Wilder

“Class…yay,” Penna added with false clapping.

Landon rolled his eyes and walked away, no doubt headed to find the next girl to add to his Casanova legacy. I normally didn’t give a shit about my friends’ sex lives, but Landon’s was borderline self-destructive. The guy he’d been slipped away a little more with each of his conquests, his eyes a little dimmer, more vacant. And, of course, I didn’t get to say a fucking word about it, not until I could fix what I’d broken…if he was still fixable.

The camera crew took the invite to check out the bikini-clad co-eds and left me standing with Penna at the end of the stage.

I scanned the crowd, but it was stupid to think I’d be able to spot her in a crowd of a thousand students.

“She left,” Penna said, smirking.

“I just need to make sure she’s okay. I think I may have royally fucked up when I put her on that line. It never occurred to me that she’d be that terrified.”

“Not everyone is built like we are, Pax. Most people are cool with watching us pull stunts, jump bikes, ski insane slopes, but they’d never actually do it. Plus, from what I saw in the suite, she didn’t exactly know who you were. Even the famous Paxton Wilder has his limits of reach.”

I put my hands up in surrender. “Okay, point taken.”

“Plus, if you want her to have some privacy, you might consider not putting her in the middle of a stunt, jackass.”

“Yes, Mom.”

She smacked my chest with the back of her hand. “Also, don’t go to her suite through the front door. You’ll start a rumor fire you can’t put out, and she didn’t exactly strike me as the kind of girl who wants the attention you bring, so go through the balcony.”

“Good idea. What would I do without you?”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “You’ll never have to know. Now go. If you mingle with the crowd they can get some good shots, and you can sneak off by the bar to check on her.”

I hugged my oldest friend. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said as we broke apart. “And yeah, the girl was terrified, but she’s stronger than you think.”

“What makes you say that?” She’d been shaking, hardly breathing, and I had white sheets with more color than her face when we’d splashed down.

“First off, she did the stunt. She could have said no and demanded you get her back on the ship, and you know you would have. But she didn’t. She strapped up and trusted you.”

“Yeah, well, look how that turned out.”

“We’ll figure out what happened to the rigs. We just have to find them. I bet one of the crew took them for storage before Bobby could get there. Don’t stress about it.”

I hoped that was all it was, an accident, a quickly cleaned-up site, but something nagged in the back of my head that this wasn’t how it looked, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. “Yeah, let’s find the rigs. I’ll catch you later.” I faced the party and looked for the quickest route out.

“Pax, she didn’t scream.”

“What?” I asked, turning back around.

“That entire ride, even when you dropped her over the pool. When you fell, she didn’t scream. She might have been scared, but she didn’t let it show. Remember that when you go apologize.”

“What makes you think I’m going to apologize?” I never apologized. Sorry wasn’t a word I said. Why be sorry when everything you did brought you to where you were? Made you who you were? Even the most epic mistake was merely another thread that wove into whatever tapestry we were.

“I saw the way you looked at her. Believe me, you’ll apologize, if not for this, then for something else.”

The one thing I could hardly stand about Penna? She was almost always right.

I looked down both hallways before I knocked on Leah’s door. Penna was right, I didn’t want her at the center of some kind of rumor storm, but I couldn’t exactly barge into her room through the sliding door yet—not after she’d made those easy access comments.

The door swung open, and Leah glared up at me, her face shiny from a shower, wearing a white tank top and pajama pants. Holy shit, did she have to have such a killer body? Why couldn’t she be average? Bitchy? This attraction was damn inconvenient.

“What do you want, Wilder?” she asked, crossing her arms under her perfect breasts. But I wasn’t looking. Hell no. My eyes were firmly on her face, where they’d remain. She leaned to look behind me. “And where is your legion of cameras and adoring fans?”

I grimaced. “No cameras. No fans. Can I come in?”

She arched an eyebrow. “And if I say no?”

“I’ll be forced to sit outside your door until said cameras and fans show up.”

She snorted but backed up, letting me into her suite. The door shut behind us, and she led me to her sitting room, which was smaller yet more welcoming than mine. I ran my hands over my still-damp trunks to make sure I wouldn’t leave a puddle of water she could slip on later. “I like this room.”

“Good, since you insist on paying for it. How long do I have before the camera crews show up and demand entrance? Because I’m not letting them in here. I didn’t sign up for that, Wilder.”

“Paxton,” I corrected her. “I’m Wilder to the rest of the world, but since we’ll be spending an insane amount of time together, I’d like to not have to keep that public face up around you, if that’s okay.” Damn, I bit that out harder than I intended. Something about this girl set every one of my nerves on edge, made me forget the cool, collected demeanor I’d worked so hard to perfect over the last few years. I could tell with a single glance at her crossed arms that this girl—this puzzle—had walls a mile thick. Walls that I desperately needed to breach if I wanted to keep her happy, wanted her to give a damn if I passed or failed. “And no cameras. They don’t have the right to be in here. Your room is completely off-limits to filming and the crew.”