Palm South University Season 1 Omnibus (4 page)

Suddenly, I’m picked up on a few of my brothers’ shoulders and carried to the other keg. I grab it with my hands just in time to avoid smacking my chin against the metal and my legs are lifted up into the air. Then the nozzle is in my mouth and I have a two second warning before the beer starts flowing.

Challenge accepted.

After forty-seven seconds counted out loud, I kick my feet a little and they drop me to the floor with a roar of approval. I almost spit out the last swig of beer when the room settles and I’m face to face with Skyler.

“Not bad, Bear.” She grins. “Although I’m pretty sure you’ve done better.”

I shake my head. “How the hell are you here right now? Tomorrow’s Bid Day.”

“What Siomara doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I figured I could trust you and your brothers to keep it quiet.”

I frown, unsure if I trust them as much as she does. I scan the room for our president and drag Skyler with me when I finally find him. After whispering the situation in his ear, Matt whistles loud enough to quiet the entire house.

“Listen up!” he shouts above the music. “See this girl right here?” He gestures to Skyler and her face flushes a bit, but she stands straighter and gives a wink. Always so sassy, that one. “No, you don’t. You don’t see her at all. She isn’t here. She never was. Got it?” There’s a cheer of understanding and Matt nods once. “Carry on.”

He smiles back at us and throws his arms around Skyler’s shoulder. “There. Problem solved. If anyone finds out you were here, let me know and I’ll haze the shit out of these fuckers. I don’t care if they are brothers.”

Skyler giggles a little. “Why thank you. And what do I have to do to pay off that favor?” She quirks a brow and tilts her head a little.

A sly grin creeps over Matt’s face. “I can probably think of a few things.”

“Alright,” I throw my hands up and back away from them. “I’m leaving the two of you to settle your debts. Find me when you’re ready for shots, Sky.”

She gives me a wink and Matt’s eyes scan the length of her toned body in the tiny shorts she’s paired with a loose t-shirt. I know without a doubt that she dressed herself tonight. Usually, her sisters were dressing her up –
sororitizing
her or whatever. She’s far from a dress and pearls type of girl. But tonight, in her natural form, I think she’s prettier than she ever is when they doll her up in all that makeup and shit.

I get asked all the time if I’m into Skyler. Some of my brothers have steered clear of her even after I assure them we’re just friends. For a while, I wondered if maybe there was something between us that we just weren’t seeing – something we were giving off that made other people look at us the way they did. But, at the end of the day, Skyler is more like the baby sister I never had than anything else. I just care about her. And, surprisingly, she cares about me.

Plus, that girl can play some poker. And that is something I’ll always respect.

“I’m sloshed.” Josh grins and lifts the red plastic cup in his hand to his mouth once more. “What’s up with Skyler being here?”

“She snuck out. Keep your mouth shut about it, Little. I mean it.”

“I’m not saying anything,” he says, his hands up in mock surrender. “She single?”

I nod toward her and Matt, who are now cozied up on the back couch, her legs in his lap and his fingers playing in her hair as they talk over their drinks. “Technically, yes. Not sure if that’s going to matter much tonight, though. Matt moved in right after his little announcement.”

Josh’s shoulders deflate. “I want to bang her so fucking bad, dude.”

I smack him hard across the back of his head and he curses, spilling some of his beer. “The fuck, man?”

“You know better than to talk about her like that around me. Show some fucking respect, douchebag, before I make you.”

“Whatever,” he mumbles, still rubbing his head as he stumbles off toward the beer pong tables. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out to yet another call from my older brother. Great.

He’s been calling me all day, but until now I hadn’t been drunk enough to answer. I almost always have to be intoxicated to deal with his shit. Who knows what kind of state he’ll be in tonight.

“Hey,” I answer simply, maneuvering through the house to find a semi-quiet spot. I settle on the back hallway that leads to the bathrooms.

“’Bout fucking time you answered your phone. What the hell are you doing?” His voice is high-pitched and springy and I know without even asking that he’s high off pills.

Doubly great.

“I’m partying. Sounds like that makes two of us tonight.”

There’s a grunt on the other end. “You implying that I’m high, little bro?”

“Depends. Are you?”

He pauses, then sighs. “Listen, I didn’t call to fight with you. I need your help.”

Here we go.

“Let me guess, you need money?”

Another pause.

“The fuel pump went out on the car and I had to use the last of my check to pay for it to get fixed. I found a guy to do it for less than the shop was asking, but it still wasn’t cheap. And now the boys don’t have food.” His voice trembles just a little when he says that last part, but I’m not sure if it’s because of his high or the content he’s spewing. “I just need a little bit, Clinton. A hundred bucks for gas and food. Please.”

I curse under my breath and glance across the room where Skyler is watching me intently, her brows furrowed. “You can’t keep doing this shit, Carleton.”

“What shit? It’s not my fault the fucking car went to shit.” I wait for him to just admit the truth, but instead he grows more frustrated. “You know what? Whatever. My bad for thinking you would want to help your fucking nephews.”

“Stop.” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. It’s not even worth arguing with him over where his money really went. Regardless, his sons don’t deserve to starve because of their father’s piss poor decisions. “Give me twenty minutes to get to the store. I’ll wire you what I can.”

“Thank you, little brother. I love you. I’m so proud of you, you know.”

I roll my eyes as he continues, his words falling on deaf ears. When I’m sending money, I’m a great little brother chasing my dreams in college. When I’m not sending money, I’m a stuck up brat who thinks I’m better than everyone else.

I startle a bit when Skyler’s hand touches my arm. I lift my eyes to hers and when I see the worry in them, my face hardens. The last thing I need is anyone at Palm South knowing about my fucking family drama.

“Yeah. I’ll call you with the confirmation number.” I hang up before he has the chance to respond. Skyler is still staring at me, her hand gentle on my forearm. I think I’m shaking, but I can’t tell.

“Bear, what’s going on?”

For a moment I just stare at her. I blink. I breathe. Then I shrug her off and turn for my room. “Nothing. I have to run an errand. Don’t stay out too late, you know Siomara will throw a fit.”

She chases after me. “Wait. What happened? Where are you going?”

I whip around too quickly to face her and her eyes grow wide. Sighing, I run a hand over my short, coarse hair and calm myself. “I just have to handle something, Sky. I’m fine, I promise. Just go back to Matt and have a good time tonight. I’ll see you at the Bid Day Bash tomorrow. Cool?”

Skyler hesitates, chewing the inside of her cheek, but finally nods with a small smile. I try to return it, but it dies halfway and I turn back toward my room instead.

She doesn’t follow this time.

THE NIGHT AIR is still hot and sticky as I sit on one of the benches facing the campus fountain. I stare at the blank card in my hand with three lines that I’ve yet to fill. I’m supposed to pick my top three choices for the sorority I’ll be in for the next four years of my life and hope that one of them chooses me back. Most of the girls in my small group filled theirs out right away.

Paris was one of them.

She told me last night that she was choosing Zeta Pi Alpha. “Suiciding” them is specifically how she put it, which means she only wrote them down on her sheet – not even allowing for a second or third option. If they don’t choose her back, she won’t have a home to run to tomorrow.

Which is kind of where I am right now. Without a home.

My group leader told me I could walk campus if I wanted to. To “clear my head”. So here I am, staring at the way the light jumps off the water of the fountain each time it spews into the air and wishing it could somehow spout up the answer to what decision I should make.

There are a few houses that I actually like. Delta Beta Gamma has grown on me throughout the week and the Kappa Kappa Beta girls were super nice. But Paris went Zeta. And she expects me to do the same. Meanwhile I can’t help but wonder if I should write down any of them at all.

“I love this pond at night.”

I startle at the interruption of my thoughts just as a slender brunette plops down on the bench next to me. Her long, loosely curled hair falls over her shoulder slightly as she turns to me with wide blue eyes. They’re slightly glazed, like she may be buzzed, but her smile is genuine and warm. “It’s a great place to think.”

I hold up the card in my hand slightly. “Well, I could use all the thinking power this pond can offer.”

She glances at the card. “Ah, rushing a sorority?”

“At this point, I’m not sure.”

“Well what are you thinking? Talk it out to a stranger. Might help.” She smiles again and for reasons unknown to me, I feel like I can trust her. At the very least, I don’t know her, which means she can’t really judge me. And if she does, it doesn’t really matter, I guess.

“I’m thinking that I’m not sure any of these places are for me. My best friend from high school is going Zeta but I know
for sure
that I don’t fit in there. I’m worried about going somewhere else. We did this together. We were supposed to end up in the same house and have the next four years just like we had the last.”

The girl thinks for a moment, her hair blowing in the breeze slightly. “Just because you don’t rush the same sorority doesn’t mean you can’t still be great friends. You’ll just have her plus your sisters. It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” she offers. “You said before you weren’t sure any of the sororities were for you. You really think that?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. There is one house that I really liked. All the girls seemed nice and actually interested in me as a person. But even still, I’m not sure I want to be Greek. I only did this because of my best friend.”

She smirks, but pauses a second, as if she’s looking for the right words. “You know, I felt the same way you did when I rushed.” My eyes grow wide. I didn’t think she was a sorority girl. “I came from a small town and, well, let’s just say my life there was a lot different than I wanted it to be.” She shrugs. “But here, I knew I could be anyone. On the last night of rush when I had to make my choice, a girl in the last house I visited told me that the best part of being in a sorority is always knowing you have a group of sisters who have your back no matter what. Through the good times and the bad, you’ve got someone there to fight through college with you. To me, that was the best thing someone could promise me.” She nudges me lightly. “What about you? Do you want a group of friends who will be by your side for the next four years?”

I think about Paris and our group of friends back home. They were my sisters then, but already I can feel that bond breaking. Paris has changed so much just over the summer, I can’t imagine what she’ll be like over the next four years. I lift my head to meet the stranger girl’s eyes and smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”

“Well,” she says, returning my smile and lifting herself from the bench. “Then think about who you’ve met this week and who you think would be great to have in your corner. I know you will fit in wherever you end up. And they’ll be lucky to have you.”

She turns to leave but I stop her. “Wait!” She’s still smiling. “What sorority are you in?”

She laughs a little. “Well, I can’t tell you, actually. That would be dirty rushing. But, just follow your heart. You’ll end up where you belong.” She adjusts her bag on her shoulder and my eyes fall to the embroidered letters on the side.

KKB.

I grin and look back up at her, but she never looks back as she retreats. And once again, it’s just me, the fountain, and a decision waiting to be made.