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“Are you upset with me?” His voice is soft, a thousand degrees from where it was moments ago while he was screaming at the police.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
Of course I’m upset with him, because I know who he fought . . . well, it isn’t hard to guess. But I’m also worried about him, and I want to know what happened that led him to be in all of this trouble.
“I couldn’t help it,” he says, as if that justifies his actions.
“I told you before I wouldn’t visit you in a jail cell, remember?” I frown, looking around the cell he’s in.
“This doesn’t count, it’s not a real cell.”
“It looks real to me.” I tap on the metal bars to prove my point.
“It’s not an actual jail; this is just a bullshit holding cell until they decide to involve the real police,” he says loud enough for the two officers to look up from their conversation.
“Stop it. This isn’t a joke, Hardin. You could be in a lot of trouble.”
Hearing that, he rolls his eyes.
That’s the problem with Hardin: he hasn’t quite realized that his actions have consequences.
Chapter one hundred and twenty
TESSA
Who started it?” I ask, trying my best not to jump to conclusions like I normally do.
Hardin tries to meet my eyes, but I look away. “I went to find him after I walked you to class,” he says.
“You promised me that you’d leave him alone.”
“I know.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“He was pushing it—he started provoking me, saying that he fucked you.” He looks at me with a wild desperation. “You aren’t lying about that, are you?” he asks, and I nearly lose it.
“I’m not answering that question again. I already told you that nothing happened between us, and here you are in a freaking jail cell asking such a thing,” I say with frustration.
He rolls his eyes and sits down on the small metal bench inside the holding cell. He’s really pissing me off.
“Why did you go find him? I want to know.”
“Because he needed his ass beat, Tessa. He needs to know that he isn’t to come near you again. I’m sick of his fucking games and the way he thinks he has some sort of fucking chance with you. I did this for you!”
I cross my arms over my chest. “How would you feel if I’d been the one to go find him today after I told you I wouldn’t? I thought we were both trying to make this work, and here you blatantly lied to my face. You knew you weren’t going to hold up your end of the deal, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did, okay? It doesn’t matter now, what’s done is done,” he huffs like an angry child.
“It matters to me, Hardin. You keep getting yourself in trouble when it’s not necessary.”
“It’s very necessary, Tess.”
“Where’s Zed now? Is he in jail, too?”
“This isn’t jail.”
“Hardin . . .”
“I don’t know where he is, nor do I give a shit, and neither do you. You aren’t going near him.”
“Stop being like this! Stop telling me what I can and can’t do—it’s really pissing me off.”
“Are you cursing at me?” he says with an amused smirk.
Why does he think this is funny? It’s anything but funny. I begin to walk away from him, and the smile disappears from his lips.
“Tessa, come back,” he says, making me turn around.
“I’m going to find your father to see what’s going on.”
“Tell him to hurry up.”
I growl at him, literally, as I walk away. He thinks just because his father is the chancellor, he’s going to get out of this easily, and honestly, I really hope he does. But it’s still nerve-racking how lightly he’s taking the whole thing.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I hear him say to a cop, and I rub my fingers over my temples.
I find Ken and Landon standing next to an older man with gray hair and a mustache. He’s wearing a tie and black dress pants, and the way he’s holding himself gives me the feeling that he’s important. When Landon notices me standing in the hall, he walks over to me.
“Who’s that?” I ask him quietly.
“He’s the provost.”
“That’s the vice chancellor, right?”
Landon looks worried. “Yeah.”
“What’s going on? What are they saying?” I try to hear the two men talking, but I can’t make out anything.
“It’s . . . well, it’s not looking good. There was a lot of damage done to the lab that Zed was in—I’m talking thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. On top of that, Zed has a broken nose and a concussion. Someone drove him to the hospital.”
My blood begins to boil. Hardin didn’t just push Zed around. He seriously injured him!
“Also, Hardin shoved a professor to the floor. There’s a girl who’s in Zed’s class that already wrote a statement saying Hardin came in there looking for Zed specifically. It’s looking really bad right now. Ken’s trying his best to keep Hardin out of jail, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.” Landon sighs, running his fingers through his hair. “The only thing that can keep him out of jail is if Zed decides to not press charges. Even then I don’t know what’ll happen.”
My head is spinning.
“Expulsion,” I hear the gray-haired man say, and Ken rubs his hand over his chin.