“You’re male,” I say. “You’ll succeed no matter what.”

He has zero interest in this play and not an ounce of talent. Why else did she give him this role?

He cocks his head, studying me. “Do you really think that’s what stood in your way?” He steps toward me slowly. “Don’t you think Lambert would’ve given that role to say…Clay, if she’d asked?”

I unbutton the coat but keep my eyes on him as he continues to move closer. Callum and Clay deserve each other. Both rotten human beings who won’t realize the snake in the other as long as they distract themselves with how beautiful they are together.

Callum continues, “I have no doubt you’ll pull yourself up out of the swamps and truly live a life that makes you happy, Liv, because you deserve it,” he says, stopping a few feet before me. “You do. You’re better than us, and don’t think I don’t know that.”

I’m glad.

“But it won’t be here,” he tells me. “And it won’t be soon.”

I remain quiet, letting my eyes flit left and right to make sure he’s alone. He always seems to travel with backup, and while he’s never tried anything, he will.

“Why do you think Clay hates you so much?” he presses but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Because she knows this is the last time that she’ll ever be more than what you are.”

“She was never more or better.”

“She would’ve gotten Mercutio,” he retorts.

I clench my teeth, and I know he sees it, because his smile grows.

He’s right. They wouldn’t have said no to her, or probably anyone else at this school.

And I can lie to myself all I want and say that I need this part to get some experience under me before I apply as a Theater major in college, but the truth is, I’m hungry. I want to be seen before I leave this fucking place.

By my brothers. By this school. I can’t leave Marymount or St. Carmen a nobody.

Someday, I’m going to be a voice to others and relay how I barely had any friends. How Clay Collins made it so I never belonged here. How her mother renovated the fucking locker room showers three years ago so I didn’t ogle their naked daughters.

“Do you want the role?” he asks.

I lift my eyes to his.

He tips his chin. “It’s yours.”

“If I consider your offer,” I add the unsaid, because I know exactly where he’s going with this. We’ve had this conversation.

But he just laughs quietly, dropping his gaze and inching closer. “Oh, you’ve had time to consider it,” he taunts. “Now, I need an answer.”

I gave you my answer.

“She’s pretty,” he whispers suddenly.

I pause.

“Soft, blonde, young... Lips that taste like a milkshake, and that’s not even half as good as the taste of her tongue.”

My stomach coils and knots, wanting my boot in his face. Picturing that entitled smile covered in blood.

“And she’ll want everything you do to her,” he says.

I toss the coat on a nearby chair and start to move around him, but he steps in front of me and pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket, holding it up to me.

“You do this,” he says, clarifying. “And I will get you this part.”

He hands me the paper, and I hesitate, not for a second indulging his offer, but my curiosity has the better of me.

Unfolding the paper, I see it’s a check. From Garrett Ames.

To the school.

In the note, it reads For the theater department.

I stare at the twenty-five-thousand-dollar donation which, I assume, is Callum’s angle here. Lambert gets some play money for next school year if she lets me have the role I want. And Callum will take care of it, if I give him what he wants.

So this is how the world works, is it? I put on a sex show with some chick I don’t know for a group of slobbering frat boys, and I’ll live happily ever after?

Or will all my hard work and time and good intentions really just come down to how well I forever perform on the casting couch?

I feel Callum move around me as I study the check longer than I like. It’s real. It’s signed.

It’s easy money to the Ames’. They wouldn’t even notice it missing.

The stage hardens under my shoes, and I feel the heat of the spotlight that isn’t even shining and the eyes of every seat filled.

I can picture it, it’s opening night. The snow falls over my head, and I’m going to die one of the most powerful deaths ever written for stage.

God, I want it. I want a lot of things.

But you know what I want most of all? I really want Clay and Callum and everyone else to start paying their fucking bills.

“No one else from our school will be there?” I ask, playing along.

But he doesn’t answer. I hear him exhale behind me, suddenly excited that I’m actually agreeing.

Idiot.

“Olivia…” he breathes out, and I think he’s about to come.

“And it’s just her?” I turn, questioning him. “Not you or anyone else, right?”

He nods, thrill lighting up behind his eyes.

All of a sudden, he holds up a copper key in my face, always ready. “Fox Hill,” he tells me. “Don’t lose it and be ready. I’ll get you as my understudy, then the role, and then you pay up. Got it?”

Fox Hill is their country club, but it apparently also has a secret, after-hours clubhouse where Callum Ames wants to use me to put on a show and impress his college buddies.

“I can’t wait to see you go to work on her.” He gives me that smile he gives all the girls. Like the one he gives Clay. “Make it hard. And hot. But if you don’t show,” he says, his tone suddenly stern. “It’s open season on you, Jaeger, and your whole family.”

“How do I know I can trust you to keep your end of the deal?” I ask.

He backs away. “When you have nothing, you really have nothing to lose, right?”

He smiles that fucking smug, I-own-the-world-and-you-know-it grin before pivoting and heads down the stairs and off the stage.

I hold up the key, wondering if he’s just stupid or too clever for me. Maybe I want the part bad enough. Maybe I do. My insides churn, not wanting to admit to myself that I’m not entirely sure how low I might sink in life if tempted. If you want something for so long, what price is too great?

But now I have the part.

And a key to his clubhouse.

I lift my chin, the wheels in my head starting to turn. And all without yet paying the toll.

I RUN MY hands down my thighs, the flesh of my nipples hardening as the air touches them.

“Bravado” plays on my phone, and I close my eyes as I sit at the end of my bed in my underwear, feeling the weight of his text sitting on my bed next to me.

Now, he orders. Let me see your stomach.

I’d ignored the text from Callum last night, figuring I’d make up some excuse that I fell asleep or something. There was no way I was texting anyone pictures of myself.

I promise him that my clothes will look better off in person.

Eventually, he’ll want me to prove it.

My mind drifts, the words coming again—against my neck in a whisper tucked away and hidden in tight spaces and dark places.