Selena Kitt - Baumgartner Generations - Henry

“How about The Red Hawk?” she suggested.

“Half an hour?”

“See you there.” She hung up.

The Red Hawk was pretty quiet for a Thursday night. They sat in one of the high-backed booths, Libby eating the Thai shrimp salad, and Henry was getting messy with the Red Hawk wings, extra spicy. They made his eyes water and his nose run.

“I bet it didn’t snow down in North Carolina,” Henry said, making conversation. They’d had a foot of snow over the break, just in time for Christmas.

“Henry, I need to talk to you about Dean.”

He paused, a wing in his hands, then nodded. “Okay.” At least now he knew the topic of conversation. Maybe she knew Dean was in trouble? Had he gone to her for money, too?

Just please don’t let her know about Toni.

“But I have to tell you first why I was fired from the paper last year.”

He waited, not understanding what in the world that could have to do with Dean, or anything having to do with Henry, but he was sure Libby would connect the dots.

“I told you I did a sort of expose on fraternity hazing.”

“Right.” Henry remembered. “Forced drinking and all that.”

She went on. “Well, the university did an investigation after the article went to print. They wanted to know my sources.”

“Let me guess.” Henry licked his fingers. “You wouldn’t tell them.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She blinked at him, indignant. “The first amendment still applies, even at a college paper. We have the same constitutional rights as professional newspapers. This isn’t high school.”

“Then why did they fire you?”

Libby fiercely poked her salad with her fork. “The Board of Regents said that if I didn’t leave the paper voluntarily, they were going to fire my advisor instead.”

“Jesus.” His jaw dropped.

She smiled sadly. “Nice, huh?”

“I’m sorry, Libby.”

“I’m over it.” She gestured his apology away, but it was clear to Henry that wasn’t really true. “Anyway…one of my sources was Dean’s brother, Chris.”

Just when he thought his jaw couldn’t drop any further. “You’re kidding me.”

“He was a senior member of the frat and he knew all the ins and outs.” She stabbed at a shrimp.

“And he talked to you willingly?” Henry was doubtful. He hadn’t met any of Dean’s family, but he couldn’t imagine them being much different from Dean. “He knew he was being interviewed?”

“He was…” Libby took a sip of her water. “I was dating him.”

Henry sat back, stunned. And all this time, Dean had never said a word. Chris had graduated last year. So he was the senior guy she’d been dating, he realized.

“But Chris wasn’t my source,” she explained. Her salad had suddenly become her focus, as if she could annihilate it with her gaze. “He’s just how I found out about the hazing.”

She took a bite of shrimp, chewing slowly. Henry had lost interest in his wings. He just stared at her.

“The rumors were running rampant at the time-stories about tying pledges’ hands behind their backs and pushing them down the stairs, or leaving them all alone in one room with a kitten-and no one could come out until the kitten was dead.”

Henry choked on his Diet Coke. “Jesus!”

“For the record, I didn’t see anything like that.” She shrugged. “But there was forced drinking. They’d duct tape them to chairs and put funnels in their mouths. One kid nearly died from alcohol poisoning.”

“You saw this for yourself?” Henry had no real love for the frat he’d pledged anymore, but it was still hard to believe they’d done stuff like that to pledges. “Or someone told you?”

“I saw it,” she insisted, glancing up as the waitress went by, picking up Henry’s empty chili bowl.

“You’re a girl,” Henry observed. “How did you get in?”

She took another bite of her salad, chewing slowly. “Because there was also a lot of sex,” she said finally. “And they hired prostitutes.”

Henry stared, then he gaped. No way. It wasn’t possible. What was she telling him?

“You were a…?”

“No!” Her eyes widened but her face had turned almost as red as her hair. “But I did sign up with the escort service they were rumored to use. And I was there on the last night of Hell Week. That’s when they ‘reward’ the pledges for making it through.”

“They were rewarded with prostitutes?” He remembered his own ‘reward’ night well enough-although he clearly hadn’t had to go through what many of the previous year’s pledges did.

“You pledged.” Libby gazed coolly at him. “Didn’t you get laid out of the deal?”

He cleared his throat. “They did something different this year. Sort of.”

“Really?” Her red eyebrows arched. “What?”

“I’d rather not say,” he mumbled, taking a drink of his soda.

“I don’t blame you.”

He decided to change the subject, although now all he could think of was that night with Val. Had Libby done something like that? “So you didn’t…did you actually participate?”

“No,” Libby denied, but her face was turning even redder. “I mean, I danced and…stuff. But I didn’t sleep with anybody.”

“Chris must have known you weren’t a prostitute.”

“Chris wasn’t there that night. I made sure of that,” she said firmly. Her gaze dropped to the table. “But he found out anyway.”

“How?”

Libby closed her eyes and then lifted her gaze to him. She almost looked like she was going to cry. “Because they videotaped all of it.”

“Oh my god,” he whispered.

“Yeah.” She blinked, glancing toward the door where a couple was coming in to eat. Henry wanted to reach out and touch her, reassure her, but he didn’t know what to say. Then she turned her attention back to him. “Henry, I like you.”

The words made his pulse race.

“And I think you like me.”

If you only knew how much, he thought. He was still at a loss for words.

“And I’m sorry I…” She studied her hands. The fork was on the table now and they were clasped in front of her. “I know you thought I was ignoring you, but you don’t understand.”

When her gaze lifted to his again, her eyes were wet. “If that tape ever got out, and you and I were dating, do you know how long it would be before you’d ever play hockey again? You could easily lose your scholarship.”

He stared into her pretty face and things fell into place. It all made sense now. He’d made up all sorts of reasons and rationalizations in his head, but it didn’t have anything to do with Elaine. Libby had been protecting him. Who has the tape? he wondered. But in his gut, he knew.

“Dean found out I was still investigating Alpha Pi Alpha and he told me he’d release it if I got involved with you,” Libby went on, her words choked.

Henry frowned. “When did he say this?”

“Not long after…” Her eyes skipped away from his. “After that night in the hot tub.”

“Unreal.”

Libby’s lower lip trembled. “He said he’d mail it to the NCAA with an anonymous note. Henry, just one whiff of a player dating an alleged prostitute would put your scholarship in jeopardy. Even if I’d been vindicated-and who knows? I signed up as an escort of my own volition, even if I was a reporter-you wouldn’t have played hockey for a long time.”

Her confession left him speechless. If his roommate had magically appeared in front of him, he would have killed him with his bare hands.

“What in the hell is wrong with him?” he croaked. “Why would he do that?”

“Your fraternity happens to have the largest betting ring on campus running through their house. That was going to be my follow-up story last year, before I got fired. Dean found out that I was still looking into it this year, even though I wasn’t on the paper anymore, and he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted something to hold over my head, so I wouldn’t tell anyone.”