Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zeke
We gather around the platform on Alpha Chi’s lawn while they announce the winners, and it’s like the damn alums don’t know how things work around here because we place fourth. Fourth! Outrageous. Even if I am surprised that cake was edible to begin with.
Still, I’m getting a blow job tonight because Kappas come an embarrassing eleventh. I’m going to have to talk to Charles about rubbing up on me some more because clearly the awesome hasn’t transferred yet.
I’m smug as shit when I leave my brothers to go and find him.
It’s not smart. I get that. Charles comes to me, not the other way around, so the fact I’ve sought him out a few times now is bound to get someone’s attention.
It’s lucky for me that having a thing with Charles is so outside of my brothers’ scope of possibilities that it would never be their first guess. Well, except for Chad.
To my freaking surprise, I find Charles outside my house with Bailey, Chad, and Robbie.
“What …” I point vaguely to the circle. “What’s going on here?”
“Bonding, apparently,” Robbie says, glaring at Charles.
“I love how you tried to cheat and still couldn’t win,” Charles says.
I shrug. “No cheating here. We followed the rules exactly.”
“You bent them.”
“Not even. If you haven’t learned to be specific by now, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
An evil look crosses his face. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Uh-huh. I’m scared.
“Holy shit!” Bailey shouts. “What is that?”
At first, I think he’s being dramatic, but when I turn … “Is that … smoke?”
“Robbie!” I turn to see Brandon running down the street. “Extinguisher!”
Robbie springs to life, running inside and appearing a few seconds later. He throws the extinguisher to Chad, who catches it on the fly and takes off at a dead sprint.
The dark smoke fills the sky, smell clogging my nostrils.
Brandon is panting as he reaches us.
“Where is it?” I ask.
“Kappa house, I think.”
“Oh, fuck!”
Charles takes off, and I’m right behind him.
The panic in that one word has me struggling not to try and comfort him in some way, but we have no idea what the situation even is yet.
Kurt, Kappa’s risk manager, is clearing everyone away from their house by the time we get there, and I follow Charles along the side access toward the backyard, where it looks like the smoke is coming from.
I hear the extinguisher before I see them, and where I’d been expecting something dramatic, there are just a bunch of Kappas with a hose and Chad extinguishing the garden shed, wide grin in place.
“I’ve always wanted to use one of these things,” he shouts.
“I saw someone head that way!” Sam points toward the side fence that leads to the street.
We don’t have a second to delay. I sprint for the fence, haul myself up, and as I attempt to jump over the other side, my foot catches on something, I lose my grip, and—oomph.
I back-splat in their yard.
Ladies and gentlefolk, your president.
“Ouch …” wheezes from me. No one rushes to my aid, but a moment later, Sam’s face appears overhead.
“If you’d let me finish … I saw someone head that way before I went to get the hose. They’d be long gone by now, Spider-Man.”
“Right. Yep. Okay.” I gingerly get to my feet, trying to hide the way my back hurts, then make my way over to the group.
Charles sounds in shock when he asks, “What happened?”
“I dunno. We saw the smoke, and by the time we got the tap attachment back on, the whole shed had gone up, and this cowboy,” Sam says, gesturing at Chad, “burst through the side fence and started spraying.”
“That’s what he said,” Chad mutters, and I snort back a laugh.
Not the time or place. “Why did you have to put the tap attachment back on?”
Charles scowls at me. “Because some assholes removed it when they set our sprinkler on as retaliation for a prank that wasn’t our fault. We decided to take it off whenever we weren’t using it so you couldn’t flood our shed again.”
Ooh, I’d forgotten about that. And by “forgotten,” it’s more that I tried to ignore the pranks they were pulling after I thought Kappas were responsible for sending Brandon to hospital. “Kinda your fault,” I remind him. Though the dangerous part wasn’t in their plan. That was all Carter.
Charles scowls again, and I hold up my hands. Okay, okay, I get it. I shouldn’t find him adorable right now. But then my gaze slips to the back stairs, and my amusement dies.
“What the fuck is that?”
Scrawled in black graffiti are the letters SBP.
Oh, yeah. This was not an accident.
Chad swears, and Charles’s eyes almost fall from his head.
“Who did this?” I want answers, and I want them now.
The echo of the extinguisher stops, leaving a pile of charred, steaming metal behind.
Chad joins my side. “Think we’re being set up again?”
“Set up?” Lucas scoffs. “You’re really going to try and say this wasn’t you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” My voice strains under forced politeness.
“I went along with Charles when he said the front lawn wasn’t you, but a second time?” Lucas turns to Charles. “We can’t keep giving them free passes. This could have hurt someone.”
“You would know,” Chad fires back. “Just because you have an issue with me, don’t take it out on my house, asshole. The truce will only last for so long.”
“Fuck off, Doomsen.”
“Tuck your dick back away,” I snap at Lucas. He might have personal issues with Chad, but I’m not letting them play a part here. “There’s no way we’d spray our own letters here—”
“You sure? Because that sounds like exactly the type of dumbass thing you’d do.”
“The dumb jock is a stereotype, asshole.”
“You sure about that?” He points at the letters. “Because someone in your house didn’t get the memo.”
“You need to shut your fucking mouth—” Chad starts, but I pull him back.
Charles places a hand on Lucas’s shoulder and takes over. “Seriously though, Zeke. I trust you had nothing to do with this, but are you sure no one in your house—”
“No.”
“Not even—”
“I said no.”
He throws up both hands. “You’re not even willing to listen?”
“Of course I’m not. I trust my brothers.”
“Even after one of them screwed you over a few months ago?” he asks.
“Carter wasn’t my brother. He was a shithead pledge who got too big for his boots.”
“Well, what about Brandon?”
“What about him?”
“He just happened to be the first person to see it, and you guys just happened to have a fire extinguisher on hand—”
Chad fires back with a “go fuck yourself,” and my response is basically the same.
“Yeah, because he’s good at his job. He made sure we had an extinguisher on hand before he first got the risk manager job. Not my fault Kurt is a lazy dick who didn’t do the same.”
“Leave him out of this,” Charles says.
“So you can take a shot at my brothers, but I can’t take a shot at yours?”
“Mine have done nothing wrong here.”
“Well, neither have mine.”
At some point, we’ve both closed the distance, and now I’m glaring down into the eyes that usually knock me sideways. I can’t tell what I’m most angry about here. That this is being pinned on us again … or that he doesn’t believe me.
“Is everyone okay here?”
I start at the deep, commanding voice and spring away from Charles.
“Dean Hutchins.” Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Everything’s fine. Just an accident.”
“Was it?” Lucas snaps.
Charles glares at him to shut up. The number one rule on the row is don’t go to the dean. Now the dean is here, and I’m waiting for Lucas to vomit everything we’ve ever done all over him.
Oh no. Is someone banging, or is that my heartbeat in my ears?
“Zeke’s right,” Charles says. “Everything is under control, thanks to Chad.”
“So there was a fire? How did it start?”
“Ah …”
The dean takes one look at the stairs, and his gaze narrows in on me. “Another prank, Zeke?”
“No! This wasn’t us.”
“Tell me why I’m struggling to believe that.”
“It wasn’t,” Chad says. “We’re the ones who put it out.”
“Coincidentally,” Lucas spits.
I want to flip that guy off so bad.
Charles steps forward before any of us can continue.
“Chad’s right. We don’t know what happened, but Sam did see someone jump the fence.
All of my brothers and Sigma house’s were accounted for, plus with the number of people around today, there’s no telling who it could have been.
Yes, SBP could stand for Sigma Beta Psi, but it could also stand for a lot of other things. ”
“Like?”
Slutty big penis?
Don’t say that.
“I don’t know,” Charles answers, much more maturely. “I only know that neither of our houses were involved.”
Dean Hutchins jerks his head to the side.
“Both of you with me.” He stalks to the other side of the yard, me and Charles hurrying to follow.
When he’s far enough away to be happy, he clasps his hands behind his back and swings around to face us.
“This was not a school-sanctioned event. It was my belief that the entire thing was for charity—”
“It was—”
He talks over me. “But now I’m starting to doubt that.
I have heard about the little tiff between the Rho Kappas and Sigma Betas, and I have largely been able to ignore it because neither of you have drawn attention.
But let me be clear. My job is to protect the school’s reputation and get through the day as drama-free as possible.
So I highly suggest you bring those boys of yours into line and remind them that these fraternities operate for as long as I allow them to. ”
His threat is clear without him needing to go into detail: if we fuck up, he’ll shut us down. Charles looks sick, and I have an overwhelming need to take his hand.
“Of course, sir.”
Dean Hutchins stares down Charles until he nods.
“Y-yes, sir. We understand.”
“Good.” He expels a long breath. “Off the record, I don’t want to see that happen.
It’s no secret the families from Kappa house make sizeable donations every year, and, Zeke, you and your boys have put WHU on the map across the sports we offer.
So get it together. Control your people and we won’t have an issue here. ”
“I swear it wasn’t them,” Charles tries again. I appreciate it, considering how he wasn’t sure if he believed that himself.
“Well, it very much looks like them, and the rumor mill is already turning with that theory. Without evidence otherwise, that’s all I can base my opinion on.
Given this is private property, I have no jurisdiction, but if you want to keep operating as part of the college, I highly suggest you sort it out between yourselves. Like adults.”
The red splotches are growing on Charles’s cheeks, so I jump in before he can let loose.
“Thank you, sir, we will.”
“If I hadn’t had about a hundred requests, I wouldn’t have even been here today.” Dean Hutchins says goodbye and leaves the two of us alone.
As soon as he exits the yard, I lean over my knees and exhale. “Well, that was five shades of fucked.”
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
“Talking to me again, are you?”
“I’m sorry, I …” He drags his hand through his hair.
“You know I trust you. This whole thing is a lot, and I’m sure you don’t think badly of any of your brothers, but can you try to see it from my side?
You have a huge number of members, and most of them don’t live in the house, so can you really be sure that there isn’t a single one of them doing this?
It’s not like they haven’t proudly left the Sigma tag on their pranks before. ”
I can see where he’s coming from. There are over sixty Sigma brothers, and I’d like to be able to say there isn’t a single one of them who would do this, but …
well, I thought I had everything under control, and then I find out three guys I live with all had relationships I didn’t know about.
Look at what Charles and I are doing. People have secrets, no matter how well you think you know them.
So I swallow down my pride and say, “I see your point.”
“Good.” He holds his arms stiffly around himself. “I don’t like fighting.”
I laugh. “Could have fooled me.”
He doesn’t even crack a smile. If anything, his frown gets deeper.
“No, like … real fighting. Normally, it’s me venting at you and you being exasperated at me.
Which pisses me off that you don’t take me seriously, but I’m never actually mad.
I … I want to be heard. Just before, you were ready to bite my head off. ”
“I swear I wasn’t. This whole thing is stressful.” I look him in the eyes for the first time since they were filled with anger. Now, it’s uncertainty staring back at me. Like that, the rest doesn’t matter. “I’m sorry, Charlie.”
A small smile. “Me too.”
“You look like you need a hug.”
“A bit.” He glances back toward the house. “We should probably get that cleaned up.”
“Good point.” I hesitate, not sure whether I should jump straight to it or follow through on the urge to pull him to me. Just platonically, after all. We could do that. It wouldn’t be weird.
He walks away before I can decide.
Robbie and Brandon show up to check in as we get started, and to my surprise, neither of them argue about being made to scrub these stairs. The fewer people—even in our house—who know about this, the better.
“You guys moved fast today,” Charles says. He clears his throat. “So. Umm. Thank you.”
None of us knows what to say.
So we don’t.
We work in silence, and once we leave, I count down the hours until I can see Charles tonight. As much as I’m looking forward to him fulfilling his end of our bet, I also just want to see him. Properly. With none of the other bullshit around.
I even wear my WHU hoodie in case he wants to trade out.
But when I arrive, at five minutes past eleven, he isn’t here. It might be the first time ever that Charles has been late. Even when I beat him here last time, he was still early.
I give him another five minutes before sending a text.
Me:
You on your way?
Charles:
Nope
Me:
What the fuck, Chuck? I thought we were going to meet
Charles:
Is that what we said?
Me:
We bet that loser would suck the other dude’s dick. Come on, I’m horny
Charles:
Actually, our agreement was that the loser would get on his knees in Hush Hush
A photo comes through, and there’s Charles, kneeling in our usual spot, finger in his mouth, my WHU hoodie wrapped around him … and I don’t think he’s wearing pants. Motherfucker.
Me:
Is this a joke?
Charles:
Not at all. You really should learn to be more specific x
My mouth drops, and I look at the message for a full minute before I start to laugh. I’m disappointed knowing I won’t see him tonight, but … him giving me a taste of my own medicine is sexy as hell.