Breathless #5 (The Breathless Romance Series - Book #5)

BREATHLESS
#5

The
Breathless Series Book #5

BAD
BOY FRAT

By
Claire Adams

This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2015 Claire Adams

Get
Each of My Newly Released Books for 99 Cents
By
Clicking Here

Click here to read Breathless #1

Click here to read Breathless #2

Click here to read Breathless #3

Click here to read Breathless #
4

Read about the first frat boy in the
book SLAMMED by clicking here

Read
about the first frat boy in the book STEPBROTHER WOW by clicking here

Like
me on Facebook
:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Claire-Adams/547513332025338

Newsletter
:
–
Click
here to get an email as soon as the next book in the series is available.

Get your
free copy of my never released book when you sign up for the authors VIP
mailing list.

Click
here to get your free book

Chapter
One

A couple of days later, it was the weekend and I got
out of bed feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all, in spite of the fact that I had
“slept in” a few extra hours. I hadn’t heard anything from Johnny since the
text he had sent me the night everything came out, and I had no idea what to
do. I didn’t even know what to think. He had practically vanished from the
campus — he wasn’t there to walk me to my classes and even though I sent him
one or two texts to tell him that I loved him, that I believed and trusted in
him, and that he didn’t have to shoulder the burden alone, I got nothing in
return.

It was bad enough not to know what was going on in the
life of the man I loved. What made it all worse was that I couldn’t go anywhere
on campus without people staring, whispering amongst themselves, or laughing
when they saw me. I hated it.
It is just
as well that Johnny is apparently no longer anywhere to be found on campus
,
I thought; if it was that bad for me, it would be far worse for him.

“Hey,” Georgia said when I finally managed to get
myself out of bed and walked out into the common area where she was sitting on
the couch, watching cartoons. “Hungry?”

I hadn’t been hungry for days. I made myself eat
because I knew I had to have something in my stomach, but every meal seemed to
twist and turn and churn in my stomach even while I was eating it and
especially afterwards. I’d taken to just grabbing the easiest foods I could
from the dining hall and going on my way. I didn’t want to have to deal with
the other students any more than I absolutely had to. I just wanted it all to
be over; I wanted something to happen to someone else, so that everyone would
forget about Johnny and the whole incredible mess. I wanted to be able to go to
classes without everyone staring at me and talking about me until the teacher
called them to order. I wanted to see the man I was in love with again.

“Not really,” I replied, throwing myself down into a
chair. “But I should probably eat anyway.” Georgia looked at me and I could see
the real pity, the real concern in her eyes. I hadn’t been sleeping well, I
hadn’t been eating enough, and even after only a few days, it was starting to
show all over me.

“Why don’t we grab something off campus? It’s not like
the DH has anything worth a damn to eat on the weekends anyway.” I considered
it. After my fight with my dad, I wouldn’t be surprised if he closed my card on
his account, but so far it had continued to work, so I had to trust that
however mad at me he was, he didn’t want me stranded. I could afford breakfast.

“Sounds good,” I said, though I couldn’t manage to
work any enthusiasm into my voice. Georgia bounced up anyway, giving me a quick
hug before she started towards her side of the dorm room.

“We’ll get some pancakes and bacon in you, some good
diner coffee, and then you’ll be right as rain,” she said, ruffling my hair.
“Go get some clothes on and let’s head out.”

I got up and went back into my room. I wished, stupid
as it was, that Johnny could have been there, that we could be going to
breakfast with him. I knew it was an idiotic thing to want; I didn’t know where
Johnny even was, and he wasn’t taking my calls or even answering me anymore.

I pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and pulled
my hair back into a ponytail. I decided that that was all the effort I was
going to make. I wasn’t likely to see Johnny, and I was too exhausted to make
an effort to look good for anyone else. I grabbed my keys and my purse and made
sure that my phone was fully charged; I didn’t think I was likely to get a call
from anyone I actually wanted to hear from, but just in case, I wanted to be
able to answer.

“Let’s head out,” Georgia said, and I nodded. My eyes
felt itchy — scratchy, as if they had sand in them, my eyelids heavy. My
stomach felt unsteady. My legs felt as if they weighed a ton each. All I wanted
to do was curl up in my bed, but I knew that even if I did, I wouldn’t sleep.
The only thing that would allow me to sleep would be to know that Johnny was
okay, that he really loved me.

I tried to keep up my end of the conversation as I
drove off campus, ignoring the few people who looked at my car as we left the
parking lot. Georgia was reminding me about an upcoming test; she tried to get
me to talk about one of the shows we both liked, and I tried to be interested
in it, but I was too consumed with worry, guilt, and depression to really feel
it. I just wanted to get through the day. I just wanted to find out what was
happening, I just wanted the situation that Johnny was facing to end.

After a while, Georgia seemed to realize that I wasn’t
going to be distracted by anything else, that the only thing really on my mind
was Johnny. She sighed as we pulled into a diner, one we’d been to a few times
before, as an alternative to the dining hall, and liked. “You’re not going to
even pay attention to anything unless it’s about Johnny, are you?” I smiled
weakly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it’s pathetic and I
should just — move on or something. Just like Johnny said. But…” Georgia
returned my smile, reaching out to rub my shoulder.

“But you’re in love with the bastard.” I nodded.

We went in and found a table, and I tried to decide
what I wanted to eat. Everything sounded terrible, even though I had been to
the restaurant before and had enjoyed everything I had eaten. It was the
typical greasy spoon — nothing fancy, just large portions of food cooked in old-fashioned
style with plenty of fat. I got a breakfast plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon,
and we ordered a pot of coffee to share along with a carafe of orange juice. I
had my doubts about my ability to keep it down, but I went along with it
anyway. I went along with everything; there was nothing else left to do.

“Johnny’s going to have to come back to school soon,”
Georgia pointed out. “He could fail his classes if he has too many unexcused
absences. And, more importantly, to some people, he might miss the college
championship if he doesn’t get back soon.” I laughed.

“God, it’s just so…” I sighed and added sugar and milk
to my coffee, stirring it much longer than I had to. “I can’t believe any of
this is happening. It’s so terrible. I mean, what that girl went through, I
wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, and if I really thought that Johnny had had
anything to do with it…”

“You’d gut him?” Georgia suggested. I laughed again,
weakly.

“Yeah, probably. Or cut his dick off.” I shook my
head. “But I can’t believe he actually did it anything like what people are
accusing him of. I know him. I saw him talking about it. You just can’t — you
can’t fake that kind of frustration and sadness.”

“He’s really torn up about it, isn’t he?” I nodded.

“He is. He’s…he thinks that he has to basically be
responsible for it never happening to any girl he’s around ever again. He’s
wrong — he did everything he could, I know he did. But he’s taken it so hard,
and something like this…” I swallowed. Our food arrived and I poured maple
syrup indiscriminately all over my pancakes, not even caring if it landed on my
eggs. I wasn’t sure how much of it I would even be able to eat.

“It’ll stop soon, one way or the other.”

“It’s not even that,” I said with a shrug, cutting a
bite out of the pancakes and forcing it to my mouth. “I can’t even function. I
can’t go online. Every time I do, I either see some horrible comment about
Johnny or someone’s posted something awful on my wall. I can’t…” I felt my eyes
burning with the tears that seemed to come so readily. “I just want everyone to
shut up and leave me alone. Leave him alone.”

“Everyone loves to see a golden boy fall,” Georgia
said, digging into her eggs benedict. She shook her head. “It happens with
celebrities all the time and sports guys. They love it when someone who’s had a
little bit of luck has something bad like this happen to him.”

We talked and ate, and I drank coffee mindlessly, sipping
in between each bite, refilling my mug and doctoring it again and then again. I
started to feel the caffeine surging through me; I was jittery from all of it,
my stomach not nearly full enough to justify how much coffee I’d had. I was so
tired, so afraid, so sad, that I didn’t care.

I paid for breakfast and we went back to the car,
still talking about the incredible, awful situation. “Do you think he meant
it?” I asked as we pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t really want to go
back to campus; without Johnny there was really nothing for me there, at least
not over the weekend. If I knew where he was, I’d go after him. I couldn’t even
think about going back to my parents’ house because I knew I would be just as
miserable there.

“Meant what?” Georgia asked, settling in the passenger
seat and changing the song on the stereo to something a little more upbeat.

“About forgetting about him. About just…moving on. Do
you think he really means it’s over for good?” Georgia bit her bottom lip.

“If things — if it doesn’t clear up, I could see him
meaning it,” she said. “I don’t think he’s fallen out of love with you at all,
but, I mean, it’s not like he can expect you to stand up for him to everyone
and deal with all the shit that’s being flung.”

“But I would!” I said. “If he can take it — if he can
deal with it, the least I can do is support him.” I shook my head. “I just wish
I knew how to make him understand that.” Georgia shrugged.

“You have to be patient. You have to let things settle
down. Once everything is cleared up, you can try again with Johnny. I really
don’t think he’ll forget about you or something stupid like that.” I tried to
take comfort in what Georgia was saying. I knew that Johnny had told me to stay
away from him, to stop reaching out to him, for my own good. He didn’t want to
involve me in his disgrace. But I also knew that I didn’t really have any
choice in how I felt.

We pulled up to a stop light next to the train station
near campus and I looked around, wondering at the fact that everyone on the
road with me looked so cheerful. The weather was even cheerful. How could
everything look so pleasant and happy when I was so miserable? “Hey, isn’t that
Johnny’s truck?” Georgia asked me. My heart started pounding. I looked over at
the train station where she had pointed. Sure enough, parked in the near-vacant
lot, right there, was Johnny’s truck. I would recognize it anywhere. He had
gone to the train station; that much was obvious. But where had he gone to from
there?