Chapter 2
Ihear the party before I even see the house.
Bass rattles the sidewalk, laughter spilling into the street, the chaotic symphony of a frat house devouring itself from the inside out. Each step closer thickens the air, like even the humidity’s drunk, clinging to my skin with the same desperation I’m trying to hide.
The Mu Lambda Nu house looms at the edge of University Ave, the main artery of campus life.
On game days, this stretch is a clogged vein of cars, tailgates, and tourists chasing their slice of college glory, but tonight, it feels like the whole current of the street has been sucked into our front door, pulled into one heaving, pulsing body.
A sea of bodies floods the walkway, pulled toward bass you can feel in your teeth.
Sorority girls in glitter wings and cat ears cluster by the door, laughing too loud, perfume cutting sharp through the haze.
A couple of football players, still slick with sweat and cologne, nod at the brothers manning the door and vanish inside like they own the place.
Two stories of white walls and navy shutters, thin columns rising like sentries from the giant brick front porch that wraps around to the side. Trimmed hedges line either side of the front door like someone cared enough to maintain them.
The house glows like a haunted temple. Lights pulse with the beat. Fog curls down the steps like secrets spilling loose. From the sidewalk, it looks exactly how it’s supposed to: epic, exclusive, a little dangerous.
There’s a smattering of whispers as we step up to the line. Quick glances thrown over shoulders.
While I’d love to pretend they’re checking me out. Commenting on the costume, the effort, or even the way I wear my yearning like a second skin… I know better.
They’re gawking because it’s me.
The crowd parts like we’re royalty, because being in my orbit means something, and everyone wants to be in favor with someone like me.
It makes me want to fucking vomit.
Joey, meanwhile, is eating it up, shouldering past guests clawing to get inside. He claps one of the brothers on the back as he breezes through the door, all charm and ease.
I hang back just long enough to catch the scowl one of them throws my way. I flash a sheepish smile, all teeth and guilt, then slip inside after him before I lose my nerve.
To the left, a spiral staircase curves upward, dramatic as hell, leading to the brothers’ private rooms. To the right, the formal living room looks like a rich kid’s museum piece.
Wall-to-wall portraits of past brothers in stiff suits, sofas circled around a fireplace no one’s ever lit, and a grand piano that only comes alive during initiation chants or when someone’s trying to get laid.
We push past the bodies and slip through a pair of French doors into the courtyard.
It’s a wide rectangle, open to the night, framed by the bones of the house itself. First-floor windows glowing with common rooms, second-floor balconies overhead leading to bedrooms and the chapter room.
The courtyard itself? A goddamn spectacle.
The parties we throw are legendary.
Every class of Mu Lambda Nu adds something to the chaos, but for the last five years the crown jewel has been our annual Halloween bash.
Día de los M.Λ.N.
The courtyard becomes a graveyard, forty headstones engraved with alumni names lined like trophies of the dead. Upstairs, a haunted walkthrough winds from room to room, brothers waiting inside to pour liquor straight down your throat.
Fog machines kick up on motion sensors, mist curling around your ankles the second you step through the gates. Strobes crack from the roofline like the house itself is seizing in time with the music.
At the center sits a skeleton DJ booth, guarded by a real coffin stuffed with neon jello shots and an endless supply of Natty Light.
Pledges in matching skeleton shorts serve without question, easy to spot and easier to command.
Every girl, every brother, no matter how drunk or feral, expects you to jump when they snap.
One corner always devolves into the pit. It’s a shirtless, grinding mass. No rules, no space, no shame. It’s sweat, skin, and maybe some girl in devil horns blowing another guy behind a hay bale.
You go in knowing you’ll come out soaked in something.
Beer. Glitter. Regret.
Probably all three.
Dead center, a dense knot of partygoers packs the space so tight the walls feel like they’re sweating too. The whole house feels alive, breathing through the walls, swallowing bodies whole.
You don’t move through a party like this. It moves through you.
The sororities treat the night like a national holiday. Circled on calendars. Outfit prepped weeks in advance. Like communion at the altar of debauchery.
“This is what heaven looks like,” Joey screams, ducking as someone tosses a beer can overhead.
I nod but keep scanning. Not casual, though I pretend it is. My eyes skip over glitter wings, sweaty jerseys, masks slipping down flushed faces.
Flash. Dark. Flash. Dark.
Each strobe light slices the room into still frames, and in every one I swear there’s someone watching me.
It should be Knox. It has to be Knox. But the longer I look, the less sure I am.
I came here to be undeniable. To make him look. And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that the looking’s already happening. That somewhere in this crowd, hidden in the rhythm and the shadows, someone has already chosen me.
My heart bangs in time with the music. Every step forward feels like it might drop me straight into Knox’s line of fire, but the first eyes on me aren’t his.
They belong to Tripp Sanders. Pledge Class President. Self-appointed morality police. A title invented by brothers too lazy to babysit and given to the guy most eager to abuse it.
Unfortunately for me, his Halloween makeup isn’t what makes him ugly. The skeleton paint is half gone, streaked with sweat, beer, and desperation. What’s left clings around the scowl carved into his face, like even the paint’s afraid of him.
He steps into my path like a bouncer, arms crossed, blue eyes crawling up my body.
“Wow,” he says flatly. “Didn’t realize pledge attire was optional.”
Behind him, someone laughs.
Not with me. Definitely not with me.
“It’s a creative interpretation,” I shoot back.
Tripp doesn’t smile. “It wasn’t up for interpretation. You were supposed to wear what we all agreed on.”
Heat prickles my cheeks, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of flinching. Joey stays quiet. I can feel his anger humming beside me, one sharp comment away from spilling over, but he holds it. He knows these are my fights, especially when the Finley name’s involved.
This is how it always plays out. People either cling to me to climb higher, or back away like I’m dangerous. Tripp’s the worst kind though. Drunk on fake authority, desperate to prove he matters. Of course he zeroes in on me. I walk into a room and get what he begs for.
Not because I asked for it.
God, I’d kill not to want it, but he wouldn’t believe me if I said that. So I lift my chin. Square my shoulders. Make sure every inch of me screams unbothered, even while my heart tries to break out of my ribs.
Don’t be weak. They think you’re fragile. Don’t let them break you.
“I’m a skeleton,” I say, voice flat with fake confidence. “Didn’t think we all had to be basic about it.”
“Yeah,” Tripp sneers. “Keep acting like the rules don’t apply, Finley. You think the rest of us wouldn’t get reamed for showing up half-naked?”
I’m ready with a comeback, but it dies in my throat. My skin prickles, sweat beads at the nape of my neck.
He’s here.
I don’t have to look. The room tilts toward him, gravity pulling harder on one side.
Tripp feels it too. He leans in, breath sharp. “You don’t get to ride in here on your last name and skip the hard part.”
He storms off before I can answer.
So I stand there. Pretending the words don’t sting, even as every muscle in my body strains toward the crowd, toward the eyes I can feel pinning me in place.
This must be what prey feels in the seconds before the kill. That buzzing panic when you know you’ve stepped too far into the open. That useless hope that if you stay still, you might survive.
Only I know better. I’ve already been caught.
When I finally turn, our eyes collide.
Knox stands by the keg, solo cup clenched so tight the plastic looks ready to crack. His jaw ticks, tension rolling off him in waves. He looks like he’s holding something in. Something violent or vulnerable or both.
The man is so fucking hot.
Dark hair, darker eyes, skin like bronze cast in shadow, catching every flicker of the strobe lights. A beard framing his jaw straddling that line between clean-cut and rugged. Every word he speaks must claw past that neat wall of scruff, which only makes them land harder.
He’s symmetrical in a way that feels unnatural, like he was engineered to be feared. Brows low, gaze steady, every feature in perfect place. The kind of man who doesn’t have to smirk to ruin you, but when he does, you’re finished.
Don’t even get me started on the tattoos. Sweet hell. The man is a mural.
Full sleeves crawling from wrists to shoulders, roses and skulls tangled with dates and lines I’ll never forget. I’ve traced them with my tongue. Tasted every curve and line while he hovered over me, slamming into me like he was trying to fuck me off the face of the earth.
That strong, silent thing he carries is what makes the brotherhood follow him. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. His presence commands the room before he even steps inside.
No one else does it like him.
That’s why no one questions it. Because Knox Everett isn’t polos and boat shoes and pastel shorts.
He’s fury. He’s control. He’s pure fucking sex. And we all know it.
His costume leaves nothing to the imagination. Khakis, a belt, and nothing else but fake blood smeared down his chest like war paint. A ski mask pushed back off his head, sitting like a crown. Shirtless, dripping in theatrical gore, and somehow still cleaner than me.
The man is carved from punishment. Brutal two-a-days and a body that doesn’t bend, only breaks. Everything else thrashes and surges, but he stays still, the calm eye of the storm that could tear the house apart if it shifted.
His eyes are bottomless. I lose myself trying to chase the depth, forget my own name in the looking.
Eyes that pinned me while he leaned back against my headboard, while my knees dug into the mattress and I rode him with reckless abandon.
Lifting, slamming, gasping as every thrust angled him harder against my prostate, shoving me closer to breaking while he sat there, unmovable, grinding me down into something unrecognizable
His gaze slides down my chest glowing under the paint, lingers at the waistband where my jock strap peeks above shorts, and drags slowly back up. He takes his time like he owns me. When his stare lands heavy on mine, I feel branded.
Only issue is that he looks bored. Like being half-naked at a Halloween party surrounded by horny undergrads is any another Thursday.
Like none of it matters.
Like I don’t matter.
I don’t look away. Instead I smile. A slow, taunting curl.
In one night Knox tapped into parts of me I didn’t know existed. Dark, dizzying corners of myself I’d never dared to explore.
He was careful with me. Too careful
He never let me see all of him. He gave me the edges. The strong but silent man who knew how far to go without pushing too far, and I let myself believe that was all there was.
Still, word spreads. Quiet little stories passed between frat brothers like contraband. I didn’t pay them much attention at first, but the image sharpened fast.
Knox with a reputation.
Knox who liked control.
Who liked it rough.
Who liked to ruin you, not rescue you.
The more I heard, the more it pissed me off because I wasn’t the only one hiding.
I’d spent the summer shielding myself behind charm and innocence, hoping he wouldn’t look too closely at the mess underneath, but while I was busy performing, so was he.
We were both playing it safe. Both afraid of what it would mean to show the other what we actually wanted. Deep down, I think we both knew if we let go of the act something between us might actually break.
Now I can’t stop thinking about everything he didn’t do. Everything he didn’t say. Everything he could’ve been if he stopped playing it safe.
No one’s ever shown me their darkness. I want it. The black, endless parts. The parts that pull and crush and consume.
I want to see if I survive it.
Behind me Joey shifts, his silence louder than the pounding music. I can feel his wide-eyed panic without even turning.
Whatever this thing is between Knox and me… subtlety never touched it.
“I think you got his attention,” Joey mutters in my ear, like he’s afraid Knox will hear.
My grin widens.
“Yeah,” I say. “And I think I’m in trouble.”