Chapter Five Cash
Chapter Five
Cash
I parked my rig in the lot behind Dalton Sneed’s frat and blew out a low whistle at the number of cars filling it.
It appeared he’d invited me to the biggest bash of the year.
As he’d instructed, I walked in the back door and stepped directly into an industrial kitchen filled with guys who were making the world’s largest batch of jungle juice.
A couple of them, with the sleeves of their dress shirts rolled up to their elbows, poured bags of ice into a thirty-three-gallon plastic trash can.
I hoped the liner was food-grade, but probably, it was a plain old trash bag.
Several other guys stood at the ready with opened bottles of booze while Dalton and our safety, Taco Hernandez, stood at the sink filling pitchers with water and adding packets of Kool-Aid. Catching me standing right inside the door, Dalton smiled.
“Glad you could make it, man. Give me a second, and I’ll grab you a mask.”
“Thanks. Looks like a pretty lethal brew you’re mixing up.” I chuckled. “And a lot of it.”
“We’ll be lucky if this lasts through the party,” Taco said as he poured his pitcher of Kool-Aid into the rapidly filling vat.
In a couple of minutes, liquid filled the trash can to within a third of the brim.
Another pair of guys, who’d been standing on the other side of the sink from Dalton and Taco, stepped over and tipped in a massive bowl of sliced fruit.
In seconds, orange, lemon, and lime slices covered the top of the concoction.
Dalton walked over to me and grabbed his suit jacket from where it hung on a peg near the door behind me. With a grin, he reached into the pocket and held out a black silk mask.
“Here you go.”
I grinned back and slipped on it over my head, adjusting it over my eyes. “I feel like Zorro in this thing,” I said, striking a pose.
Dalton laughed. “Yeah, when you slice up defenses with your precision passing, we’ll start calling you Zorro. Right, Taco?”
“For sure, man,” Taco said as he joined us.
“Make way for the fun lubricant!” one of their frat brothers shouted as four of them grabbed the handles of the trash can and hefted it through the swinging doors separating the kitchen from the party on the other side.
A crew of guys were helping themselves to plates of food from an array of snacks covering a wide counter. A DJ was playing something by Kane Brown, I think. Laughter and conversation filled all the airspace.
Clapping me on the shoulder, Dalton said, “Time to party, Cash Zorro!” He laughed at his lame nickname for me. Nodding toward the guys with the booze, he said, “Follow them.”
We walked into a great room, with emphasis on “great.” The place easily held the hundred-plus guests filling it.
Fancy decorations in green, gold, and purple hung from the beams spaced at intervals down the two-story-high ceiling.
Someone with an industrial-height ladder must have hung the balloons from the ornate chandelier hanging in the middle.
Through the crowd of people, I could make out some couches and chairs along the walls.
A gorgeous mahogany bar, like something out of an old Western, lined the wall to our right.
At least the guys hefting that heavy vat of party brew hadn’t had to go far.
Already they were ladling cups of lethal drinks from it.
But from where I stood at the entrance to the behind-the-bar area, I noticed stacks of thirty-racks of beer, thank God.
After watching the boys make their jungle juice, I’d already made up my mind to steer clear of it.
The alcohol content in that shit was so high, drinking it would make a guy’s ears swell up.
A group of girls took up the space in front of the bar with a row of guys standing protectively behind them.
One of the girls in an electric-blue mask, embellished with glittery rhinestones and a set of blue and white feathers, was pitching shit at the bartenders who were laughing at her sass.
The girls flanking her laughed too, and I had a sudden urge to be in on the joke.
With my mask in place, I let my eyes take a little tour of Sassy-Girl, hoping like hell she didn’t belong to one of the bruisers standing behind her.
She’d arranged her blonde hair in a cascade of curls my fingers itched to wreck just to find out if her hair was as soft and thick as it looked.
When she blew a kiss at one of the guys handing out cups of party punch, my eyes latched onto her full rosy lips, and a picture of those gorgeous lips wrapped around my cock flashed through my mind.
The fuck? What was wrong with me? I had no idea who this girl was, and already, I was picturing her giving me head?
Sipping from her cup, she puckered those tempting lips and turned to her girlfriend standing beside her. Though I couldn’t hear what she said over the din of the crowd, after watching the guys build the punch, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out she thought the jungle juice was intense.
“Looks like some of the other players made it,” Dalton said in my ear.
“How do you know? Everyone’s wearing a mask.”
“Well, that girl with the multicolored mask standing at the bar is Jamaica Winslow, Callahan’s squeeze, which means the guy standing behind her is ’Han himself.
Next to him are Bax and Finn. Easy to tell them too, because even dressed up, they can’t help looking like the tanks they are. ” Dalton laughed.
“How do you know that girl is Callahan’s girlfriend? She’s wearing a mask.” I pointed out the obvious.
In a tone that said he was pointing out the obvious too, Dalton said, “Those dark curls give Jamaica away every time.”
I nodded. “Are the other girls with her dating Bax and Finn?”
Dalton laughed again. “Bax and Finn have no game with the ladies. I mean ze-ro. I can’t imagine any of those hotties are with them.
But judging by the way Danny has his arm wrapped around the girl in the green dress, she’s not available.
” Tilting his head, he stared at the pair standing beside Danny Chambers and his date.
“Looks like the girl in the wild-colored dress is with Tarvi, so I’d stay clear of that too. ”
“Got it.”
The team behind the bar made quick work of serving drinks to the group, who moved off into the crowd, and I lost sight of the hottie in the electric-blue mask.
Sidling over in front of the bar, I asked for a beer and was pleasantly surprised when I was handed a can of imported IPA.
Good to know they weren’t saving those thirty-racks for a special occasion.
Dalton introduced me to several of his frat brothers, which was decent of him to do, even though with all of us wearing masks, my chances of remembering any of them were next to nil.
“A lot of the women here are Little Rhos,” he said as we watched a pair of girls try not to spill their drinks while they line-danced to Dasha’s “Austin” on the edge of the dance floor.
“Little Rhos?” I asked, sipping from my beer and enjoying the show.
“Little sisters to the house. Most of them are single.” His mask moving up and down with his brows cracked me up.
A few minutes later, one of the dancers grabbed Dalton, calling him by name as she did, and dragged him out onto the dance floor with her and her friend. Guess the two of them were single little sisters to the house. I wondered if that was code for wanting to date SCRs.
Not wanting to look like a creeper, I ambled off around the room, checking out the rather impressive art on the walls—something I didn’t expect in a frat house—and trying not to look too much like the outsider I was.
Then I caught sight of Danny’s long mane and wandered over to where he and Tarvi were standing with their dates.
“Cash! Who talked you into representing tonight?” Danny asked as we shook hands.
“Dalton. From what he told me, there are about as many Wildcats at this bash as there are frat boys hosting it.” I tipped back some beer and grinned.
“It’s the biggest frat party of the year. It’s our job to represent,” Tarvi said as he extended his hand to me. “This is my girlfriend, Zoe.”
The girl from the bar who was wearing the wild dress extended her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You remember my girlfriend, Taryn,” Danny said. Even behind his mask, his eyes took on a dreaminess when he glanced down at the brunette plastered to his side.
“Nice to see you again, Cash,” Taryn said.
“Aside from Taco and Dalton, who are frat rats, every football player I’ve recognized here—you two included—has a date. Out of curiosity, did Dalton forget to tell me something when he invited me?”
“Nah,” Danny said as he squeezed Taryn tighter to his side.
“Some of us happen to be in relationships. Tarvi”—he inclined his head at our teammate—“Callahan. Me. Bax and Finn are trying.” He cleared his throat, and Tarvi cracked a smile.
“But I’m not sure how far they’re getting.
Bax might be close to convincing the purple-haired woman of his dreams into dating him.
But she didn’t come to the party with him tonight. ”
“Didn’t I see a purple-haired woman standing in front of Bax at the bar right after I got here?”
“Yeah, she’s here,” Danny said. “But she didn’t come with Bax. Her name is Piper, and she’s friends with Callahan’s girlfriend, Jamaica. None of Jamaica’s friends nor Jamaica herself came with dates. Though my guess is Callahan will be taking Jamaica home at the end of the night.”
“I think I’m missing something here.”
“All my roommates are twitterpated over girls who are buddies with each other. It’s kind of a tight circle,” Danny said. “Even though they met separately.” He shrugged. “Though sixteen thousand people attend MSC, the campus is surprisingly small.”
Tipping my beer to my lips, I was surprised to find it empty. “Huh. Looks like I need a refill.”