Page 58 of Zero Chance

Laughing softly, my best friend pushed to his feet with a slow shake of his head before sending me a farewell salute.“Well, I bid you good luck with that, bro.”

“Hey, why you leaving?”I cried in outrage as he started for the door.“You’re not going to help me?”

He laughed.“Of course, I am.I gotta find out what chick was smart enough to know she needed to keep her identity a secret from you, and I want to shake her damn hand.But I need my beauty sleep first.”

I rolled my eyes.“Man, fuck you.”

He chuckled some more as he opened the door and stepped into the hall.“Yeah, yeah.Love you too, buddy.”Pulling the door shut behind him, he left me alone in my room to stew on this all by myself.

“I hope you choke in your sleep and die,” I added, lifting my voice so he could hear me through the wall.

“See you in the morning,” he called back.

I heaved out a breath, feeling better after my talk with him, and I hopped off my desk to pace my room, picking my stress-reliever brain up off the floor and tossing it between my hands as I went.But no matter how I played the encounter with Mystery Girl back through my head, I couldn’t figure out who she was.

I swear, it was starting to get light outside when I finally gave up and called it a night.I stripped down to a pair of jockey shorts and threw back the covers to climb into my bed, only to hiss out a curse and leap about five feet in the air.

“Son of a bitch, motherfucking hell balls!”I danced back on my tiptoes until I realized the snake on my mattress was rubber, not real.

“What the fuck?”I muttered, slowing to a stop to frown at it.

But who in the hell thought they were funny enough to pull a prank like this on me?

Growling, I stormed back to the faux serpent and picked it up, only to pause and blink at it dangling from my thumb and index finger.

There’s a fake snake in your bed.

Holy shit.

I jerked my face up and blinked around my room in surprise.

Mystery Girl had known this was here.

Thinking back to her words, I couldn’t tell if she’d beenwarningme about its presence or…confessing.Which meant, she either knew who’d put this here, or she’d done it herself.

I dropped the snake in the trash, wondering if she’d been inside my room.And if so, what else had she left for me to find?

Curious, I did a quick search, glancing in my closet, under my bed, through all my desk drawers.When I didn’t find anything else out of place, I huffed out my disappointment and returned to the bed, crawling under the covers and punching my pillow before settling down.

By the time I finally found some sleep, my brain hurt, and I knew I had to find this girl.

Because not knowing who she was might just drive me insane.

13

KEENE

Iwoke the next day late in the morning.

With a groan, because my head was pounding, I rolled onto my back and opened my eyes to blink up at the ceiling.

I was going to find her.

Today.

Determined, I whipped back my sheets and sprang from the bed.After throwing on a pair of jeans, I hurried from my room, shirtless and barefoot.

In the kitchen, Oaklynn, Alec, and Xander were already awake.Probably because they hadn’t stayed up as late as I had, wondering which mystery person had hooked up withthemthe night before.

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