...and nothing else

He dropped the towel to his waist. "I thought you were asleep."

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a/n: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please don't forget to vote and comment. It means a lot.