Chapter 1After my brother buzzed off all my hair, I started college looking like some androgynous freak.
Day one, some hot-as-hell guy literally dragged me into the men's room begging me to buy him underwear.
Second encounter, he was wasted and trying to throw money at me.
Third time, he was crying, asking if I'd kiss him 'cause he was hurting so bad.
I was so damn desperate for affection, I let him walk all over me.
When things got steamy, he discovered my little secret—I'm actually a GIRL.
But the real nightmare? Next morning, my parents somehow heard about us and cornered him demanding cash.
Jaxon went ice-cold, called me a fraud, told me to get the fuck out of his life forever.
So I did exactly that—disappeared completely.
Little did I know, for the next five years, this man would tear the world apart looking for me.
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First day of college, I became the campus freak. All 'cause I was this dark, skinny kid with ratty clothes and hair buzzed down to the scalp—except I was a girl.
Classmates kept staring at me like I was some alien, making me wanna crawl into a hole. I threw on this beat-up baseball cap and tried to avoid everyone as much as possible.
After a while, people got used to treating me like the weirdo, at least they started ignoring me.
And I got pretty good at being invisible in crowds.
Until that evening when I was leaving the classroom around eight like usual. It was pouring rain, and on my way back to the dorm, I heard some noise coming from the bathroom.
Some guy was yelling: "Yo, is anyone out there? Can someone help me out..."
I was gonna pretend I didn't hear anything, but then I spotted the latest iPhone 15 Pro Max on the floor through the door crack. My heart did this weird skip.
Mom and Dad still hadn't sent me any money this month. I only had fifty bucks left.
I sucked it up and went in. "You..."
My voice came out all raspy.
Soon as I said one word, the guy latched onto me like I was his lifeline.
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't leave, please help me out here."
"I got hammered and pissed all over myself by accident. Can you grab me some underwear? I'll pay you."
I was like, "Underwear?"
Where the hell was I supposed to find underwear in the middle of nowhere?
Then I saw a stack of cash sliding out through the door crack—a thousand bucks.
"Here's the money, go buy some. Keep whatever's left."
"Oh, and my phone fell on the floor. Can you grab it for me?"
I took the money and picked up his phone from the floor.
The thing looked like it got soaked and died.
Money talks, right?
That grand was burning a hole in my hand. Part of me wanted to just take the cash and run, but I ended up sprinting to the convenience store off-campus and buying the cheapest men's underwear they had in XL, plus a towel.
Cost me twenty-eight bucks total. That left me with $972.
I clutched all that cash and headed back to the men's room.
A few minutes later, the door opened and this tall, dripping wet guy walked out.
Tall, gorgeous, and... dangerous-looking.
He had this wicked scar next to his eyebrow with a band-aid over it. When he saw me, he raised an eyebrow like he was surprised.
"Thanks, bro."
The guy ran his fingers through his wet hair casually.
When I didn't move, he asked, "Something else?"
I pointed at his shirt. "You're still soaked."
"I'll change at home."
He looked ready to bounce.
I quickly tried to give him back the money.
"Your cash."
He looked at my hand kinda surprised. "I told you to keep it, so keep it."
The he scratched his ass and went, "Damn, did you seriously buy me five-dollar underwear? This shit's itchy as hell."
I felt kinda guilty—I really didn't know how much men's underwear was supposed to cost.
"S-sorry, I..."
"Whatever, I'm out."
I watched him drive off in his sports car and realized he was the psycho campus heartthrob everyone always talked about—Jaxon Reeves.
Chapter 2
If our school had two weirdos, one was me—the bald girl—and the other was Jaxon Reeves.
Legend had it his family was loaded, but his personality was all over the place. One second he'd be chill as fuck, next second he'd explode over nothing.
Everyone said he was probably mentally unstable.
So most people gave him a wide berth, scared of getting caught in the crossfire.
From what I could tell hanging around him, I was probably the weirder one.
Two months into school, my parents acted like they forgot I existed. When I was completely broke, I borrowed a classmate's phone to call my mom.
She picked up right away—sounded like she was at a farmers market or something.
"Hello?"
"Mom, it's me."
"...Brooklyn, right?"
"Yeah."
"What's up?"
Her ice-cold tone made me shrink back.
"Mom, I... I'm out of money..."
Beep beep beep—
She hung up on me.
A few minutes later, I got a text.
[Last time you pissed off your brother, he still hasn't forgiven you. So you don't deserve any money.]
Just 'cause I ate some stale chips my brother didn't want, he cut off my hair and convinced the family to cut off my allowance.
I couldn't even describe what I was feeling. After twenty years of living in a family like that, I guess I was used to it.
Lucky for me, I'd asked around before—there was a nightclub off-campus hiring servers.
They'd gotten complaints about their staff doing escort work, so they wanted to hire some low-key people—perfect for me.
Five grand a month, night shift from 10 PM to 3 AM.
Pretty sweet deal.
After confirming Mom wasn't gonna send me jack shit, I called the manager and started that same night.
That's when I ran into Jaxon again.
He was surrounded by a whole crew of people, looked like his usual crowd. They kept calling him "young master" this and "young master" that, and Jaxon just sat there smiling at their ass-kissing.
Those leeches ordered the most expensive liquor since Jaxon was footing the bill.
Jaxon didn't touch a drop. Just sat there with a cigarette, eyes half-closed, letting them shower him with compliments.
Third time I brought drinks in, Jaxon spotted me.
He jutted his chin at me. "Yo."
"Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"Whatever, doesn't matter." He gave me this lazy smile. "You look skinny as hell—did you eat dinner?"
I actually hadn't. No money for food, just snuck some leftover fruit while cleaning the private rooms.
I nodded. "Yeah, I ate."
Jaxon propped his chin on his hand, tapping his fingers.
"If you'd said no, I was gonna take you for lobster."
Couldn't tell if he actually remembered me or was just talking shit.
We didn't talk for the rest of the night.
Business was booming at the club. Jaxon alone dropped over thirty grand that night.
Before leaving, he stuffed some tips in my pocket.
"Now I remember—you're the skinny kid who brought me underwear."
Chapter 3
Jaxon tipped me three thousand bucks—half a month's salary.
First thing I did was pay off my overdue dorm fees, then bought a bunch of pads on some discount app.
Those were the two things I couldn't skimp on.
I saved the remaining grand, watching those few cents in daily interest add up.
Seeing those numbers slowly grow in my account gave me all kinds of feelings.
Twenty years of being a doormat at home, never had any status that was actually mine.
Slightest thing went wrong and WHAM—slaps across the face.
I was a coward who didn't know how to fight back against anything.
Now that I was on my own, my brain still couldn't flip that switch.
Working the night shift, I was fixing a broken sign by the men's room when I bumped into Jaxon again.
He seemed a little drunk, came out to smoke and get some air. The second he spotted me, he posted up right behind me, just staring.
"You're always alone. What's your name?"
I turned around nervously. "Brooklyn."
He smacked his lips. "Brooke, how 'bout you stick with me? I'll pay you."
I was thunderstruck, just stood there frozen.
Jaxon shrugged it off and added, "I got tons of friends outside school, but here everyone's scared of me."
"Tsk, all I did was lose my temper a few times and beat up some people. I'm not that scary."
"Brooklyn, you be my friend. I'll have your back."
He was rough as hell, made me wanna ask—if you're so tough, why do you even care about having friends at school?
But I didn't ask. I wanted someone to shake up my world too.
"So... if I'm your friend, will you hit me?"
"I'm not crazy. Why would I hit you if you don't piss me off?"
Jaxon snorted. "Besides, if I ever lose it, just run. With those skinny legs, you should be pretty fast."
No wonder some people called him the Husky Prince. His brain really wasn't firing on all cylinders.
I sighed. "Fine. From now on, at school, I'll be your friend."
Jaxon grinned like he just found a new toy.
I didn't care. If someone could add a little color to my world—even if it was blood red—that was better than nothing.
Being friends with Jaxon was actually pretty fun.
He'd throw his arm around my shoulders and we'd strut around campus together.
I already had a bad rep, and hanging with him made people say we were "the freak convention."
Walking together, if we stopped anywhere for too long, everyone else would scatter.
Jaxon's mood swings were as legendary as people said—sometimes manic, sometimes violent.
When he raged, he'd smash everything around him to pieces.
When he was in a good mood, he wanted to share every good thing in his world with me.
After we became friends, the first time I saw him lose his shit was one afternoon.
He said he was hungry and dragged me out to eat. I said I could cook, so he took me back to his apartment.
I lit the stove, boiled pasta, chopped vegetables, made him a bowl of tomato and egg linguine.
He just fucking lost it.
Shaking, eyes all red, smashed every plate and bowl on the floor.
Then grabbed my throat and pinned me against the wall.
"I HATE pasta with eggs! I fucking HATE this shit!"
"GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT!"
His eyes looked like they were bleeding tears.
I stared at him quietly, tasting his pain, and reached up to touch his chin.
But Jaxon slapped my hand away.
It hurt.
"Don't touch me, you're all bad people."
"You'll all leave me, every one of you will leave me, GET OUT! GET OUT!"
He was screaming, but his grip was getting looser.
Half an hour later, he gradually calmed down and went into his room.
I cleaned up all the broken pieces and threw out the food scraps, then made something else from scratch.
When Jaxon came out of the shower, he was back to normal. Handed me a small box. "Got this for you. Take it."
Brand new iPhone 15 Pro Max, same model as his.
I slipped it in my pocket.
Jaxon looked at me. "Did I hurt you just now? When I grabbed your throat?"
"Nah."
Compared to my brother hitting me with a broomstick and throwing ashtrays at me, this was nothing.
I sat back down on the couch and opened the box, looking at the square device inside.
"Jaxon."
"Yeah?"
"I don't know how to use this."
His eyebrows scrunched together. "How'd you get straight A's then?"
Ever since he accidentally saw my grades, Jaxon loved teasing me about it.
I deadpanned back at him: "You got straight F's, don't ask me that question."
Jaxon burst out laughing, switching to happy mode. "Damn, look at you getting bold, roasting me now."
He pulled me into his arms. "You little bastard, pretty soon you're gonna be walking all over me."
