Handcuffs & Hangovers 🌶️
Chapter 1: Handcuffs & Hangovers 🌶️
Melody’s POV
Nothing good ever happens on frat row on a Sunday morning. Unless your definition of “good” is waking up pants-less in a bush and calling it character-building.
I’m two blocks away when I smell it — the rancid perfume of stale beer, cheap body spray, and a night of bad decisions fermenting in the morning heat.
I’m halfway through my morning run when the sirens slice through the quiet like someone leaned on a panic button.
Not the cool, TV-cop kind either. No, it’s the small‑town, someone-screwed‑up kind — Dopplering toward me, growing louder with every slap of my sneakers on the pavement.
Next I hear the shouting and crying.
WTF? What the hell’s going on?
My legs take me faster than my brain can process, ponytail whipping as I skid around the corner toward Jasper’s fraternity house, breath hitching, sweat slick under my oversize T-shirt and sports bra.
Jasper’s my so-called stepbrother. God, even the word feels wrong in my mouth because he’s not my family.
His dad — the narcissist, my mom — the mental train wreck; eloped to Vegas, dead drunk, less than half a year ago and now we’re all in deep shit.
I’ve only spoken with Jasper once in my life and seen him a few times around campus.
The frat house looks like it fought a hurricane and lost. Beer cans carpet the lawn like aluminum landmines because nothing screams higher education like frat bros treating recycling like soccer.
A dude in a toga is passed out in a kiddie pool that hasn’t seen clean water since the Bush administration.
I’m half-tempted to poke him with a stick just to check if he’s alive, but honestly? Not worth the risk of catching frat-pool hepatitis.
A girl in a men’s button-up and one heel stumbles down the porch steps so fast, it's like she’s trying to make her “walk of shame” double as cardio.
On the lowest step, a tiny but beautiful girl with lovely, long black hair sits wailing, “Oh nooo, Bill... Bill was murrrdered.”
Her face is a tragic Picasso of smeared mascara and snot — like someone sneezed across a makeup counter and called the outcome art.
Sitting there with scraped hands, trembling fingers picking at a broken nail — she’s giving me equal parts “tragic widow” and “failed theater major.”
Then the name rings a bell. She’s wailing about Bill Gordon. So that means that one of Jasper’s frat bros has been murdered.
The creepy dude I always kept a healthy distance from. I give her an extra look... maybe she’s Bill’s girlfriend?
The way she’s bawling her eyes out, the grief looks real enough, but a good drunken cry is easy to fake.
Tremor in the voice, tears on a timer, eyes checking who’s watching.
Could be grief. Could be drunk theater. Hard to tell, so I just log it for later.
And right next to the porch on the front lawn, parked dead center in the chaos — I see the sheriff’s car, lights strobing red and blue across the wreckage.
Then suddenly he enters the scene. Jasper frat bro Hudson. Shoulders loose, head high, wrists cuffed behind him like they’re just an accessory to his outfit.
If Vogue ever does a “Felons of Fall Fashion” issue, he’s absolutely nailing the cover.
My smug, handsome, rumored-to-be-a-sex‑god, golden‑boy-rich-as-fuck stepbrother.
Or more correctly… the son of the monster my Mom married after knowing him for only one month, after claiming “I fell passionately in love with Owen at first sight.”
The sheriff herds Jasper down the porch like he’s escorting a celebrity doing the perp-walk — and Jasper walks like he couldn't care less.
The sheriff’s grinning like he just hit jackpot — until people milling by the police tape steal his attention, and he starts barking at deputies nearby instead.
In the meantime I’m taking everything in about Jasper... form-fitting black tee clings for dear life to a chest that looks carved, not built.
It’s a look you don’t get from casual gym visits — more like (A) an everyday life where building strength is non-negotiable, or (B) a short, doomed contract with Satan.
Broad shoulders taper to a narrow waist. His biceps flex, the steel cuffs forcing them, but the easy prowl in his step’s surprisingly untouched by them.
His jeans hang low enough to tease a dangerous glimpse of his V-line, the promise of what’s lower humming appreciatively in my brain before I can stop it.
He looks like every bad idea I’ve ever wanted to try twice. My thighs clench hard before I can stop them. Wet heat pulses low, traitorous, sharp as a warning siren.
Great. Just great. Stepbrother equals walking red flag, and my body decides to RSVP yes anyway.
Jasper's piercing blue eyes — usually smug, now sharper and cockier — catch mine at that exact moment.
He grins like he's reading my mind — or more realistic... my body language — and likes what he sees.
I shoot him my best crime-scene glare. It bounces off like a Nerf dart hitting a tank.
Heat floods my face. He looks far too pleased, like catching me drooling over him is a personal win.
I mentally kick myself for not guarding my thoughts — and my microexpressions — much better.
Hurriedly I slam my best poker face back on and meet his stare with a scowl.
He lets his gaze run down over me in the same long, unapologetic sweep like I just gave him.
Not hurried. Not subtle. Like he’s filing away every detail for later — and my skin answers like a field of pins drawn to a magnet.
It’s a look that’s both hot and appraising and says I could ruin you in no time and you’d beg me to finish the job.
My pulse spikes so hard I feel it in my core and heat blooms so fast I can’t stop it.
We hold eye contact way too long — his strikingly blue eyes locked on to mine.
Then something else catches his attention and he looks at the bushes next to me. I follow the same direction and I spot a glint by the curb.
I veer toward it without thinking, crouch, and palm the object which is half-hidden in the bush.
A phone — screen spiderwebbed like a herd of high-heeled sorority girls stomped it.
I press the button and the screen flickers to life. My stomach drops because within milliseconds I realize I know this phone.
The background’s Bill Gordon’s infamous TikTok thirst-trap image. He loved it. Bragged about it. Everyone on campus knew it.
I thumb the screen dark so fast I almost drop it, then pretend to tie my shoelace while sliding it under my waistband — with the stealth of someone who’s watched too many spy movies.
There’s no doubt in my mind it’s evidence. Or a ticket to hell. Both maybe?
Either way, I’m keeping it for now. I’ll probably hand it over later to law enforcement. Maybe... well... after I’m done with it, at least.
When I stand up, Jasper’s still watching me, eyes questioning and worried.
But before I can blink, I hear boots chew the grass and the front lawn erupts in chaos and screams.
“FREE JASP!” a shirtless frat boy bellows, still really, really drunk, beer-belly wobbling as he chest-bumps a deputy — who shoves him back so hard that he lands on his ass. The dude rolls over, sighs, then promptly snores into the grass.
Seconds later, an almost-naked blonde in a micro‑mini and stripper heels wedges herself between Jasper and the deputies.
She's pressing her double‑Ds in a minuscule push-up bra so hard into one deputy’s vest, I hear the Velcro creak.
“Please,” she begs, tossing her Barbie‑blonde wavy hair, pouting her big red Botox lips at him.
“You can’t take him! Jasper didn’t do anything! He would never kill Bill. He’s — he’s the only man who ever made me —”
“Ma’am, please step back,” the deputy growls, flushing as she practically motorboats his badge.
Me? I feel sorry for her — she’s clearly invested in Jasper — and I lean toward agreeing with Barbie.
Because let’s face it — Jasper’s self-centered and entitled as hell, but he doesn’t read cruel. And definitely not the killing type.
I size the lovely Barbie up, wondering if she might be ruthless enough to kill. Doesn’t seem likely either.
Still... my Dad always said, observe everything and everyone. Because anyone can hide their true colors.
I mutter "Oh my God," because vodka cranberries mixed with daddy issues and a campus sex icon?
That’s a case study over bad decisions waiting to happen. And Jasper? Yup... my stepbrother Jasper has a certain reputation.
Not just the “he’s rich, hot, and throws the best parties” kind.
No... the other kind. The whispered-at-sorority-brunches, hissed-in-locker‑rooms, giggled-about-in-Starbucks kind.
"He fucked me so hard I think I saw God."
"I couldn’t walk straight for two days — totally worth it."
"His mouth should be illegal. No man should know how to do that with his tongue."
I’d give anything to unhear or forget those comments, but of course, I can’t.
Because my personal curse? People always seem to spill their dirtiest secrets when I’m around. Always have.
And with my brain working like a human DVR — a Digital Video Recorder right here live and in action with a near-photographic memory — I remember every single word I hear. Like for-eee-ver.
Which means that every filthy Jasper-rumor I’ve ever overheard is now glued to my brain. Which also explains why eidetic memory can be a bitch and a fucking curse.
Bill’s weeping girlfriend ratchets her sobs into the highest gear. I think: if I were the sheriff, I’d talk to her first.
Closest person to the victim? That’s "Investigations 101." Right after "Don’t lick evidence."
I feel like screaming at the sheriff, “Haven’t you heard the cliché: 'The wife did it?' That’s because most murders are jealousy-driven by a close one... not because of frat bros partying together. Duh.”
And what’s wrong with a simple reality check? Just look at Jasper for Christ’s sake.
He’s the embodiment of the easy-going, eternally partying, rich, horny frat bro — not the killing type or a guy who’s jealous of Bill in any kind of situation.
But Sheriff Dewitt’s an idiot, and he’s as dumb and mean as they come.
So he turns back to Jasper and slams him face‑down over the hood of his cruiser, grinning like a true sadist.
Jasper’s spread out like a centerfold for Hot Trouble & Bad Decisions.
He’s looking like his life choices are finally catching up with him. I hate that my first instinct is to wonder what the subscription costs.
Even cuffed, furious, and manhandled, he’s stupidly good‑looking. The kind of good‑looking that makes smart girls like me do really dumb things.
His jaw could cut glass. Same with those cheekbones — unfair genetics, probably gifted by Lucifer himself.
Right now they're ticking with anger because of the sheriff, but he keeps holding my gaze.
We’ve only talked once in our lives, so why the hell does he look at me like he’s memorizing me?
Maybe that’s just his frat bro thing — study a girl like she’s an exam and smirk like he’s already aced it.
Still… it’s... quite unsettling. It’s too focused, too intense. Something about it makes me feel like it's not the first time he's doing it... like he’s been studying me while I wasn’t paying attention.
Which is insane… right?
But right now, it's like he’s trying to ignore the sheriff by focusing on me.
His eyes are sharp, electric, and carrying so much heat it would make women talk in whispers and blush at brunch.
Even roughed up and detained, he looks like the kind of man who’d kiss you just to shut you up… and you’d let him.
So when he suddenly smiles wide and naughty and winks at me, my heart starts hammering like it’s trying to get the hell out of this zip code.
Holy shit.
Even surrounded by all this mess, he looks like serious trouble. It’s the worst really, because he looks exactly like the bad-boy type I’m always falling for... my personal kryptonite.
That makes all of this both fucked-up and crazy… because he's supposed to be my so-called 'stepbrother' and there’s a dangerous wet-panties-level kind of trouble going on down there.
Which is really confusing.
And terrible. And definitely something I should unpack in therapy, not here.
I hate that my first thought isn’t, oh no, how can I help him?
It’s just… wowzers.
