Chapter 3
THREE
Damon
The Alpha Clan was an unmissable place the weekend before the semester officially kicked off.
Had I not decided to live with my ice brothers in the team house, I would have gone through the whole wicked fun of hazing to be one of these devils.
But as things were, I was an honorary guest at their parties.
My teammates didn’t love the idea of moving through the crowd of fraternity fuckboys.
Apparently, we were too famous or something.
Blades of Northwood had gone a long way in boosting our profiles, but the image they had created for me was in line with someone who’d go to a frat party to break some heads and screw around.
Not that I would necessarily do either of those things unless compelled.
I pushed the heavy bar up, feeling my chest shudder with exertion, then placed it on the safety pegs before embarrassing myself. I was exhausted, but the pump was going to show tonight if I picked my shirt right.
After showering at the gym, I sprayed my neck with cologne three times for luck, dressed, and went back to the house for the final touches. The shirt, as expected, hugged me tightly around the chest and waist, fitted for my physique just the right way.
Mason snorted when he saw me getting dressed. “Can’t miss a single one?”
I flipped him off. If he knew what the meaning of life was, he would have joined me. But as things stood, he was a lost cause. Sure, hockey was fun, and it was everyone’s priority, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a hobby, right?
“Don’t wait up, Pops,” I said, strolling out of the room I shared with my mouthy hothead of a friend. I waved goodbye to the others as I passed through the house. Andrei and Griffin lounged in the living room, Griffin’s head resting in Andrei’s lap, all wild curls and sweet smiles.
My heart gave a little murmur of grief. But that was okay. I’d put it to work tonight. I wasn’t going around falling in love. That was for better people than this. I wasn’t as gallant or as tolerant for anyone to put up with me for long.
The steady beat of joyless music poured out of the colonial house a block away from my team house.
The Alpha Clan had a reputation to uphold.
They couldn’t play something soulful or entertaining.
It had to sound like a construction site with the beat taking the roof off the house.
Odd noises, strange movements of tones, and no melody to be found. Just like I liked it.
I stepped through the doors that were wide open and into a crowd of college students in the large living room. They had paper cups in their hands and were grouped in twos and threes and fours, warming up. Lights were dim and the music loud, but it didn’t stop people from talking.
This was basically the waiting room for the party downstairs. The basement was a bare thing with speakers and lasers mounted to the walls, kegs stacked in corners, and a stash of alcohol everyone pretended didn’t exist. God bless Greek life.
I went downstairs into the bowels of hell, the noise erasing all thoughts from my crowded skull, the scent of sweat and booze a promise of a night that would never end.
There was something poetic about it, if I took the time to think. It was a maze of nightmares, really, where you were supposed to wander hopelessly in the search for a sunrise.
But I didn’t take the time to think. My life was a maze of the same sort.
Someone put a drink in my hand, calling me a Titan and making me drink. It wasn’t so difficult to make me do things. I drank only to find that it was just beer.
The arm that had draped my shoulders fell away as the person got busy with other guests.
The gazes I got were curious. This was the first campus party of the year and the first I attended since the wrap of Blades of Northwood.
By now, those who watched along had seen twenty episodes of my life and the lives of my friends and teammates.
They’d seen the forced narrative of my bad temper, seen the clashes against the Steel Saints and Blizzard Breakers, and seen the locker room scenes that never failed to make me look as ripped as I really was.
Yeah. I could see it in those eyes. They wondered if what they’d seen was real. The gaze slipped down my body, boys and girls equally curious.
A red-haired girl caught my gaze, held it, and pulled me in. I’d seen her on campus before, in passing, but she’d turned her head the other way after I’d caught her looking. Not now. She lifted the corners of her lips into an inviting smile that did its job.
I wandered in her direction, bumping into bodies that danced to the beat, hopping and jumping.
A guy nearly as tall as me had one arm lifted high above his head, fist pumping in the rhythm of the music, topless torso glistening with perspiration, the scent working like an aphrodisiac.
He moved to let me pass, turning his front to me, making me curious enough to slow down in the movement.
His other hand reached for my upper arm, feeling my muscles as he nodded a greeting.
The beat shifted, and his attention bounced back to the music.
I passed through to where another guy was chatting with the redhead. The two of them made a pretty pair. I could see it happening if the mood held until late into the night.
“What are you drinking?” the girl asked.
“Whatever you’re offering,” I said. “It’s Damon.”
“I know, Damon,” she said, her voice smoky and disarming. “Amber.”
“No way that’s your name,” I said.
Her eyes glowed with mischief. “It is tonight.”
“Alright, Red,” I said. “Give me your best.”
She swirled the contents of her cup and handed it to me. I was game. I downed her drink, discovering that it was whiskey inside. Not bad. I was no stranger to mixing booze, though I didn’t have the palate to appreciate something like this. I was all about the ends, not so much about the means.
The grin on Red’s face matched the guy’s, and it almost filled the hollowness inside my chest. “Good?” she asked, her hand resting on her friend’s shoulder.
I shrugged. “I’m a simple guy.” My gaze went to the friend. He was handsome, pretty eyes and strong jaw, mustache and goatee framing full lips and making me wonder what it felt like to kiss someone with facial hair. It was probably like all kissing, fun for a moment, then irritating.
The drinks shelf was just behind the pair, and they scooted over as a willowy twink stepped up to serve himself.
He wore a pink tank top that left little to the imagination, all slender and bony and deviously attractive.
He turned with two paper cups in his hands, gaze dragging up my body until he reached my face and recognized me.
“It’s you,” he said.
I nodded. It sure was. “You saw me?”
“Only the locker room scenes,” he said. The lasers made his bleached hair glow in places, dark roots drinking the light beneath. He offered the drinks to the couple. They accepted without thinking. “Do you dance? I’m dying to see it. It’ll settle a bet.”
“A bet?” I asked.
“I bet myself that you’re just as good at dancing as you are a hockey player,” the twink said.
I barked a laugh. “When did you do that?”
“Just now,” he said. “Come on. Prove me right.”
“I was talking to these nice people here,” I said.
Amber tapped my shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere. Give the guy a spin.”
The twink didn’t wait for Amber to finish that sentence. He yanked me toward the dancing crowd, where the sound waves converged and made it nearly twice as loud as it was in the corner.
We had barely stepped into the crowd before I could feel slim fingers exploring the sides of my torso. Let him enjoy it. His hands dragged down to my waist, then lifted up, catching my shirt with them, untucking it, and baring my abs.
I was way too sober for much more than this, but it was just nice to be around people who didn’t care one way or the other.
Nobody here cared about anything. Nobody gave a damn about how others saw them.
They wanted raw fun, and they would take it.
No hearts here would be broken tomorrow. Hardly any of us had a heart.
I sure didn’t.
But that didn’t stop it from sinking when the twink bumped into me and I opened my eyes, looking past his head as it leaned in to inhale the scent of my cologne. My gaze landed right on the round face of a summer from my past life.
I squeezed my eyes shut, clearing my mind. Ghosts. Imagination. He was in Chicago, collecting insects, dissecting creatures, and examining cells under a microscope.
But when I opened my eyes, he was still there, looking, an abyss opening in his dark eyes. The light of the reflector passed over his face again and again, flashing maddeningly fast, and Seth’s lips pressed together into a tight line.
I stood still, no longer breathing, no longer blinking, not even moving.
I stared at him as a shadow passed over his cute, round face.
The twink with bleached hair noticed something had gone wrong in his little seduction, cackled, and moved on like I was just a support pillar in the structure of the basement, there to occupy the space.
He would be fine. We all would. That was what these parties were for.
If you got hurt by someone’s rejection here, you were in the wrong place.
So what exactly was Seth doing in this dank, godforsaken basement?
I took a step toward him, thinking he would turn and walk away. As I took another step, he moved, but he moved toward me.
I regretted downing the beer and whiskey as I passed through the crowd of barely clothed bodies, hands moving over me in the ecstasy of dance, drugs, and alcohol.
The flashlight grew crazier as the sounds merged into a screech of rising tension, a crescendo that drove the crowd to jump higher, heads held up and eyes closed.
They seemed to part before me, carving a way between me and Seth, letting us come near one another.