Chapter 1

In the Campus Eats delivery group chat on Snapchat, I was the one with the fewest deliveries.

Lily, on the other hand, had the highest delivery count and was the absolute darling of our department manager.

I watched Lily brag in the chat, posting screenshots of how many orders she completed and how much cash she made today.

I glanced at it and ignored it.

But Lily wouldn’t let it go. She tagged me directly: "@Chloe, you're dead last again today. Campus Eats doesn't keep freeloaders around!"

Looking at how desperately Lily wanted to kick me out of the delivery group,

I grinned and dialed my dad's number. "Hey, old man. I want to report some serious conflict of interest. The manager of your dining hall delivery service is trading orders for sexual favors!"

I had just finished my last delivery of the day.

I opened Snapchat to see if there were any new orders in our Campus Eats group chat.

Instead, I saw Lily posting a screenshot of her daily earnings.

"Guys! So sorry, but I got first place again today! 😜"

"@Carter, babe, are there any more orders? I want to make some extra cash today so I can buy you Starbucks tonight! ❤️"

The "Carter" she was talking about was Carter偉, our campus delivery manager.

Carter didn't disappoint his little favorite. He immediately assigned several high-paying delivery orders directly to her.

This was completely against the rules.

There were still a dozen other students waiting in the queue, but Carter had skipped all of them just to give the orders to Lily.

Nobody dared to complain in the official group chat.

Instead, everyone started trash-talking them in our private group chat.

"Those two are shameless. Lily must be his sugar baby. Why else does she get all the good orders?"

"You got it wrong. Lily isn't his sugar baby—she's probably his boss in bed!"

"I live in the same dorm as Lily. Last night, I heard her on FaceTime with Carter for over an hour!"

The campus delivery system was supposed to be a mutually beneficial program.

Students who didn't want to walk to the dining hall ordered food through the app.

Carter was supposed to assign those orders fairly to the student delivery workers, who made a buck or two per delivery for some extra pocket money.

If Lily were actually faster than everyone else, nobody would complain.

But Carter's favoritism was so blatant that everyone knew there was something dirty going on.

While I was chilling, scrolling through my phone with a "take it or leave it" attitude,

Lily suddenly tagged me in the main chat.

"@Chloe, why are you last again? You're thirty orders behind me. Why are you so lazy every single day?"

"If Carter wasn't such a nice guy, he would have fired you ages ago!"

"How about this: as a punishment, you buy Carter and me Starbucks tonight!"

What the hell?

I opened the app and checked my deliveries.

I had only done ten deliveries today, earning less than fifteen dollars. And she wanted me to buy them both seven-dollar coffees? No freaking way.

I fired back in the chat.

"Are you out of your mind? Lazy? Carter gave all the orders to you. What am I supposed to deliver, air?"

"If you want to suck up to Carter, leave me out of your pick-me drama. It’s pathetic."

Right then, Carter entered the chat.

He tagged everyone: "@Everyone, stop delivering. All of you, get to the dining hall office right now. I won't tolerate such toxic language in my department!"