Stupid Girl(63)

Gutter Fuck.

Embarrassment washed through my body, and anger, shock, almost paralyzed me. A few voices filtrated through my brain as I continued to stare. Oh shit, man, that’s harsh, and Oh. My. God. I didn’t look up. Didn’t look at anyone. I just turned, pushed through the crowd and headed back to the dorm to find something to wash it all off. Eyes followed me, of course, all the way back through the common room, and I eased up stairs and into mine and Tessa’s dorm. She lay sleeping, just as I’d left her. Quietly, I grabbed a few older towels I’d brought with me specifically for washing the truck, and just as I was slipping back out the door Tessa stirred.

“Something wrong?” she asked feebly.

“No, go back to sleep,” I said. “Sorry to wake you.” I closed the door and made my way back outside. Thankfully, most of the crowd had dispersed, probably hurrying off to class. But a few other gawkers remained, and for some reason, that irked me. They looked at me as I climbed into the bed of my truck. I held their gaze, annoyed and saying nothing, then knelt down to the toolbox, unlocked it and pulled out the plastic bucket I had stashed. I hurried to the side of our building to the water spigot and filled it up. When I returned, I just dropped to my knees, dunked the towels, and started working on removing the vulgar words. Whoever had done it had graced my tailgate, hood, doors and fenders with the same phrase: Gutter Fuck. Who’d done it? The most likely person to come to mind would be Kelsy. But I’d seen the flash of fear in his eyes when Brax had pulled him off of me in the parking lot. Would he really risk it?

Behind me, comments and snarky laughter didn’t go unnoticed. I heard it. But I wasn’t going to react to it. I was too focused on just getting the job done, and trying not to cry from mortification in the process. Or, from anger. At least the damn shoe polish was coming off. I kept on scrubbing, ignoring the comments, until my arm started to ache. I’d just returned with a new bucket of clean water and was working on the tailgate when a voice startled me.

“What the fuck, Gracie?”

I glanced over to see Brax standing behind me. His features were taut and frightening, fury rolling off him like smoke as he slowly walked around my truck. I continued washing the polish off in silence. He rounded the truck, swearing, then dropped to one knee, grabbed a sopping towel, and started on the hood. He swore some more. Brutal curses that made me cringe each time he spit them out. I thought he might even be madder than me.

After a few minutes passed he dropped beside me and stilled my scrubbing with his hand. “Look at me.”

I stopped, looked up. The intensity of his eyes—so light they almost appeared pale gray—socked me in the gut. It was almost as though he saw inside of me then, saw what those horrible words meant, how they related to the true me. The me he really didn’t know about yet.

“This is fuck crazy bullshit, Gracie,” he said, then ducked his head to look me more squarely in the eye. Or, to make sure I saw him clearly. “You hear me? And none of the pricks taking phone pics and sending them all over the goddamned campus bothered to offer you any help?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and stared between his feet, then looked up. The expression on his face could only be described as ferocious. “I’m going to find out who did this.” His knuckle lifted my jaw, and he peered closer, deeper. “Do you have any idea—”

Brax stopped his words in mid-sentence, and something dark and frightful flashed in his eyes. His gaze moved across the lot, toward the direction we’d have taken to class.

He simply dropped the sopping wet towel on the concrete and took off running.

“Brax! Don’t!” I hollered. But he didn’t stop. I knew exactly where he was running to. Humanities. And I prayed he didn’t snatch Kelsy out by his throat.

“Holy fuckballs, what happened here?”

Tessa stood, still in her boxers and tee shirt, her hair a wadded mass on the top of her head. She spied the one remaining door we hadn’t cleaned off yet. Her eyes widened.

“How’d you know?” I asked. Then bent down to finish cleaning.

“InstaGram,” she said. “It’s all over campus. Was that Brax taking off just then?”

I nodded. “Yes, and I hope he doesn’t do what I think he’s going to do. His fuse is like a half inch long. He’s got a scholarship to think about.”

Tessa knelt beside me. “Shit. Are you okay?” She bumped her shoulder against mine. “Does this have anything to do with that dude you told me about last night?”

I let out a long breath and looked at my roommate. I’d told her a little about the history between Kelsy and me. Not the entire thing, but enough. “Yeah, it probably does. And yes, I’ll be fine. More embarrassed this morning when I first found it, surrounded by tons of students taking pics of it with their phones.”