“I’ll coexist.” My arms folded over my chest. “If you try any of your uppity bitch shit on me, I won’t let it stand.”
Elena snorted. “Lovely. And I’ll have to lodge a protest if you turn my toothbrush into a shank.”
“Your toothbrush? Come on, El. I make my shanks from sharpened spoons. The stainless steel is much more durable when I’m shivving my enemies.”
Elena’s brow rose. “I am disturbed, but I’m also filing that info away. You never know.”
Zadie giggled. “Are we good? I hope we’re good.”
I eyed Elena. She let her eyes flit over me, bored and disinterested. I liked that. If she wasn’t interested in me, she’d leave me alone. I sure as hell planned to leave her be too. If she stayed on her side of the suite, I could stick this out. It wasn’t like I had any other choice anyway.
“I’m good,” I assured Zadie.
Elena flicked her French-manicured nails. “Mmm. Everything’s fine.” She spun on her toes and marched back to her room, leaving Zadie and me in her wake of fire, brimstone, and imported vanilla.
Zadie sighed when Elena’s door closed. “She wasn’t so bad. Or…not as bad as my roommates last year.”
I slumped on the couch, my box of mozzarella sticks in my lap. “That’s a low bar.” And of course, Theo’s girlfriend was one of those evil wenches who had done my girl Z way, way wrong.
I held up the box to Z. “Come eat these with me or I’ll feel guilty stuffing my face in front of you.”
She perched on the cushion beside me and selected a mozzarella stick. “Thanks.” She took a delicate bite, then elbowed my side. I cocked a brow. Her lips quirked. “Do you think you can teach me how to make a shank? It sounds handy.”
A loud laugh burst out of me. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Days of stress and change poured out of me. Everything wasn’t going to be okay, not if I didn’t bust my ass to make it so. But for that single minute, Zadie giggling beside me, a container of mozzarella sticks in my lap, my first day of Savage U in the books, it felt like it was okay.
Only for a minute, though.
Chapter Four
Theo
I finally got the call. I’d been waiting for it ever since I’d filed a claim on my car’s insurance policy. I shouldn’t have been surprised my dad had let it fester. That was another way of exerting his control. He left me to wonder when he’d call, then he’d decide when it had been long enough.
“Sit down, Theo.”
Andrew Whitlock was the father I never wanted. He wasn’t a bad guy in an evil villain sense, but he wasn’t a good man either. He’d been mostly disinterested my whole life but had flipped a switch a couple years ago. Now, I was in California, experiencing what it was like to be Andrew’s pet project.
I took a seat opposite him, his grand, mahogany desk between us. The nameplate at the edge of his desk shined like it had been recently polished. Dr. Whitlock, President.
“Hey, Dad.”
He clasped his hands together on top of a stack of papers. “Tell me about the car.”
“Someone vandalized it while it was parked outside the T.” I scrubbed at my jaw. “It’s my fault for parking on the outer edge of the lot. Unfortunately, the cameras didn’t reach that corner.”
It wasn’t a question of handing over Helen. My father, along with my stepmom, could more than afford to repair the car—a car I didn’t give a shit about. And I got the feeling Helen could not.
But withholding her name wasn’t about doing her a favor. No, this was entirely about a chance to stick it to my dad.
“Do you think I should foot the bill for that?” he asked.
I lifted a shoulder. “Do or don’t. I didn’t want the car in the first place.”
His dark brows came down over his even darker eyes like thunder bolts. “Do you expect me to believe you want to go the next three years without a vehicle? More if you don’t find an adequate-paying job post-graduation?” He leaned back in his chair, his clasped hands resting on his soft gut. “I don’t get this car repaired, you’ll be back in this office within a week telling me how right I was in the first place.”
I turned my palms up. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Theo.” He slapped his palm down on the leather arm of his chair. “I’ve put up with this lackadaisical attitude for months now. I’m done. I should have been done when you quit wrestling, but what can I do? I can’t force you to go back. All I can do is sit back and watch you screw up and hope you’ll see the error of your ways.”
I shook my head hard. “There was no error when I quit wrestling.”
It was laughable that he believed he’d sat back and done nothing when I told him I’d quit wrestling. He’d thrown a lamp across his pristine living room, then went on a ten-minute rant about work ethic, quitters, success, and how I was my mother’s son, through and through.
There was no letting it slide, not when it affected Andrew Whitlock’s reputation. As the president of Savage U, he enjoyed having a son who was a star athlete at his university. He’d never once been to a match, not a single one, but he took my accolades like they were his own.
His nostrils flared. His artificial tan became mottled with red. “I disagree. But beyond wrestling, you ended a relationship with a girl you should have been planning to marry. You’ve turned down multiple invitations from Miranda for dinner and brunch. And now this with the car. You’re becoming someone I’m not proud to call my son, and I won’t stand for it.” He leaned forward in his chair, locking his gaze on mine. “You will not embarrass me on this campus.”
My gaze on his never wavered. “That isn’t my intention. Last semester, I maintained a three-point-five GPA and earned the respect of my teachers. I don’t know…I’d think that would hold some weight.” He didn’t respond, but the rapid rise and fall of his chest was all I needed to see. My GPA wasn’t big and flashy, like being one of the best collegiate wrestlers in California. A three point five didn’t make up for the loss of bragging rights and status. Dear Father was disappointed.
I pushed my palm down my thigh. “I’ll call Miranda and schedule a meal. It’s been busy with the start of school. But I’ll call her.”
His nod was sharp. “You do that.”
Miranda was my stepmom of three years. She was fine. Decent for someone who’d grown up in a mansion with servants and the finest of the fine. She’d married my dad for love, which blew my mind since I found him utterly unlovable. Seeing them together, I couldn’t get a bead on if he returned the love to Miranda or her millions in the bank.
I’d turned down her invitations more as an excuse not to see my dad. Since she was more self-aware than Andrew Whitlock would ever be, I had a feeling she knew. But I could do a dinner to keep the peace.
“As for the car,” Dad’s fingertips turned white as they pressed down on his desk, “it will be repaired. This is your last chance, though, Theo. My patience is running thin. You will toe the line or I will cut it.”