Chapter 4
FOUR
“Who’s that?” comes a separate male voice.
“Ivy! Hey, wait up!”
Against my better judgement, I pause. I shouldn’t, but for some reason I’m not as panicked as I was before.
Blinking the tears back and sucking in a breath, I turn to find the force that is my Public Speaking partner loping toward me with a gigantic smile on his handsome face.
It’s below freezing, but he’s not wearing a jacket, only a light blue sweatshirt with the Stratus mascot on the front, and I shiver just looking at him.
“I knew it was you! I’d recognize the blonde anywh—hey, what’s wrong?” His brow knits as his eyes roam my face, as always seeing too much. I swallow, fighting the urge to look down at my boots.
“N-nothing,” I mutter and wince. My cheeks warm even though it’s frigid out here, and I try again, attempting to speak like a normal person. “Just a bad night. I’m fine.”
He glances at his friends. “Give me a second, okay?”
They nod, and he cocks his head to the side, motioning for me to follow him a few feet away from where they stand.
When we’re out of earshot, he stuffs his hands in his pockets, turning to me with his broad shoulders hunched, almost as if he’s trying to shield me from the windchill.
“What’s going on? Why are you out here by yourself? ”
“I’m fine,” I lie, grateful when the words don’t get stuck again. “Really.”
“No, seriously.” He reaches out as if to brush my arm but seems to think better of it, instead letting his hand drop. He blinks those glittery, dark eyes at me. “Come on, Partner. Tell me. Pretty please with sugar on top?”
I exhale a sigh and then attempt to explain around my chattering teeth. “I accidentally locked myself out. I was trying to get a key from my roommate.”
His frown deepens. “Oh, shit. Where’s your roommate?”
I glance at the row of fraternity houses with uncertainty. “Pike, I think.”
His eyes light up at that for reasons I can’t comprehend. “Oh, great! That’s just down the street!” When I don’t respond, he searches my face, growing more confused by the second that I don’t seem to share his enthusiasm. The crease between his brows returns. “Wait, why are you upset?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to figure out how to articulate my hesitation. “I don’t…I’ve never…I don’t know which frat house that is,” I finally admit. “I’ve never been.”
Wes grins, the earlier concern forgotten. “No worries,” he says. “I’ll take you.”
My eyes widen. Now, that seems like a horrible idea. “Well…who knows if she’s even still there?”
Wes doesn’t take the hint. “Let’s go find out!”
This time I take a step back. I notice an immediate drop in temperature once I stop using him as a human shield. “I’m, um, not sure that’s the best idea.”
He frowns. “Why not?”
“Your friends are waiting for you,” I point out, glancing nervously toward the two guys hanging back, staring down at their phones and shifting on their feet. They’re not as big as Wes, but I can tell by their height and strong builds that they’re most likely student athletes, too.
“They’re my housemates. They don’t need me to babysit them.” Abruptly, he turns and calls, “Can I meet you guys back at the house?”
The two glance up at the same time and look unabashedly between Wes and me. “Sure,” says the shorter one.
“See you later, man,” says the other.
And that’s that. Wes’s friends turn and head in the opposite direction, but not before shooting me curious looks over their shoulders, probably wondering what a guy like Wes is doing talking to some nobody freshman.
I try not to die from the mortification of it all.
And then it’s just the two of us, standing on the corner of frat row in twenty-five-degree weather, only one of us wrapped in a coat.
I wait for the warning bells to kick in, for my brain to register that I’m basically alone out here in the dark with some random guy I hardly know, but they never come.
Maybe because what’s waiting inside that frat house is way scarier to me than the giant of a human beside me.
“Shall we?” he asks, tipping his head toward the houses down the street. “Pike is the fifth on the right.”
Sighing, I mutter a very unconvincing, "Sure."
What choice do you have at this point?
“So, who are we looking for again?” he asks, after we walk for a bit.
“My roommate, Ava.” I halt in my tracks and look at him. “You really don’t have to do this. It’s stupid.”
“You know what’s stupid? Me, Kaden, and Ben were going to go back to the house and continue our re-watch of Game of Thrones.
That’s what’s stupid, especially considering the ending.
This,” he gestures around, “is not stupid. How else are you going to get into your apartment?” I search for an answer and come up empty. “Exactly.”
“It’s just…you barely know me,” I mutter.
And I barely know you, is what I don’t say.
“You’re right. I barely know you. Except for your major and your hobbies and your insecurities and your fears and how you’d spend your last twenty-four hours on this earth eating mac and cheese, alone—”
“Okay, okay,” I cut him off. Even in the cold, my face warms at the reminder of my pathetic answers. When we start walking again, I peek up at him out of the corner of my eye and find him smirking playfully at me. My shoulders relax an inch.
“So why couldn’t Ava go back to let you in?”
“She doesn’t like me much.”
“She doesn’t?” I can feel his surprise. “Why’s that?”
I shrug, not wanting to get into it. “You’d have to ask her, I guess.”
He makes a sound like “hmm,” but doesn’t comment further.
When we arrive at Pike, I freeze, staring up at the enormous, brick mansion with four white, towering columns at the front like some kind of tacky tribute to the Acropolis.
The Greek letters are still wrapped in colorful Christmas lights, but the attempt at decoration ends there.
Red cups and beer cans litter the patchy lawn, along with a ping pong table and an old, faded couch.
People are spilling out of the house, smoking and drinking from the porch to the second-floor balcony, and I shrink into myself. There’s no way I can go in there. Finding Ava will be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and I’m not up to the challenge.
I can feel Wes’s eyes on me, feel the hand hovering at my back even though he’s not actually touching me, and I picture blood pooling to that area, under my skin. My breath stutters.
“Ready?” he asks, his eyes bright.
I’m about to answer when a girl walks by in a crop top and skirt set that barely covers her ass. I glance down at my parka. “I think I’m a little overdressed.”
He chuckles, giving my outfit a once-over. “At least you won’t get frostbite on your belly button. Or…other places one definitely does not want frostbite.”
My face warms. “I guess.”
He cocks his head at the door. “Let’s go.”
Words escape me, so I simply nod.
We don’t make it to the door, though. The second Wes steps onto the grass, the guys on the porch descend on him like he’s some kind of god, clapping him on the shoulder or shaking his hand.
I step away from the group before it can swallow me up, watching the mob of frat bros flutter around Wes’s light like a bunch of drunken moths.
“What the fuck, is that Doc?” calls one.
“Fuck, it is! How’s it going, Tucker?”
“What’s up, Doc!”
“Doc’s at Pike? No fucking way.”
“Want a drink, man? We’ll show you where we keep the good stuff.”
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so beloved.
Backing off the grass, I move as far away from the insanity as possible without stepping into the street, watching Wes’s response with a critical eye.
He doesn’t appear at all fazed by the attention, and he greets everyone in his fan club with the same smile and enthusiasm.
“Hey, man. Good to see you, too. No, no. Sorry, can’t talk. On a mission at the moment.”
I know little about Stratus’s football team, but I gather that the nickname and the reverence have something to do with it.
I saw the same thing in high school, football players garnering admiration and respect they didn’t deserve from students, teachers, and parents alike.
It made them brash and arrogant and overly self-satisfied, but I don’t get those same vibes about Wes.
He’s confident, but not cocky. Buoyant, but not boastful.
Or maybe my asshole radar’s on the fritz.
It takes a while, but Wes manages to break away from the throng. He scans the lawn until he finds me, then bounces back over with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. I should have warned you.”
My mouth twitches down. “You’re very…popular.”
His smile turns a little sheepish, and he runs his hand through his hair, mussing up the dark curls. “I’m just their latest fixation.”
“Why?”
He smirks. “You really don’t know, do you? That first day in class when you asked me what sport I played, I thought you were kidding.”
"Know what?" I ask, embarrassed that there’s something I’m missing.
“I scored the winning touchdown against our rivals, Ridgeview State.”
I blink at him. “Oh.”
He makes a show of looking mock offended. “Oh? That’s all I get?”
“I think your ego’s been stroked enough for one night.”
His grin widens at my bold comeback. “Touché, Poison Ivy. Tou-fucking-ché.”
After that, Wes leads me into the house, telling me to stay close to him in the crowd. As we shuffle from room to room, I scan the female faces around me for signs of Ava or Kinsley.
Wes bends down to be heard over the music. “Do you see her?” he asks. When I shake my head, he points to a door off the kitchen. “Let’s try downstairs.”
I don’t want to try downstairs. Downstairs is the last place on earth I want to go, but Wes takes off before I can protest, and I have to hurry after him, so we don’t lose each other.
It’s hard to admit, but I feel safer next to him than away from him, which isn’t saying much at a party like this. But still.