Chapter 9
Nine
Wolf
Instead of focusing on the lecture, I was focused on Jade’s piss-poor offer of condolences. She couldn’t be bothered to offer them when I’d needed them, so why the hell had she felt the need to offer them that morning? I would have rather she’d just ignored it.
Dr. Howard pulled last week’s algebra exam from his briefcase. “You kids need to make sure you’re completing all the homework assignments.”
Students packed their books as he moved around the class, handing out the papers.
“By your grades, I can tell some of you don’t see the point in it.” He dropped my test onto my desk.
Of course I’d failed like a sack of shit being dropped onto hot pavement from seventy-three floors.
Two out of twenty correct. My gut knotted at the real prospect of getting suspended.
Everything I’d busted my ass for, all the early morning workouts, the concussions, was about to be gone.
All because I couldn’t figure out what the hell X and Y were equal to.
I crammed the test into my backpack, yanked the zipper closed, and headed out of the classroom, hoping fresh air might help the sick feeling in my stomach. It didn’t.
I was halfway to the cafeteria when my phone buzzed in my pocket, then buzzed again.
I figured it was probably Monroe sending me more threats of castration if I didn’t let Jade off the hook.
That girl had grown up in the trailer down from mine.
She was engaged to one of my best friends, so she, of all people, should have known all those threats would only add fuel to the fire.
I pulled out the device just as another text from Bellamy popped up on the screen.
Man, I’ve got to go home.
Can you fill in for me?
I’m sick as shit.
I fired off a text, telling him I was on my way.
Halfway down the concourse, I spotted him, leaning over the pamphlet-covered table, clutching his stomach.
I dropped my backpack to the lawn, and he glanced up. Face white. Sweat beading his brow.
“Posterboard’s on the chair.” He tossed the tape at me. “I think the girls undercooked that bacon or something.”
“You should have known better than to eat anything they cook.”
“It seemed fine.” He grabbed his stomach again. “Fuck me,” he groaned, then booked it toward one of the buildings.
I took the posterboard from the chair, taped it to the front of the table, then stepped back to read over it as it wavered in the breeze.
SAVE THE ENDANGERED SPHENISCUS DEMERSUS.
Fucking ridiculous…
I sank onto one of the sunbaked metal folding chairs and stared out over the crowded concourse. My stomach let out a low grumble. The Pop-Tart I’d grabbed on my way out the door that morning had long gone, but at least I hadn’t succumbed to food poisoning.
A group of hipster-looking guys parted, and Rogue shouldered his way through, clutching two cardboard boxes against his—I felt my brow wrinkle—pink shirt?
“Why the hell are you wearing pink?” I swore if this was another of his ideas on how to get more donations for this bullcrap charity, I was going to bitch slap him.
He dropped the box onto the table, grabbed a few of the rubber penguins from inside, and placed them on the tabletop. “Cassie is evidently crap at laundry.”
That girl was vengeful as hell and petty as all fuck. “Somehow, I doubt that was an accident.”
He dropped to the seat beside me and snatched two more penguins from the box. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this shit isn’t worth it.”
Because she’d dyed his Gucci shirt pink… “If one pink shirt is all it’s taken for you to realize that, then you didn’t think this through. At all. I told you, dude. And this is only the start.”
Cassie probably had a list a mile long of ways to try to have us waving a white flag.
His attention drifted to three girls passing the table. “Good afternoon, ladies. Can we interest you in donating to our charity?”
They stopped, wide smiles spreading over their faces. “Hi, Wolf,” the brunette said, twirling hair around her finger. “You played really well last weekend.”
“Thanks.” I forced a somewhat genuine smile. Maybe, had I thought she actually cared about the game and wasn’t trying to hit on me, it wouldn’t have been forced.
The other girl picked up a penguin, squealing how cute it was. “How much are they?”
“Only five bucks,” Rogue said with a grin.
Two of the girls eagerly passed over cash, took a penguin, and walked off, disappearing on the sunny concourse.
Rogue nudged my side. “Tell me this—” He plucked one of the rubber bath toys from the table and held it up against the sunlight—“isn’t genius.”
I couldn’t argue with him about it. Those cheap-ass rubber toys had proven, at least, so far, to be a foolproof way to deal drugs smack dab in the middle of campus.
To anyone passing by on the busy concourse, it looked like we were two guys selling crap to raise money for our charity.
Little did most people know that the box Rogue had tucked underneath the table was filled with penguins that had E shoved up their asses.
They just had to ask for a pinger instead of a penguin, and we charged them ten bucks for the toy.
Rogue’s stomach let out a loud rumble. “Bro…” He placed a hand on his stomach. “Do you feel okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
“My stomach is messed up.”
“Yeah, no shit. You ate food that Jade and Cassie cooked. Bell’s sick, too. The bacon was probably raw.”
“My stomach is made of steel. It can handle some raw pig.”
“Maybe they poisoned it.”
He snorted. “Right…”
“Dude, you really underestimate Cassie.”
“Do I think Cassie may end up smashing the windows? Possibly shit on the bed out of spite? Yes.” He rubbed over his stomach. “Poison me? She likes my pretty face and massive cock too much.”
And thoughts like that were what would get him killed.
His attention went back to the busy concourse, and he cupped his hand around his mouth. “Help save the penguins. Flightless birds need love, too.”
Dude was an idiot.
Two more girls approached the table. One of them picked up a Save the Penguins brochure, intently reading over the pamphlet.
“One for five. Two for eight.” Rogue said. “A small price to help those precious animals.”
The brunette dropped her backpack onto the table and rummaged through the front zipper, quickly handing over the cash.
“There’s a typo on your brochure,” the other girl said, placing the pamphlet on the table and running her pink fingernail over the last sentence: Only we can save the pingers.
I had argued with Rogue for a week about that crap.
“Oh, would you look at that?” Rogue picked it up, brow wrinkled as he pretended to study the intentional typo. “We’ll have to fix that. Thanks.” He flashed her one of his signature smiles that, for whatever reason, made women melt—even in a pink shirt—then both girls walked off.
He reclined against the seat, crossing his arms over his chest with a smug expression.
“Told you it looked like a typo.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
We sat in that stupid heat for half an hour. For every five normal penguins, we sold one “pinger.”
A group of sorority girls had just bought ten—and slipped Rogue and me their numbers—when Rogue clutched his stomach.
“Oh, shit.” He shot up from the chair with such force that it toppled over, clanging onto the sidewalk before he took off in a desperate sprint toward one of the red brick buildings. That was what he got for eating not one but two undercooked breakfasts.
I thumbed through the cash, glancing up when shadows fell over the table. Jade, Cassie, and Monroe stood in front of me. Not a damn smile in sight.
“Look at you, out here doing charity work like a good Samaritan.” Monroe couldn’t have been more condescending…and that said everything.
“Yeah, you know.” I crammed the money into my pocket. “Just doing what I can to save God’s creatures.”
Monroe shot me a vacant look. “While blackmailing some of the others.”
“And getting the rest high,” Jade added.
My attention cut to her, annoyance lancing through my veins. “You sure did your part getting Kappa Theta high.”
“Arguably, my responsibility ends with one man. Tommy.”
I wasn’t getting into this shit with her. “Are you going to buy one or not? Because if not…” I made a shooing motion with my hand.
“Aw,” Cassie said. “But we’re keeping you company since your bestie abandoned you. Who knew anyone could run that fast in loafers?” A smug-as-shit grin shaped her lips.
“If you’re just here to harass me, leave. You’re keeping customers away.”
Jade picked up one of the penguins. “As if you guys are giving a cent to the jackass penguins.”
We weren’t. But as long as she didn’t know what was in half of those penguins, I didn’t care. “Charity work is all part of the frat gig.” I was the real fucking charity.
She snorted, and fuck me for finding it cute when I was so annoyed with her.
“So, you chose penguins?” she asked. “Not kids in impoverished communities. Or cancer research?” Because I’d been the victim of both, and she knew it.
“Neither you nor Rogue give a shit about penguins. You are, however, a hustler.”
Cassie’s gaze pinged between Jade, the penguin in her hand, and me. “Wait. What are you talking about?”
Monroe deadpanned Cassie. “Tell me you did not think your fuck buddy cared about waddling birds.”
“What, so, they’re just keeping the money?”
I knew there wasn’t much going on between her ears, but Jesus. It was like she didn’t know Rogue at all.
Jade glanced at her friends. “What have I told you? Bad boys and reprobates, Cass.” She shook her head. “Come on. We have class, and Wolf has gullible cheerleaders to convince he’s such a nice, penguin-loving guy.”
Cheerleaders to convince. For some reason, that burned my grits.
Clenching my teeth, I shot them a bird when they turned around and headed in the direction of the mathematics building.
I sold a few more penguins—one to the dean. Just when I reached to restock the table, my phone dinged with a text from Rogue.