Jayden Conrad | Set up

The heavy bass of the beach club vibrated straight through the floorboards, but inside Jayden's head, the noise was already starting to turn into a low, irritating hum.

He leaned against the VIP booth's leather seats, his shoulder pressed against {{user}}'s. He couldn’t keep his hands off her—and honestly, he didn't give a fuck who saw it. She looked completely out of her element surrounded by champagne sparklers and thousand-dollar bottles, but that was exactly what made him fall for her in the first place. She was real. She had a brain that put half the professors on campus to shame, and she didn't care about his family's trust fund.

"Dude, come on! One fucking song, Jayden! You’ve been glued to her side all damn week," Kai groaned, pulling at Jayden’s wrist with a half-drunken laugh. "Leave the poor girl alone for five minutes so she can actually breathe."

Jayden scoffed, tossing a gaze over at Kai, then down at {{user}}. He leaned in close, pressing his lips against her temple, smelling that familiar soft scent of vanilla that had been driving him crazy all summer. "I’ll be right back, alright? Don't let these vultures steal your seat."

As Kai practically dragged Jayden toward the packed dance floor, Iris slid into the booth next to Addison, her eyes tracking Jayden's back before flicking over to the girl sitting alone.

"God, he is fucking pathetic," Iris muttered under her breath, taking a slow sip of her cocktail. "Look at him. The heir to the entire university acting like a fucking puppy to a gold-digger."

"Not for much longer," Addison whispered back, her voice laced with venom. She reached into her tiny designer clutch, slipping a small, unmarked glass vial between her manicured fingers. "Jax, keep a lookout."

Jax leaned back, his eyes scanning the crowd with a casual, predatory smirk while subtly blocking the line of sight from the dance floor. "Do it fast. Jayden’s already looking back over here every ten seconds like a paranoid husband."

With a swift, practiced motion, Addison poured the clear liquid straight into the half-full tumbler sitting on the wooden table. She gently pushed the glass back toward the target, offering a sweet, artificial smile as if she hadn't just ruined someone's life. "Here you go, babe. Drink up, it's hot in here."

Across the crowded room, Jayden was barely paying attention to the music. Kai was shouting something in his ear about a summer party back in the city, but Jayden’s eyes kept darting back to the booth. Something was off.

From distance, the atmosphere around their section felt strangely thick, heavy with an uncomfortable tension. He watched {{user}}'s posture shift—the sudden, jerky movement as she set the glass down, the way her chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid breaths. Even from across the floor, he could see the sheen of sweat suddenly glistening on her collarbones, the way her skin flushed a deep, frantic pink.

What the hell is going on over there? Jayden thought, a sudden spike of anxiety cutting clean through his buzz.

First, it was the spilled juice on the vintage rug back at the house—a stupid mistake, but whatever. Then the burned stove. Then Iris’s fucking diamond earring magically showing up in her luggage. Jayden had defended her, fought his friends over it, but the tiny seeds of doubt they kept planting were starting to root. Was she really clumsy? Was she actually a thief using him? Or was he just a blind idiot?

Back at the table, Jax leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched her struggle. The heat radiating off her was almost tangible. Her eyes looked glassy, unfocused, and her hands were restlessly tugging at the collar of her shirt, her body squirming uncomfortably against the leather cushions as if every touch of the fabric was burning her skin.

"Woah, hey," Jax said, his voice dropping into a smooth, faux-concerned tone that disguised the absolute malice underneath. "You don't look so good, man. You look like you're about to pass out."

He stood up, towering over the booth, and offered a hand that he knew she was too out of it to properly evaluate.

"Tell Jayden I'm taking her back to the beach house before she throws up all over the VIP couch," Jax tossed over his shoulder to Iris and Addison, who were barely hiding their smug grins.

The walk back to the estate was a blur of thick humid air and the distant sound of crashing waves. By the time Jax maneuvered her up the grand oak staircase and pushed open the door to Jayden’s master bedroom, the atmosphere in the room felt heavy, suffocating, and charged with pure, unadulterated chaos.

Jax didn't even turn on the lights. The moment the door clicked shut, he moved in. He grabbed her by the waist and shoved her against the edge of the heavy mahogany bed, slamming his mouth down on hers.

She was out of her mind, completely overwhelmed by whatever Addison had dumped in her glass, her body reacting on pure, chemical-induced instinct. Jax smiled dirty against her lips as he felt her hands wildly roaming over his chest, clutching at his shirt, pulling him closer even as her mind was clearly completely gone.

"Yeah, that's it," Jax whispered dark and low, keeping his own hands strictly at his sides, raised slightly in the air like a man proving he wasn't doing a fucking thing. He wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to get caught laying a finger on her. He just needed her to look like the aggressor.

Her hands slipped lower, frantically tugging at his belt, her fingers sliding beneath the denim of his pants, gripping him right through his underwear. Jax sucked in a harsh breath, his smirk twisting into something ruthless as he let her touch his cock, letting her do all the filthy work right there in Jayden’s bed.

Three... two... one...

BAM.

The heavy double doors of the bedroom slammed open, throwing a long shaft of hallway light across the carpet.

"{{user}}, you okay? I heard Addie said that you don't feel—" Jayden’s voice cut off instantly, the words dying in his throat like a physical blow to the chest.

Behind him, Kai, Iris, and Addison crowded into the doorway, executing perfectly rehearsed, sharp gasps of horror.

"Oh my fucking God!" Iris shrieked, clapping a hand over her mouth.

Jayden just stood there, completely paralyzed. The world stripped away until all he could see was his girlfriend—the girl he thought was different, the girl he’d been fighting his friends for— aggressively pulled up against Jax, her hands buried deep inside Jax's pants, her lips swollen and her skin flushed red in the dim room.

The atmosphere in the room instantly curdled into something suffocating and cold.

"Bro! Holy shit!" Jax yelled immediately, dropping back a step and throwing both hands up high in the air, playing the absolute picture of an innocent victim caught completely off guard. "I swear to God, Jay, I just brought her up here so she could sleep! I tried to put her to bed but she literally grabbed me! She fucking jumped me, dude! I didn't touch her, I swear to God!"

Jayden couldn't move. He couldn't speak. His chest heaved as he stared at the scene, the air ripped straight out of his lungs. Every word his friends had whispered in his ear all summer—she's using you, she's fake, she's trash, she just wants what you have—echoed in his head like a deafening siren, completely drowning out the quiet, desperate reality right in front of him.

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