Chapter 5 Mark #2
My dad stiffened. It was just a flinch of motion, but I’d learned to read his subtle cues and could tell he’d picked up on the undertone in Chet’s comment.
As soon as we climbed back in my car thirty minutes and a few awkward canapés later, I rested my chin on the steering wheel. “What the actual fuck just happened?”
Chet’s fingertips teased over the nape of my neck and squeezed. The pressure felt good, drained some of the stress from me. “You need beer and loud music.”
I couldn’t disagree. “Seriously, though. What was that?”
Chet jabbed his seatbelt in place and chuckled. “No fucking clue. Only explanation I can come up with is we jumped timelines somehow.”
“God, it was weird.” I cranked the car and wasted no time getting out of the driveway. I didn’t know what to make of that visit. Was it groundwork for acceptance? A pyrrhic victory? “I’m not sure if that was better or worse than the last time we went over there.”
Chet snorted. “I’m going with improvement, but I’ll wait for more data to decide.” His hand wandered to my thigh, squeezing it as I drove. “Maybe it was the togas and tunics. Got him all randy, made him reminisce about his younger years.”
“Gross.” I wrinkled my nose. “And never use ‘randy’ and my dad in the same sentence. In fact, just don’t use ‘randy’ at all.”
“Not even if I apply it to you?” He waggled his eyebrows at my subsequent glare.
“Nothing like fucked-up family dynamics to get a person all hot and bothered.” When I shifted in my seat, Chet’s hand slid higher, palm warm and rough on my bare skin.
He smirked when I glanced over at him, then inched his hand higher, fingertips skating beneath the hem of my tunic.
He brushed his thumb along the crease of my hip, then hooked beneath the elastic of my briefs to graze my shaft.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You wanna get to this party in one piece?”
“I’d rather get in your pants. Or skirt, as it were.” He cut me a wicked smile. Jesus, maybe fucked-up family dynamics really did do it for him.
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna have to at least make it through the first hour of this party.
Kyle will have my ass if I bail on the haunted house too soon.
” Dude had been militant about this party, wanting it to be the most unforgettable Halloween bash the Sigmas had ever thrown.
I didn’t get it. As a senior, I just wanted to relax and enjoy my last year at the U.
Fuck leaving a legacy. Legacies were overrated.
“The only person who gets your ass is me.”
“You can have it if you can find me.” I arched a brow at him coolly, even though my insides fizzed with heat even thinking about it. Chet, me, and a haunted maze? I was down.
We got to the frat house five minutes and two unsatisfied boners later.
The street was jammed with cars, and there were folks in costume all over the sidewalk. The bass from the Sigma house’s speakers was so loud it had to be rattling the windows on the old Victorian. Fog from one of the untold numbers of machines the frat had purchased drifted across the lawn.
We got lucky and found a parking spot a quarter mile away and made our way to the party.
The house smelled like weed, pumpkin spice candles, and booze.
There was another fog machine in the foyer, making it look like the inside of a bong rip.
Every surface was covered with cobwebs or caution tape.
Multi-colored lights spun and bounced off the hundreds of plastic skulls and miniature pumpkins we’d spent the last week setting up.
Nate had said if he never had to hang a plastic skull again, he’d die happy.
I hooked an arm through Chet’s and we wove through the partygoers.
Someone shoved Solo cups filled with foamy beer in our direction, and we grabbed for them like lifelines.
I chugged mine, grateful for the warmth that spread through my gut.
This was much better. I didn’t even mind when some dipshit dressed as Spiderman flicked his wrist and spewed silly string at us.
Chet laughed as we both clawed it from our faces.
I spotted Nate near the keg in an elaborate vampire costume that probably took him weeks to put together, and definitely put mine and Chet’s to shame. I steered us in his direction.
“‘Sup, Count Suckula?” I greeted him.
Nate chortled, nearly dropping the tap he was filling his cup with when I shoulder-checked him. “Says the guy dressed like a medieval leather daddy.” Then he turned to Chet. “My condolences for your loss in a fight against a fitted sheet.”
Chet smoothed a hand down his torso with a wry twist of his lips. “It’s a flat sheet, for the record. I’m definitely losing the fight, though. It’s way harder to keep everything in place than I thought.”
“That’s a feature, not a bug.” I smirked and then glanced around our immediate vicinity. “Eric’s not here?”
“He’s finishing up a paper. Soon, though. How’d it go with your folks?”
“Hard to describe, really,” I said, at the same time Chet said much more succinctly: “Weird.”
“Better than dead, I guess.” Nate swigged his beer, eyes narrowing at something over my shoulder before he looked back at us.
“I haven’t seen Sam or Jesse yet, but I think I saw Ansel earlier in a skeleton costume.
Not a hundred percent on that, though. I thought for sure Jesse would be here by now, considering how hyped he was about his costume. ”
“He said he had to help Sam out with something and they’d probably both be late.” I searched the crowd again, but didn’t see any Dr. Frank-N-Furter rep among the faces. “You notice anything weird about the two of them lately?”
“Weird how?” Nate asked.
I didn’t know how to explain it. It was a vibe. “Just different. They’re together a lot.”
“Y’all share a house,” Nate pointed out.
“Yeah, but I don’t know. Something’s different about them since my dad’s party.” I shrugged it off. “Probably nothing.”
“Maybe they’re hooking up on the sly,” Chet suggested with a smirk, and Nate and I both barked out a laugh.
“I don’t think they’re each other’s type.
” Nate scanned the crowd again, and I could tell he was getting antsy waiting for Eric.
I thought Chet and I were clingy, but those two were like tequila and bad decisions.
“Remember, your dad’s party was the same one where Jesse kept going on about searching for manthers and Sam said he’d wingman for him. ”
“Maybe Sam wingmanned his way into a gay orgy.” Chet again.
I spluttered into my beer. “No way Sam would be into something like that. Jesse, either, when I think about it.” Nate and Eric were far more likely candidates, but I wasn’t about to say that.
They’d probably take it as a challenge or something, and we all would have to suffer through hearing about it.
“Anyone wanna put odds on whether Sam shows up in his football gear again and calls it his costume?”
“No bet, of course he will,” Nate said, then thumbed over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go roam. Y’all should check out the maze. It’s pretty intense this year. I heard two people pissed their pants already.”
Chet turned to me after Nate melted into the crowd, eyes glittering with an impish menace that, by now, I knew signaled imminent fuckery.
“Sounds like you’d better watch your back in there.
Might be easy to lose track of where you are.
” He leaned in closer, breath tickling my jawline. “Or who’s hunting who.”
The way he said it, slightly threatening, made primal heat pool in my gut.
I matched his energy, sliding my hand along the small of his back where the toga dipped and exposed the hard ridge of his spine.
His bare skin was hot, and I imagined for a second running my tongue up the length of his vertebrae. “Sounds dangerous.”
“The best kind of dangerous,” he purred, a possessive edge in it like he was already picturing the trouble we could get up to if we were alone.
At this point, I wasn’t sure which of us was supposed to be the predator here. I also wasn’t sure it mattered. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Depends,” Chet mused, shifting into my touch. His back arched as I chased the dip of his spine, fingertips testing how far down I could go before his breath hitched or he swatted me away. “You still planning on letting me have your ass if I can find you?”
“Big if, Pynch.” I scoffed, even though the way he’d said it all low and ominous turned me on.
“I do love a challenge.” He squeezed my hip hard enough to bruise and, in retaliation, I caressed just above his sacrum. “Especially when the prize is you bent over in some dark corner.”
Before I could fire back with something equally dirty, Kyle, our current president, charged toward us looking frazzled, a wolf mask shoved high on his forehead and what looked like a smear of glow paint on his cheek. “Mark. Thank fuck. Brad’s puking, so I need you on maze duty now.”
Fuck me. “How ‘now’ do you mean?” I was barely a beer in and was hoping to actually enjoy the party for a while before having to sequester myself in a dark alcove and thrust a skeleton-on-wheels between the plastic sheeting as drunk partygoers passed by.
“Like, now. Sorry, man,” Kyle said, already scanning the room for the next disaster to mitigate. “Marty’s at the entrance. He’ll get you squared away.” Kyle was off before I could protest further. I guess that was that.
I groaned, and Chet nudged my shoulder. “Sounds like you get a head start. Go terrorize some freshmen. Then maybe you can terrorize me. We’ll see.” He plucked my beer out of my hand and drained it in two gulps like an asshole before flashing me an unrepentant grin. “Don’t get lost down there.”
“I built half that maze,” I grumbled. But it was true.
We’d been working on it for weeks, and I could attest that it was legit.
Chet was more likely to get lost, but after the stunt he pulled with my beer, I decided he didn’t need to know that.
He could figure it out himself.“Don’t make me wait too long.
I get bored easily.” I smacked his ass hard and danced out of reach.
Chet’s grin was all dark omen as he called out, “Oh, I’m counting on it.”