When Sinners Play (Sinners of Hawthorne University 1)

On the first Friday of December, there’s a shift in the air as all the students start counting down the days until winter break, laughing and joking and talking about what their plans are. What fancy ski resort they’re going to, or what private tropical beach they’ll be on.

Fuck that.

And fuck them.

When class ends, I don’t even try to go back to my room and paint. I can’t stand the thought of staring at another blank canva

s, trying to find an ounce of creative spark inside my soul.

So I head off campus, escaping the claustrophobic, manicured grounds of Hawthorne. There’s a dive bar that’s about a twenty minute drive from school—it’s a longer walk, but I walk anyway. Max could drive if I invited her, but I need to be alone for a little while, to down a few whiskeys in silence.

The place is eerily reminiscent of The Silent Hour, complete with worn, cracked vinyl on the barstools and half-broken neon beer signs behind the bar. It takes effort not to glance at the door every time it opens, some stupid part of me hoping against all reason and logic that Gray will step inside. That all of the Sinners will.

They don’t, of course, and I rest my elbows on the bar and sip my whiskey until the burn in my throat turns to nothing more than a slight hint of warmth and my limbs feel a little leaden.

A few hours later, I slap a few bills on the bar—courtesy of the stash under my mattress—and head back out into the night.

I don’t feel better, exactly. But at least my heart doesn’t hurt quite as much.

The throbbing ache in my chest builds a little as I near the Hawthorne grounds, as if my body is rebelling at the idea of setting foot back on campus. I can’t blame it. No part of me really wants to, and the only thing that keeps me going back is sheer pig-headed stubbornness.

I’m walking down a side street, the imposing buildings of Hawthorne looming ahead of me, when I catch sight of a figure across the street.

It’s Cliff, and he’s heading in the opposite direction as me, away from campus.

Not in the mood to deal with him right now, I drop my head a little and pick up my pace, striding quickly down the sidewalk. But he notices me anyway, veering off course and crossing the street to meet me.

“Hey, Sophie.” He grins at me, his red hair taking on a dark cast in the dim light. “What are you up to?”

“Just getting a drink,” I say, hoping he’ll get the hint when I keep walking.

He doesn’t.

“Yeah? Where at?” Cliff falls into step beside me, looking down at me with interested eyes.

“A dive off campus. Warren’s, I think it’s called. But I’m calling it a night. I’m tired.”

“Cool.” He keeps pace with me, completely abandoning whatever destination he originally had. “I’ll walk you.”

“I’m a big girl. I can walk myself.”

Cliff grins, a flash of white teeth. “Oh, I’m well aware of that.”

He chuckles, and the sound grates at my nerves. They were barely soothed by the whiskey I just drank, and now he’s undoing all of that, stealing the last bit of my numbness as irritation burns in its place.

“Well, then.” I stop and turn to face him. “You can go do whatever you were planning on. I don’t need a babysitter.”

He shrugs lightly, glancing up and down the street as if looking for threats. “If you say so. Just trying to do my duty as a gentleman; make sure you’re alright. I know you haven’t had it easy since you got here, and there are a lot of creeps on this campus.”

“Yeah.” I shoot him a pointed look. “There are. Which is why I’d rather walk on my own.”

I turn to start walking again, but Cliff catches my arm, stopping me. He gives me a bashful grin when I turn back to him. “Okay, look, I have an ulterior motive, alright? I wanted to ask you out. Actually, I’ve wanted to for a while now, but I was never quite sure where you stood with the Sinners. But sometimes a guy’s just gotta go for it, right?”

He grins again, and I tug my arm out of his grasp, wishing like fuck that I had asked Max to come with me to Warren’s tonight. “Cliff, I’m not—”

“I really like you, Sophie.” He catches my arm again, both of them this time, pulling me a little closer to him. “I’ve felt this… this connection to you ever since you came here. You feel it too, don’t you? This thing between us?”

“No. I don’t.”