“But you didn’t, did you?” Eric stepped from the back of the room, where he’d been silent and unmoving, watching everything unfold with glittering eyes. He strode to Mint and shoved him by the shoulders, causing Mint to stagger back. “You did it to Heather instead, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
Mint glared at Eric, his face flaming as he struggled to hold something back. He looked at Coop, then at me, and suddenly the dam broke—the last thing keeping him tethered. As I watched him unravel into another person—a creature of rage, of fire—the surprise I’d felt earlier transformed into something wholly different.
My body knew it first—my limbs went rigid, heart freezing in my chest. Inch by inch, the knowing filtered into my brain.
You recognize this person, a voice whispered.
Danger, it hissed. Wake up.
“I thought she was you!” Mint screamed, pointing at me, eyes blazing. “I thought I was hurting you!”
Chapter 40
February, senior year
Mint
It was better now, with his split knuckles sending a constant thrum of pain through his right hand. With none of the brothers who’d been in the foyer able to look at him, all of them cowering in fear, taking the long route to the keg, sticking to the corners of the Phi Delt basement as everyone pregamed for Sweetheart. Much better with the way Courtney Kennedy was eyeing him, as if she’d like nothing better than to depose Jessica, take her place by his side.
What he’d done to Trevor proved Mint wasn’t a coward, wasn’t his father, as much as it choked him to even think of his father—his stupid childhood hero, now a broken shell in a hospital bed, too weak for the world. But Mint wasn’t weak. Mint was back on top, he was king, he was alpha.
No one had mentioned anything about his father or his family’s company all day, so either the Phi Delts didn’t read the news or his mother’s PR team was doing a good job of keeping the disaster out of the press. Of course, it was in everyone’s best interest that what his father had done—his mother’s voice drifted back, hard and cold, the coward’s way out—should never see the light of day. Mint himself vowed to never breathe a word of it.
Ever since he’d given it an outlet, the fire inside him was under control. No longer a raging storm but a simmer in the center of him, hungry and waiting, biding its time.
Sweetheart was going to be Mint’s crowning glory. Thanks to money his parents had thrown into the party fund—a check cashed before the market crashed, thank Christ—this year’s Sweetheart was bigger and better than ever. The best band booked, Party Pics ready to snap their pictures like a crowd of paparazzi, pledges dressed in humiliating cupid costumes, handles of whiskey for every couple. All of it evidence of Mint’s generosity, his power as Phi Delt president.
Even better: Jessica would be here soon, all dolled up. She’d be expecting romance—it was Valentine’s Day, after all. She’d be soft and pliant, and at the perfect moment, when they were in the very center of the crowd, he’d hit her with it: he knew. He’d make her beg to be taken back, make her cry in front of the whole party, and then he’d turn his back and tell her it was over, that she disgusted him. It would be the perfect drama, something to show everyone Mint was strong and unyielding, no chump. No, he was a prize lost at great cost. No one would be able to laugh at him again.
He tugged his pink bow tie, straightening the corners. He would do everything his father should have done, fix his mistakes. The fire inside him rose higher, crackling, eager for it.
Frankie bound down the stairs into the basement and beelined for him. “Hey, we need to talk.”
Mint handed a keg beer to Frankie, eyeing the pulled seams of his suit—the same he’d worn since freshman year. “Let me guess. You’re finally taking me up on the offer to see my tailor?”
Frankie waved a hand. “Do you see the younger guys giving you weird looks? Like they’re about to piss their pants?”
It was true. Where Mint and Frankie stood had become the nexus of the basement, the sun in the center of the party. Everyone orbited them, eyeing them with an assortment of expressions—fear, desire, calculation.
Mint shrugged, taking a sip of his own beer to hide his smile. “I might have asserted myself a little forcefully earlier today.”
Frankie’s brow furrowed. “A little forcefully? You broke Trevor’s cheekbone.”
“He was out of line.” Mint spoke like he couldn’t care less, was already over it. “You know how he gets. It was finally a bridge too far.”