Worse for Better- Book #1 in the WF Series

Chapter 17: Family Reunion

♡  Alaiya's POV:  ♡

I walk back into the kitchen and see Roman leaning against the counter.

"I'm not apologizing," he shrugs and my glare returns.

"This deal can't work if you don't completely leave it alone which means you have to start over," I explain again.

"Did he apologize for calling you a slut and-?" I hold my finger up to my lips to silence him as I walk closer up to him.

"He doesn't know you heard that and you will not tell him you did either," I whisper while giving him a pointed look.

"Why? What's he gonna do?" he tests me.

I know what he's going to do, but Roman doesn't need to know.

"It was private and he's probably embarrassed," I answer with the best excuse I can think of.

"Fine, let's see what happens if I tell him," he suggests before he almost yells his name, but I quickly step forward and slap my hand over his mouth.

Abso-freaking-lutely not.

He looks down at me as I tell him to quickly hush because this will not end out good for me. If he even mentions that he heard that part, Carson will completely lose it.

He pushes my hand off his mouth pretty softly and holds it down with a gentle grip on my wrist.

"You promised," I say softly so that Carson can't hear us.

"You know, you still haven't mentioned the fact that he was responsible for putting that picture up of you." He at least lowers his voice down this time.

"Because he wasn't," I deny his assumption.

Carson would never do that. Roman's just making things up now. Whoever did that must've been someone random in school and the chancellor said that he's looking into it already on the campus's cameras so until there's evidence, there's no point of Roman continuing this blame game.

"Oh, so a random fucking person just happened to know exactly when you were changing or where your bedroom was?" he asks sarcastically.

"The school is looking into it so I don't need you to intrude on it." I fold my arms. "And about what he called me, you and your friends called me the exact same thing," I remind him something he's been avoiding as well.

How is he gonna be angry about Carson calling me all those things when he and the rest of the football team called me the same thing? He's being a complete and utter hypocrite.

"I admit that I've called you annoying as hell, fucking stubborn, a pain in my ass, f-," he begins to list the probably thousands of insults he's called me, but I stop him because we don't have that much time.

"I get it!" I whisper-yell at him.

"But I've never called you a slut or anything of that sort," he states, looking pretty serious. "I could lose my position on the team if I said any of that shit."

"What do you mean?" I scrunch my eyebrows.

"Coach has a strict slut-shaming rule and one of the guys already got kicked off the team because coach heard him call another girl a whore," he explains.

I oh, though still disturbed.

"So none of the guys called me-," I begin again, and he shakes his head no before I can even finish.

"Who the fuck told you that?" he asks with a disgusted look on his face.

I look everywhere and try to think of a way out of this.