The English Year - 7. Tailgate

Chapter 7

Tailgate

There is a longstanding tradition of tailgating at pretty much any school south of the Mason Dixon line with a football team worth its salt. At Old Dominion, that tradition was somewhat convoluted, simply because our football team sucked… badly.

Every home game, the students of Old Dominion woke up no later than nine. The girls donned their latest sun dresses and derby hats while the guys buttoned up their khakis or seersucker, Oxford shirts, and paisley ties. It was uncomfortable, but it was tradition. To not would have been social rebellion.

Tailgates usually kicked off at ten, which meant if you were hosting one, you’d been drinking since you started setting up. If you were going to one, you had a customary pre-drink so you weren’t completely sober when you arrived. By eleven, the grills were fired up, and the solo cups were perpetually full. Only the strong made it to kickoff at noon. By then, it wasn’t unusual to see coeds throwing up in trash cans or on the sides of houses. It was even more common for people to pair off and pass out that early in the day.

For those who did make it to the game, they were rewarded by usually seeing the Founders being pummeled by a slightly less embarrassing D-3 team. By junior year, I’d been to approximately twenty football games, and I’d only seen the Founders win four.

At halftime, regardless of how the game was going, the majority of the students filed out of the stands and went to one of the sorority cocktail hours. These parties were where the social lines were clearly drawn. Girls were only allowed to invite so many guys to their house, and invitations were always sent out on Wednesday and replied to on Friday. It was an old school method, but house moms had to be aware of how many gentleman callers to expect in order to prepare the appropriate amount of finger foods. To not RSVP was unheard of.

Everyone was judged by which house they received invites to. A guy could say a lot with so little by accepting one invitation over another. And if there was ever an institution that forced girls to show their hands, it was that one.

For the first home game of the year, we all decided to go to Chaos for their tailgate party. Chaos was the perfect house to pregame the football game because it was literally a stone’s throw from campus. The house was actually so close to the campus, the school had tried repeatedly to purchase it from the brothers of Phi Psi.

I called Pete at fifteen to ten and told him to come over whenever, and we’d walk to Chaos together.

“Where were you last night?” he inquired over the phone. I had no intention of being truthful. After Hutch verbally thrashed me for even mentioning the Cadet, I wasn’t about to tell Pete that I’d spent the majority of my night with him. I had made plans to move on from liking Pete, but that didn’t mean I had put those plans into action overnight.

“I just hung out with a friend of mine,” I answered vaguely. “How was Amanda’s?”

“The same old, I guess,” he answered, his accent heavy. He sounded like he was getting dressed, and I briefly imagined what that looked like. “She tried to get me to agree to a formal of some sort with a sister of hers. Tamia.”

“Her roommate,” I answered. “Did you say you’d go?”

“I played it cool,” he said. “I figured I’d consult the social master before I made any commitments.”

I swallowed hard. I could do the same thing I had done with McKenzie and discourage him from going to Pi Phi’s fall formal with Amanda and her roommate. Or I could be a man, and accept the fact that the guy I was in love with was going to go out with his fair share of girls.

“You should go,” I said bravely. “Formals are fun.”

He didn’t answer right away. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. Had he expected me to be so understanding? Had he expected me to behave like an adult, and not a jealous school girl? Had he wanted me to tell him not to go?

“It’s not for another month, so we’ll see…”

I told Pete I needed to finish getting dressed, and he said he would walk over in a couple minutes.

I hung up my phone and turned to my closet to pick out a tie that would go with my light blue and green horse shorts and a pink shirt.

As I turned, I was startled to see Roberto standing in my doorway, eavesdropping on my phone conversation.

“What was that?” he asked. I assumed he meant to ask ‘who was that’ but got his English just slightly confused.

“That was Peter,” I answered straight-forwardly.

“I didn’t ask ‘who was that’, asshole. I asked ‘what was that’.”

“I was inviting him to the tailgate at Chaos. He’s coming over to get me.”

“I thought we were moving forward. In light of the other night, I thought you were going to be done with him.”

“I am. I was. I just… I didn’t see him yesterday, and so I thought that was progress.”

Roberto stepped in. He was dressed and ready in khakis and white, looking like a country-club waiter.

“Corbin…”

“Listen, the moving on process takes time. Rome was not built in a day,” I pointed out. A second later, Austin came in, following his wife to my room.

“I thought I heard you two yapping,” he said. He wasn’t yet dressed and that annoyed me because I already knew he’d want us to wait for him. “What’s going on?”

“Corbin called the Brit. They’re going to Chaos together,” Roberto explained.

“Not together, together…” I said. It was futile. They would believe what they wanted. They wouldn’t believe that I’d had a moment of clarity last night with Mike and that his explanation had made a lot of sense to me. They wouldn’t believe that I actually liked Pete as a friend in spite of my feelings. They wouldn’t believe that I was trying… because I didn’t believe it either.

“That’s bullshit.” Austin saw right through me. “You want his D and you can’t help yourself.”

“I do not want his D,” I defended.

Roberto gave me a look.

“I don’t. I don’t… don’t look at me like that. I do not. Would I say no to his D? Probably not, but that’s different than wanting it.”

“You need to move on,” Roberto lectured in the way only he could. I was verging on annoyed by it all.

“I am moving on. We’re just friends. Friends go to Chaos together. Now, if you assholes want to come, I suggest you get dressed and you wear something different. Where’s Hutch?”

“Probably doing the walk of shame through the freshman quad,” Austin said standing and walking towards my door.

“Wait… he hooked up with Swim Fan again?”

“She can’t be stopped, that girl,” Austin elaborated. “I’ve seen some obsessed chicks in my time, none obsessed over Hutch, but whatever. It’s like she has him on radar tracking, GPS, everything… she’s a bloodhound.”

“Wow,” I said. Austin nodded and left to change. I walked to my closet and tossed Roberto a tie that at least added some color to his white and khaki ensemble. We sat around shooting the shit and messing with Mister, who was looking livelier and livelier with his new medication and diet. I was surprised that Roberto never asked where I was the night before. He was usually the nosy one, but I guess he was used to my sketching off in all directions.

At exactly ten o’clock, there was a knock on my door and Pete walked in.

He had gotten the memo about dressing to the nines, and looked smashing in a pair of fitted flat fronts and a checkered button down shirt. His look was complete by the cutest red bow tie I’d ever seen. It made him look like a young school boy, and I was immediately smitten… yet again.

Roberto saw me stare as he walked in because a second later, I heard him fake cough and nudge my side.

“Hey, come in,” I said quickly, forcing myself to look away. He stood right inside the doorway, leaning on my amour. “You look good.”

“So do you,” he replied politely. “I read that everyone decks out for the football games here. It’s the one tradition I can relate to.”

“People don’t get dressed up for soccer,” Roberto said. He, Hutch, Austin, and Brian were all huge European League followers. I don’t remember much about the teams they each followed, but I want to say that Roberto was all about Real Madrid.

“Not soccer, no,” Pete answered. “But polo matches. Regatta races. That sort of thing.”

“Well here’s to that,” I said, standing up and crossing my room to my mini fridge. I pulled out the remainder of my vodka and made a mental note to pick some up at some point. I poured three shots while Pete and Roberto talked shop on futbol. Austin returned dressed appropriately as I was dishing out shots, so I drained the last of my bottle into a fourth glass.

“To futbol versus football,” I said, raising my little glass. We clinked, and drank, and a minute later, we left.

“So you’re not going to spill where you were last night?” Pete asked as we walked down towards Chaos. The house was sandwiched between the upperclassmen dorm and the university theater building across the street.

“I told you I was with a friend,” I said vaguely. Pete and I had taken up the rear while the other two walked faster in front of us.

“I was at your house for a while and no one knew where you were. It was sort of shady,” he said. Why had he been at Chi Beta, I wondered? Looking for me? Or had Amanda’s party naturally moved to a bigger venue? I was usually confident about these things, but after a week with Pete, it could have been one or the other.

“Nobody called me,” I replied. That was a lie. My phone had been off.

“Well, it seems like you wander off quite a bit, so no one was really worried.”

“Ouch, rude…”

“I’m joking. A couple of the guys tried your mobile but it was off I guess. It was like you didn’t want to be found.” I shrugged and gave him a look. Part of me wondered why he cared, and another part of me was happy that he did. “Another rendezvous with the freshman?”

I looked at him. I looked into his eyes and wondered what the interrogation was about. Was he asking me as a friend? Had he been concerned about my sudden disappearance? Or was he asking me as something more? I didn’t want to fall back into that trap, so I decided to tell him the truth. Friends told the truth, and that’s what I wanted… needed to be.

“I was with a friend of mine that goes to VMI.”

“Mike the cadet… I think you mentioned him once.” I concentrated on his tone to get a sense of his jealousy level. He sounded neutral, unbothered. Not as cavalier as Mike had sounded when I mentioned the Brit to him, but still cavalier enough to seem unconcerned by my spending the night with another guy.

“Yeah, him. We hung out before his classes start on Monday and he has to move back into the barracks.”

“Isn’t he the one you’re in love with? Kind of…?”

“I like him, yeah,” I said. We were approaching Chaos and I could already hear the music and the crowd. “But it wasn’t totally like that. Whenever this campus gets old or frustrating, I like to escape and go hang out with him.”

“What’s frustrating you so early on?” he asked in a genuine tone. As if he didn’t know.

I shrugged again. “This and that,” I looked him straight in the eye. If he didn’t know that he was the source of much of my frustration, he was a complete idiot.

“Well, we’ll have to fix that with a drink, won’t we?” he smiled, climbing the front stairs to Chaos. He opened the door for me, and followed me in.

I was friends with a couple of Phi Psi’s, and I located them immediately. The others tended to verge on douchebag status with no real reason. They were a second tier fraternity, not too far above Chi Beta, but they acted like they were the shit. And parties like Chaos Tailgate only served to reinforce their overinflated egos.

The trash can punch that morning was as strong as it was tasty, and I immediately poured a cup for Pete and me.

“Drink up!” I shouted over the music. I scanned the room for my friend Jeff and when I found him, led the Brit over to where he was trying to cover his homosexuality by dancing with a skinny brunette.

“Hey there asshole,” I greeted Jeff. He smiled at me.

“Oh no… who let you in?”

“I walked in,” I said. “And if I wasn’t here, you’d be calling me.”

“That’s a no,” he said. “This is Amy.”

I gave him a look that expressed how little I cared.

“This is Pete.” There was a round of handshaking. “Are you going to the game?”

“I’m gonna try not to make it,” he said in true Jeff fashion. “We’ll see. I have champagne upstairs if you want some.”

“Only if Pete and Amy come with us,” I replied. He smiled a crooked smile, took Amy’s arm and wrapped it around his shoulder, as if to remind himself he was playing straight for the day, and then led us all upstairs.

“Who is he?” Pete whispered as we followed them.

“A friend of mine from freshman year. He taught me how to smoke cigarettes.”

“You smoke?”

“No… I asked him to teach me ‘cause I thought he was cute.”

“Slut… have you messed around with him?”

“No. He’s straight,” I said with a crooked brow. Jeff had never done anything, at least to my knowledge, with a guy. Yet he was so flamboyant in his own little way, that the assumptions preceded him.

“Oh please,” Pete said. “That boy is as gay as the day is long. He was checking me out downstairs.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, killer. He was probably trying to figure out where your clothes came from.”

“Sure…” Pete replied as we followed the pair into a quiet bedroom. There were a couple brothers hanging around with their girls, drinking and talking. They all looked at us as we walked in.

What was funny was that this was by no means Jeff’s room. He did this all the time. No matter where he was partying, he’d find a brother’s bedroom and hide his stash. After a couple of seconds of awkward searching, Jeff emerged with a bottle of champagne and a bottle of orange juice, both freezing cold, although no fridge was in sight.

“Mimosa anyone?”

He poured four mimosas using the entire champagne bottle and handed Pete and me one. The others in the room declined. For Pete and me, it meant chugging our first drink, which we did and then toasting with Amy and Jeff.

We left the room of awkward a minute later, and planted it on the stairs where Jeff and I proceeded to catch up on each other’s summers.

“Are you going to apply for Brown’s intensive?” I asked, knowing that Jeff was a marketing major and could very well snag one of the coveted spots.

“Probably not until senior year,” he said.

“Hedging your bets?”

“No, I just think I’ll be able to make a bigger impact. It’ll be easier to land a leadership role next year.”

He was probably right, but I was still going for it, leadership or not. It was one of the things I was actually excited about that year.

We talked for a bit, Jeff drained another bottle of champagne in our glasses, and Pete and I decided it was time to mix and mingle. Somewhere along the line, we found ourselves on the table to play chandeliers.

“I’ve never played,” Pete confessed as we helped pick up cups and set them on the table. I gave him a quick run through before the game started.

“It’s easy. You stand here next to me. When the cup and ball come around to you, you just try to bounce the ball into the cup. Most likely, it’ll come from me, so get ready. If someone around the table gets the ball in on the first try, they can pass it anywhere they want. Otherwise, you have to pass it one to the right. If you have a cup and I have a cup, and I get my ball in before you, I knock your cup and you have to drink a cup from the center.”

“And then I keep bouncing? Or I pass it?”

“You keep bouncing into your new cup. No matter how many times you get knocked, you keep bouncing until you make it. Remember, first try, pass anywhere. Second try, pass one to the right.”

He nodded. I could see the wheels working in his head. It was a confusing game, for sure, and any beginner would most likely be baffled. But I was to his left, so I was the only one who could knock him if I chose to, controlling how often and how fast he drank.

The game began with forty cups in the middle, all filled a third of the way up with mimosas or trash can punch. The two empty game cups started at the two ends of the table, and quickly made their way to each other after one guy made his ball on the first try and shot the cup across the table.

The fun part of chandeliers was how fast it was. Imagine quarters on speed, with people trying to do something seemingly so easy, and yet getting flustered. The longer the game went on, the drunker people got… and the more intense everything became.

I had Jeff on my left, and he didn’t hesitate to knock me out. His cup jumped to Pete while I was drinking. Pete got beginners luck, I’m sure, because he put his ball in on the first try.

“Pass back! Pass back!” Jeff shouted, holding his hand out. Pete, flustered, handed Jeff the cup and ball, and a second later, Jeff landed another ball in. I had just finished drinking my first penalty cup.

“You’re an asshole,” I said to Pete. He shot his ball in, but didn’t make it that time. I took my time chugging the cup and then bouncing my ball in. I made it in the second try and sent the ball to Pete.

This time, it was time for my revenge. The guy on Pete’s right made his cup in on the first try. He passed the cup back to me, and I immediately sank my ball in, knocking Pete.

“What do I do?” he asked quickly. I pulled a cup from the center and handed it to him. He chugged it, but not before I got to do the pass back move on him again.

“Fuck!” he shouted, grabbing another cup and chugging it. The third time I knocked him, I couldn’t stop laughing. The table erupted. It was fun to see someone get a train run on them in chandeliers. It was even more fun for me because I was the conductor.

After the third knock, I made the cup and purposely sent it across the table to give someone else a chance to get a train run. Pete was still chugging his second cup, so I played the good friend and downed his third one for him.

After that, Pete smarted up to the game and wasn’t that bad. He was left handed, so he kept knocking into my ribcage with his elbow as he shot. I didn’t mind, but pointed it out to him.

“Hold my elbow then!” he shouted. When the second game started, he switched spots with Jeff so that he was in control of my knocking, and Jeff could pass the ball back.

That ended in disaster for me. At ten-thirty in the morning, I had a train run on me in chandeliers. At ten-forty, I was blacked out.

By the time people were walking over to the game at eleven, Pete and I were both shamefully drunk. We kept laughing, bumping into each other, and playfully hitting around.

At one point, in the plaza that ran alongside the gymnasium, right before the Srat bridge that led to the stadium, Pete lunged at me, and took me out in the grass. I couldn’t stop laughing as everyone we were walking with stopped to see if I was okay. I rolled over, picked myself up, and lunged on to him, taking us both down.

It would have been scary had we not been cracking up.

“Hey, you two. Cut it out. Security is going to send you both home,” Amanda said sternly right when we got to the bridge. This was where security made a short effort to search people’s bags. Anyone smuggling something in knew to do so via a flask in the boot or belt… never in a bag (unless you were smuggling in chilled vodka in a water bottle. That often got sent through, depending on which security guard was working).

“Okay, okay,” I said. Pete and I stood up and started dusting each other off. We easily could have dusted ourselves off, but I didn’t complain at getting to touch him, or having him feel on me. It wasn’t sexual, don’t get me wrong, but it very well could have been. “Let’s get it together.”

We composed ourselves and laughed at our attempts to walk straight. I almost ate it on the steps that led to the Srat Bridge, but Pete caught me. We faked it for security, walked carefully over the bridge, and found seats next to my pledge class in the third row of the pretty empty bleachers.

We spent the next fifty minutes barely watching the game. Instead, Pete and I were the center of attention as the two clear winners of the tailgate. I kept falling over, even from a sitting position, and Pete kept catching me. I would like to think it was very romantic of him to be there to scoop me up whenever I lost my balance, but in all honesty, he only caught me because I kept crashing into him.

The smallest things set us off into laughter. We laughed at the players when they did something stupid. We laughed at the other team’s fans and their ridiculous outfits. At one point, we laughed at one of our cheerleaders when the other girls went off without her and she was left finishing a cheer.

“You two are out of control,” Amanda scolded through gritted teeth. “Suck it up, or you’re going to get thrown out.”

“Suck it up!” Pete shouted. I laughed uncontrollably. Amanda’s disapproving look was priceless.

My only contribution to the game was starting a chant of ‘Move that Bus’ when one of the other team’s really big guys kept blocking us. It was loud and obnoxious, but the football fans ate it up, and the people in my near vicinity expected no less.

“He looks like a fucking bus,” I said to Austin and Hutch when the linebacker sacked our quarterback three times in a row. Pete laughed. “Move that bus!” I shouted over the crowd.

Someone behind me caught on and shouted it again. By the time the play was about to start, we were all shouting ‘Move that Bus!’ The bus knew who we were referring to. A second later, he looked up at us, and our block easily moved through him to secure the first down.

At halftime, my brothers tried to convince me to go home with them.

“No,” I said. “I have an invitation to KD with Emily.”

“You can go to KD next week. Right now, you need to go home and sleep.”

“Fuck you, ‘Berto,” I said. “You wouldn’t be saying let’s go home if you all had invitations right now,” I observed. “Bet you wish you were still dating Rachel, don’t you, A?”

It was a low blow, I knew, and Austin didn’t deserve it. But I dished it.

“Alright, asshole, you’re on your own,” Austin said. He marched down the bleachers. I felt bad for saying it, but I didn’t want to go back to the house. It was the first cocktail party of the year, and I wanted to go and have fun. I also wanted to be seen.

But that didn’t happen.

I stood up to walk down the bleachers, and I fell almost immediately. Pete went to catch me, and we both went down. I knocked my head on the side of a bleacher, eliciting a round of looks from people who were yet to exit. Most were students, some were faculty. All were embarrassed for me. I sprang up.

“I’m okay,” I said, helping Pete up behind me. Being drunk and fun was okay. Causing a scene on the way to the cocktail parties was not.

“I think I’m gonna go back,” I whispered to Pete.

“Okay, I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, as I stepped carefully down the stairs. I was feeling wobbly and drunk. He didn’t respond. Instead, he walked with me across the bridge and all the way to Chi Beta. We went up to my room, he closed the door, and immediately started playing with Mister.

I sat on my couch and watched him. There was no way to be cuter, I thought. In the whole wide world, there wasn’t a better guy.

“Amanda is going to hurt you,” I said.

“Why?”

“Cause you didn’t show up to her cocktail party.”

“Oh. Are they really that big of a deal?”

“Kind of. I mean, she did waste an invitation on you if you don’t go.”

“Well, perhaps I had better things to do,” he said, joining me on the couch. “Like walking your drunk arse home.”

He poked me in the rib and I cowered.

“Asshole!” I shot him back, and before I knew it, we were both on the ground. He was on top of me, wrestling me into the ground. I squirmed under him, trying to get free, laughing hysterically.

These things only ever go one way, I thought as I tried to get out from under him. Eventually the friction causes a natural reaction, someone feels it, and is forced to make a decision. I felt myself getting hard as he rubbed into me from above, pinning me down by the arm and the chest. So that he wouldn’t feel it and get awkward, I lifted my knee to give us space between torsos. Pete had my hands pinned above my head, and was looking down at me with an intense gaze.

“I’ve got you,” he heaved. And he did have me, right where I wanted to be. I returned his gaze, doing the best I could to maintain the intensity. The stars were aligning, I felt. I could feel the friction between us, and I enjoyed it. Reveled in it. Savored every moment of it.

I pushed my knee into his stomach and he knelt up, releasing me.

“Ow,” he panted. I looked up at him, breathing heavily. I saw him pull his shirt down over the front of his pants, and I smiled inside. Of course he had one too, I thought. Any red blooded male would have a boner, no matter who they were rubbing up against. And the two of us were one kiss away from dry humping.

As I looked up at him, trying not to look awkward, I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. It would have been the perfect time to pull his neck down and do it. He was horny. I was horny. I was almost positive he wouldn’t have stopped me.

But I didn’t do it. I didn’t kiss him because I was scared. What if he wasn’t horny? What if he had reacted simply because I was rubbing against his crotch? What if he didn’t like me like that? What if I kissed him, and he freaked out? What if he left, and never spoke to me again?

Crippled by fear, I just lay there waiting for him to get off of me. I thought about all of the things that I could say, but in my mind, each one ended with this situation growing more awkward. Instead, I just lay there, heaving.

“Umm… hi guys,” I heard a voice. I cracked my neck towards the door and saw Hutch standing there. I could see a girl’s pair of legs behind him, and I assumed it was Haley What’s-Her-Face.

“Are we interrupting something?”

“No,” I sighed, pushing the Brit off me and kneeling up. I smiled at Hutch. “We were just… playing around.”

“Okay,” Hutch sounded dubious. “Well we’re about to set up beer pong. Want me to put you on the list?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly. “We’ll be there in a second.”

Hutch and Haley shuffled out of the room. I looked at Pete and we started laughing immediately.

“Do you think they thought we were…”

“What did it look like? Of course they did…”

“Oh. Uh oh, then,” he said, standing up and helping me to my feet. “You’ll have to explain that one, won’t you?”

“I’ll let them think what they want,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him. He smirked, gave me one more shove and then followed me into the game room.

Hutch and Haley were already playing against Austin and the freshman David Marcossi. I saw that Brian and Roberto were next, and Pete and I were up after them. A few sophomores were lingering beneath us on the list.

“Are the two of you ready to behave in public?” Roberto condescended.

“I’m sorry. Is there some law against having fun at a football game?”

“There’s a difference between having fun and falling over,” Austin said. “Y’all were a hot fucking mess.”

“Just play your game, buddy,” I said with attitude and a flip of the hand. “Play your game.”

Pete and I had the misfortune of playing Austin and David in our first match. They killed us thoroughly, and we were forced to consume twelve cups of beer… eight for losing after sinking only two cups, and the four we didn’t sink on their end. We signed up at the bottom of the list and hung around until our turn came up again. Pete asked if I wanted a beer to sip while we waited, and I made the mistake of asking him if he’d ever shotgunned a beer.

“Shotgun?” he asked. It was adorable that he had no clue what that meant. I grabbed two full cans of Natty Light, a set of keys from Hutch, and led Pete onto the fire escape for his first Old Dominion shotgun.

By the time we were set to play the second time, we were both verging on black out. I remember talking to Haley for a while and asking her how she felt about Hutch. She confessed that she had feelings for him, and I told her not to get hurt.

“Dating an upperclassmen is a tough cookie, doll,” I warned. “Just don’t expect too much.”

“What are you telling her?” Hutch asked from across the room.

“Mind yours!” I shouted. To Haley, I whispered: “But if you want a guy like Hutch not to leave you, the secret is…”

I made a fellating motion and she laughed.

“Corbin, you’re up,” Roberto said to me. We were against him and a freshman I hadn’t met that Roberto kept talking to in Spanish. Brian had relinquished his spot on the table to go spend the afternoon with Catherine.

“Let’s go!” I said to Pete. As we set up the table, I scanned the room and realized that someone was missing. For the first time, I recognized that Lee wasn’t in the room. I’d gotten used to him hanging around our rush events, so it felt sort of odd. I saw David exit the room, probably to use the bathroom, so I followed him into the hall and into the bathroom round the corner.

“Hey, David Marcossi,” I said casually, taking the stall next to him. I didn’t think it was weird to talk in the bathroom when there was a divider between stalls. Had there not been, I might have waited until the hand-washing sink to strike up a conversation.

“Hey, Corbin,” David said in a jovial voice that sounded like it had just broken not too long ago.

“Having fun?” I asked.

“For sure,” he replied. “Y’all have the funnest house. And a kickass game room.”

“Yeah, other frats aren’t allowed to have beer pong tables because technically, they’re owned by the campus.”

It was a true fact. Chi Beta was lucky in that our alumni core had bought the land that we’d built our house on. It was one of the conditions of our charter that the school wouldn’t own the building. The other frats were housed on Greek Row or Red Square, university property. So drinking rules for them were much different. It was the reason so many frats had off campus country houses to facilitate drinking, and we did ours in our main residence.

“Well it’s awesome,” he said. We finished peeing, and I met him at the sink.

“Say, where’s Lee today? Aren’t y’all usually together?”

“Yeah. I think he’s with Doleman at the Phi Psi cocktail party,” David said.

“Oh,” I replied nonchalantly. I wasn’t concerned. “Is he rushing there, do you know?”

“Yeah, I guess he’s looking at some other places. It’s not like he needs to spend much time around here anymore anyway,” David said softly. I turned to him.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s pretty confident he’s gonna get a bid to Chi Beta. So he said he’s going to diversify his options.”

I gave David Marcossi an intense look. He looked down at me as if he’d been caught saying something wrong.

“You didn’t hear that from me,” he said.

“Hear what, David?” I said, lowering my voice to make it calm and peaceful. Inviting. I needed to know what David was talking about, and I needed him to trust me.

“Look, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“But you did. What did Lee tell you? He already has a bid here?”

“Of course not,” David confessed. “He just implied… he might have implied…”

“Did he imply or say, David?” I took a step closer to him.

“He said that since he’d already hooked up with you, there was no need to hang around the house anymore. You are definitely going to give him a bid.”

I smiled and let out a short breath of air.

“Look, I don’t want to get in trouble for saying anything.”

“You won’t, I promise,” I smiled. “You did the right thing telling me.”

I could tell by his face that he wasn’t so sure. If he hadn’t been so inebriated, I’m sure he wouldn’t have spilled the beans. But he was, and now I knew what Lee’s deal was. He’d used me for fraternity, and that was not okay. All bets were off when it came to that kid, I decided. If he wanted to go head to head, then so be it.

I washed my hands without saying another word to David Marcossi. I didn’t want to take my anger out on anyone at the party, so I swallowed my feelings about Lee, put on a brave face, and walked back into the game room.

“It’s about time,” Pete scolded when I finally returned to the game room. “I thought you might have fallen in or something.”

“Funny, douche lord,” I said with a smirk. “You kick off.”

Pete did. And he missed. And we got demolished, yet again.

The cups we drank that round did us in completely, and within twenty minutes, Pete and I were both passed out on the couch in the game room.

I’m unclear what the rest of the night provided. I do know that Pete and I joined a group that went to the band party on Greek Row. I’m not sure how I made it out to begin with, but Pete and I raged hard until about midnight, walked back to Chi Beta and got slices of Domino’s pizza on the way. I only know this because there’s a picture of Pete and me, taken by someone unknown, standing outside of Domino’s eating slices of pizza.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I was hungover, tired, and distracted. Mine and David Marcossi’s conversation played through my head as I took a long hot shower, and ate cereal for lunch. Had Lee really said that? To a fellow freshman? And if so, did he really think that he had an automatic bid simply because we’d hooked up once? What kind of asshole came to that kind of conclusion?

At about one, I packed my book bag and walked to the The Founder offices on the third floor of the university commons building.

The first issue of the paper was stacked and bound and ready to be distributed. I spent the next hour walking the paper around campus, dropping it off on every little blue paper stand I could find. The chore was therapeutic in that it gave me a chance to think.

I thought about everything from my week long crush on Pete to what Lee had said and done about me. I couldn’t have cared less that Lee told his freshmen buddies about me. That part didn’t bother me. I also couldn’t have cared any less if the rumor eventually made it back to Steph Doleman. Sure she was my friend, but it was her relationship at stake.

What bothered me most about what he’d said is what people would think. When people hear a story about an upperclassmen and a freshman, it always makes the older party look like a creeper. The tale would go a little like this: Corbin Crowley got Lee drunk and took advantage of him. Lee’s not even gay, he was just seduced by an older guy. See, he’s dating a girl.

And that’s what people would remember. As I walked around campus, I went through several different shades of anger. I thought about going to the freshman dorms and having it out with the kid. I thought about threatening to ruin his chances at a bid, not only at Chi Beta, but anywhere. I thought about outing him in my next column.

An hour later, I settled on doing nothing for the time being. Hutch would have been furious if I’d threatened him and lost a potential new member. Plus, I didn’t want to do anything drastic until I knew what influence he had on the other guys we were rushing. Unfortunately, my feelings had to remain secondary to our recruitment strategy.

I did, however, make a vow that when the moment was right, I’d take Lee down.

The other thing occupying my mind was Pete. Once I had a plan of action around Lee, I was free to think about Pete. We had had an awesome weekend, spending most of Saturday together. Hanging out with him was natural for me. It was easy, sexy. Flirting with him was fun. Too fun. In one day, I had gone from wanting to be over him, to wishing I was firmly under him…

But I decided that if I was going to increase my chances of hooking up with him, I’d have to spend some sober man hours. Up to that point, the majority of time we’d spent together involved some sort of alcohol.

Once the paper was all distributed, I took my copy and walked to Jefferson Hall. I went up to room 223, and knocked.

Adam West answered the door and a faint hint of marijuana wafted out of the room.

“Hey, is Pete in?” I asked. I could easily have called him, but I decided to stop by on my way home, hoping that he was too hungover himself to have left his room.

“Hey, Corbin,” Adam said. He yawned and stretched and I could see his rib cage protrude as he reached up, like a waking cat. “I think Pete’s in his room. Unless he went out to Amanda’s.”

I knocked on Pete’s door. “Hey, bud.”

A second later, Pete opened his door in just a pair of sweat shorts. He smiled down at me, and I gave him my best smile back up.

“Well this is a surprise. How’s it going?”

“Not bad,” I replied. “So, you’ve seen the party side of Corbin Crowley. I was wondering if you’d want to see the academic side.”

“Wait, you go to this school?” he joked.

I cracked a smile. “I’m serious. I have to study, and I hate doing it alone. Put on real pants, and come with me.”

“I’m already reading,” he said, going back into his bedroom. I followed him. “And this is so much more comfortable.”

“Come on,” I pressured. “Don’t you want to see outside for a few minutes? I’ll buy you coffee…”

He turned and looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

“Coffee? In this 30 centigrade heat? Now I’m sold,” he smiled sarcastically.

“Are you going to come or not?”

“I guess I’ll go with you. But you’ll have to promise we’ll get some studying done for real. I don’t know if I trust you in a library.”

“So rude,” I flirted back. “I’m an amazing studier.” As I spoke, Pete lowered his shorts and stood there in just a pair of black boxer briefs. He pulled up a pair of jeans and threw on a t-shirt. I watched the entire time, one drop of drool short of staring.

I had intended on spending the day studying in the Chi Beta library, but I thought I’d take a chance on studying with Peter. Who knew… maybe seeing a serious, sober side of me would be good. Plus, I knew that our EC took over the library for their weekly planning meeting after dinner on Sundays and I’d be forced to relocate.

By the time Pete got dressed, packed his bag, and we made it to the first floor of the library, it was almost three. We found a central table on the first floor that would allow us perfect people watching if our books got boring.

“Do you study here a lot?”

“Either here or the commons,” I answered.

“Any particular reason you choose the first floor?” he asked, unzipping his bag and pulling out a philosophy book.

“The basement floors are creepy, and drafty. But if I have something intense to study for, I’ll go to one of the private rooms downstairs.”

Our library was built like a serial killer’s dream. The floors below the main level were dim, the hallways were long, and the vibe was generally very creepy. There were a series of computer labs and private study rooms throughout the building… some of which were kept locked from the inside by couple who were doing more than just studying.

I pulled out my global economics overview book and started rummaging through the first chapter. It had already been highlighted to shit by the previous owner, so I simply made notes as I read the highlights to commit some of the important things to memory.

I looked up after a few minutes, and saw Pete concentrating hard on his book. His face was intense. He’d pulled out a pair of reading glasses from somewhere, and I couldn’t help noting just how much smarter he looked. I stared at him for a minute, and he didn’t move. It almost looked like he’d fallen asleep.

All of a sudden, he turned a page, took in a deep intense breath, and went back into his reading coma. I admit, I watched him do this for four or five pages in what might be described as a creepy manner.

“What?” he asked, looking up.

“Nothing,” I answered quickly. “You just don’t look like you’re reading anything. Your head doesn’t move.”

“How am I supposed to read?” he asked with a smile. “Like this?”

He pretended to read, pushing his head left to the right exaggerating the motion.

“No fool!” I hissed. I kicked his leg under the table. He looked at me, and kicked my leg back, only his kick was more aggressive. I went to kick him again, but he’d spread his legs out. A second later, both of his thighs clamped down on my kick leg, and he held on tight. I looked at him, and he gave me a wicked smile. I was one foot arch away from his junk.

“I’m going to kick you in your ballsack,” I threatened.

“Try it.” I tried to free my leg, but I couldn’t. I struggled, and the more I struggled, the more he laughed. After a minute, I stopped struggling, and instead relaxed my leg and foot. I let my foot, clad only in a flip-flop, rest right at the base of Pete’s crotch. I smiled a wicked at him, and laughed when he looked at me with a surprised expression.

“Let it go,” I warned. I slowly raised my foot and ran it right up the front of Pete’s shorts. He continued to stare me down.

“You know that’s Mister’s territory,” Pete said softly. “What’s she going to think?”

“You’re the one that won’t let go,” I said. He knew how to stop me. I saw Pete blush. A second later, he grabbed my foot and threw it down under the table. He scooted up purposefully, and took a hold of his book.

“Stop trying to distract me with your footsie,” he said with a smirk. I smiled and went back to my studying.

Part of me wondered what it was about Pete that could take the flirting to that place and then not cross over. Any other guy would have beelined straight for one of the study rooms downstairs, pulled me in, and locked the door. But it was like Pete enjoyed flirting, but he couldn’t bring himself to cross that line.

I continued to analyze our relationship while I absorbed nothing about insourcing and outsourcing and how the global economy was more connected now than ever before. Bullshit, I thought. I had rubbed my foot on his crotch and he hadn’t stopped me. That had to have meant something.

We studied for the rest of the afternoon, only taking breaks to mess with each other and refill our coffee. At six, Pete and I went to the commons to get dinner.

“What do you want?” he asked me when we got to the front of the line.

“I have money,” I said. “I can get it.”

“I purchased a ridiculous amount of Founder Flex,” he answered. “Just tell me what you want.”

I looked at him, and he nodded at me. It was our turn to order. I stepped beside him and put one hand on his shoulder to keep him from talking.

“Hey Vera,” I said happily to the older black woman on the side of the counter. “How’s it going, lady?”

“It’s good, baby,” she said with a big smile. “You weren’t in town this summer?”

“Not this summer,” I replied. “Were the campers well behaved?”

“Not as well as if you’d kicked em in the butt,” she laughed loudly. Vera had been the head cook when I worked at Old Dominion’s high school immersion program the summer after freshman year. She was a riot with a short fuse, and I learned quickly to get on her good side. “Whatchu want babe?”

“Can I have chicken wings, please?”

“Yes sir, you can,” she said, typing it into her register with her huge fingernail. “Anything else?”

“Do you have any fruit?” I asked. She reached up and pointed towards the refrigerated shelves that lined the counter. I cocked my eye at her and she matched my look.

“Fine, baby. I have some cold pineapple at that back. I’ll cut some up for you.”

“Thanks Vera,” I said with a smile. Without even asking, I grabbed a soda cup. “It was good to see you.”

“You too, baby,” she said. Had the line not been so long, I would have reached over for a hug. Instead, I pulled Pete up. He nervously ordered a chicken quesadilla and French fries for us to share.

“This your friend?” Vera asked me as she punched in his order.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied.

“Where you from, friend?”

“England, ma’am.”

“Oh, nice. He’s cute and well-mannered. Boy, I’ll tell you what.”

“He’s not that kind of friend, Vera,” I whispered. She gave me the look. It was the Vera look to end all looks. It was the same look she gave me when I went to the d-hall drunk for dinner during freshman year. It was her signature ‘no bullshit’ look. I smiled at her, picked up my cup, and inched backwards.

“He’s not,” I assured with wide eyes.

“Alright baby,” she said slowly. She motioned Pete out of the way without taking his outstretched card. “It’s taken care of, baby.”

Pete put his card away and walked to where I was filling up my drink. He poured his, and we stood at the end of the counter to wait for our food.

I said hi to the cook who was putting our fries and wings in the fryer. She was a sweet older black woman who had two daughters that went to Clifton Middle School. We talked for a couple of minutes about them starting school. One was trying out for the basketball team, and I told her to wish her look.

Mark was the older black guy who worked the cold station, and as we waited for our food, I saw Vera whisper something in his ear. He disappeared into the walk in fridge for a minute, and came out with freshly cubed pineapple. You could smell how sweet it was from where we stood.

“This for you two?” he asked, pointing his knife at us.

“Yessir,” I replied with a smile.

He boxed up two portions, stacked them on top of our hot to-go boxes, and handed us our meal.

“Don’t go telling nobody where you got that fruit from, you hear?”

“I won’t Mr. Mark,” I said with a smile. Pete and I left the commons food area and walked into the lounge area, where it was quieter. We set up next to fireplaces by the front door.

“So you really do know everyone,” he said, sitting next to me at the table instead of across. “That was pretty impressive.”

“They’re all nice folks that work there. Plus Vera manages the dining hall downstairs, too. Get to know her ASAP,” I advised. “It’s not just about free food and good fruit, either. She kept me out of a little trouble freshman year.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“Let’s just say that freshman year, I was known for overdoing it. There were a couple events that she managed the catering staff that ended with me sitting in their tent, drunk, drinking water and coffee,” I shrugged. Pete nodded. “She’s a good lady. Be nice to her.”

We both dove in to our meals. They had loaded us up at the commons, stuffing more food than was possible into our boxes. As I finished what had to have been a double portion of fries with Pete, I saw Hannah Allison and a couple of the KD’s walk into the student lounge. She noticed me looking at her, and immediately walked over.

“Hey Corbin,” she said with a smile. She was dressed in the sorority uniform of Nike running shorts and a neon recruitment t-shirt.

“Hey, Hannah,” I said. “You know Pete, right?”

“I think you might have introduced us at High Tower,” she replied.

“Speaking of,” I said quickly, before she could turn this into a walk through hello. “Did you consider anything that I said the other day?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “We talked about it with the officers, and I think we can work something out. We have a few stipulations though.”

“Shoot.”

“You said you could give us a day on Chi Beta Believe It weekend?”

“I sure can,” I answered.

“It doesn’t matter that Chi-O and Theta are already booked?”

“Listen, I’m the social chair, and I’d much rather mix with you all than Chi-O.”

“Okay perfect,” she said. “We want Friday night. DJ Swayze is coming right?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. We want a KD shout out at late night, and not at like two or three, either. We want one when the whole place is packed. And Brook wants a happy birthday shout out at some point too.”

“Done.”

“Rockstars and Rehabbers is the theme?”

“Unless you want something different.”

“Hell no, that’s the best theme ever.” I nodded. “Alright. Consider us booked. We’ll draft up the papers when it gets closer.”

I sighed as Hannah Allison walked away. In a week, I’d managed to turn our shitty situation around drastically. I knew certain people wouldn’t be happy about the power play, but it was something I had to do in order to boost our social credibility. I knew for a fact that with KD and Theta mixing with us that term, Kappa would change its mind soon enough. They’d have to, and even if it only meant a spring mixer, it would still be a good social call.

I didn’t waste any time in calling the Chi-O social chair. She’d hear about the move soon enough, and I thought I could mitigate the fall out if I told her myself.

“Hey Bridgette,” I left on her voicemail. “This is Corbin Crowley. Give me a call back. We need to discuss mixer details. I think we’re going to have to reschedule our Margaritaville mixer. It’s totally my fault for double-booking, but at this point, I don’t see another option. We can discuss it whenever, just give me a call.”

“Sorry for being rude,” I said to Pete as I hung up. “I just had to deal with that.”

“No worries,” he said. He continued to graze on fries. “You’re a very busy man.”

“For sure,” I said, thinking. It finally felt like my fraternity ducks were lining up in a row.

“So what exactly was that all about?” he asked.

“What?”

“That whole thing with Hannah, I guess. And Chi-O.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m smart,” he smirked.

“Before the school year, no one wanted to mix with us. I tried really hard, and only Pi-Phi and Chi-O agreed. The problem is, we have a huge double mixer weekend every year, sponsored by our alumni. It’s our big rush event social thing, and I couldn’t find anyone to fill the dates. Historically, we save that weekend for the best srats.”

“But none of them would mix?”

“Exactly. Right before school, I gave Chi-O one of those weekends. Then last week, I adopted Mister to get Theta to mix.”

“That’s two…”

“Yeah, but… this is going to sound really shitty. Chi-O isn’t exactly at the top of the heap. So I tried to get KD to mix with us that weekend, and that’s what you just saw.”

“So you replaced one of the sororities that would go out on a limb for you with another sorority that waited to see where you’d land socially? Isn’t that wrong?”

“It’s how it goes,” I shrugged. “It's decisions like this that'll get Chi Beta back to the top of the pack."

Pete didn’t say anything and I could tell he didn’t buy my lame justification. He disapproved. These sorts of deals were something that everyone did to get ahead, and I couldn’t feel bad about it. It was unfortunate that he’d had to witness it, but at the end of the day, I was doing my job.

I knew the fallout wouldn’t be that simple, and based on Pete’s disapproval alone, I knew I was in for something when I got back home later that night. I was half hoping the news hadn't reached our hallowed halls in the two hours since I'd spoken to Hannah Allison, but that was just wishful thinking. Sorority related news travelled fast at Old Dominion. By the time I stepped foot inside of Chi Beta, I was sure all parties involved knew why our Chi-O mixer had been cancelled.

“The EC wants to meet with you,” Hutch said as soon as I walked into the Great Hall just after ten. Pete and I had put in a good solid run after dinner. He bounced back from being upset with me rather quickly, and we went back to playing around more than studying.

“About what?”

“Chi-O just called. They’re pissed. Everyone is pissed…”

I looked at Hutch. I was not even remotely suprised.

“How pissed?”

“I dunno, Corbin. It sounds like you really did it this time.”

“Is Chi-O inside?”

“No, just our officers. I’m supposed to wait out here for you and bring you in.”

I nodded.

“Let’s go then,” I said confidently. Hutch opened the door and I followed him right into the lion’s den.