Cassie
“And… I just feel…” Adam grunts, straining himself up and planting a kiss on my lips before he lowers back down to the ground, his hands behind his head. “A lot… of pressure… you know?”
Another lift. Another kiss.
Sit-ups are my favorite.
“That makes sense,” I tell him, holding his feet firmly down to give him support as he lifts again.
The sun has just set over campus, and on top of the parking garage where we like to be masochists with our workouts, there’s a spectacular view of the pink and purple sky, and the lights flickering on all across town.
I also don’t mind the view of his glistening abs, still tan from our days in the sun this summer, flexing and releasing each time he does another sit-up and gives me a kiss.
“You’re the first person to ever be president for a second term in Alpha Sig,” I remind him. “Anyone would feel pressure.”
“I just… think I need… to do something… different,” he continues, and I chuckle at him trying to speak through the effort.
“Like what?”
He lifts once more, grabbing my face this time and holding me to his mouth for a long, hot kiss that sends a jolt through me before he lets me go. He smiles, tracing my bottom lip before his eyes find mine. “One hundred. Your turn.”
“I’m not doing a hundred.”
“You’re doing fifty. Now, come on, switch.”
He grabs my breasts and squeezes them through my sports bra before I swat him away and lie back, not ready for my torture.
“Wipe that look off your face, you know you love it,” he says.
“I do not love it,” I argue, doing my first sit-up and kissing him before I lower back down.
The first few are easy, but when I get to the tenth, my abdomen fires up in protest. “I’m doing it because I’m a biology major and a future doctor and I need to learn how to put nutrition and fitness in the forefront of my priority list. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though. ”
Adam smiles, kissing my nose on the next sit-up. “You’re cute when you’re complaining about a workout.”
I flip him off, but continue the reps as he starts in on his ideas for his second year as A Sig president.
Now that we’re a couple of weeks into the school year, I’m in my routine, feeling solid for the first time since I got to Palm South University.
Maybe it’s because I’m finally in my cornerstone classes, or maybe it’s because Adam and I are together, finally, without anyone or anything in-between us.
It’s crazy what feeling settled in your love life can do for the rest of your life.
“And I was thinking,” Adam continues when I’m on my fortieth rep. “Instead of doing the concert like I’ve done the last two years, what if I changed it up a bit?”
I frown. “That concert… got you… on the map again,” I remind him. “It took Alpha Sigma from…” I groan, wrenching myself up and kissing him reluctantly before I lower again. “Nothing… to the talk of Greek Row.”
“I know, and I think that’s just it. It’s served its purpose, you know? But I want to keep things fresh and exciting.” He grins, kissing me before I go down for my last three reps. “What do you think about karaoke?”
“Karaoke?” I echo, finishing my last reps and enjoying the long, sweet kiss that follows the end of my torture before I lean back on my hands, sweating, panting. “As in, poor quality instrumental music from a speaker with an amateur singing the words on a monitor in front of them?”
“Exactly. Except, better.”
I chuckle. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Picture this,” he says, excitement rolling off him.
“We set up a huge stage, just like we normally do for the concert, and there’s a band set up — drums, guitars, bass, backup singers, all that.
Then, each fraternity and sorority gets to compete for the trophy by pulling out their best karaoke skills.
We’ll encourage them to not only bring out their best singers, but to also go for the entertainment factor — humor, dancing, all of it. Can you imagine how fun that would be?”
I tilt my head, cocking one eyebrow. “Honestly, my sisters do love karaoke.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“You said there’d be a band? So, instead of instrumental, it’s a real band?”
“Exactly. I already talked to a local band who does weddings and stuff. They said they can give me a giant list of songs they know for the fraternities and sororities to choose from. And we’ll do the lights up just like we do for the concert, and the fog and confetti and all that. It’ll feel like a real show.”
“That’s really cool,” I muse, smiling.
“And, we’ll make more for our charity this way, too.
We can charge an entry fee for the fraternities and sororities to enter, and charge a low-ticket price, get prizes donated for the winners — first, second, and third place.
” He’s so excited that he’s breathing as hard as he was when we got to the top of the parking garage after running up the stairs.
“And if it goes off the way I have it planned, I feel like it would become a new tradition, kind of like the Greek Week games where we all compete.”
I lean forward, grabbing his face in mine and kissing him hard. “How did I get such a smart, sexy boyfriend?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly easy.”
I snort, but before I can sass back, he’s pulling me in closer, wrapping me up in his arms, his love, kissing me like it’s the first and the last time at once.
“What about you?” he asks, popping up to stand before he reaches his hand down to help me up, too. “How has the new school year been for you so far? Anything new and exciting in the land of KKB?”
He grabs my shoulder as I grab his, and we both pull up the opposite foot to our butts, stretching our quads.
“We got a great group of new members,” I say, frowning. “And the pressure is on from my G-Big to take a Little.”
“Ex?”
I nod. “I didn’t take one last year, mostly because I just didn’t feel ready to, you know?
And I guess I do feel ready this year, but…
I don’t know.” I struggle to find the explanation.
“It’s my junior year, you know? I have a ton of schoolwork, and I don’t know if I…
” My stomach drops as the root of my concern hits me. “I don’t know if I’d be a good Big.”
We switch legs, and Adam squeezes my shoulder where he holds me. “Cassie, you’re an amazing friend, an amazing sister, a phenomenal kisser — er, I mean, girlfriend.”
I smirk.
“And I know you’d be an amazing Big — but only if you want to be one.
Don’t feel like you have to just because it’s the norm.
Take a Little if you want to continue your family line and pass down some traditions, if you want to mentor one of the new girls and help her find her footing in the sorority the way Sky helped you. ”
I smile. “I really do think I’d like that. I don’t know what I would have done without Skyler, maybe dropped out of KKB altogether.”
“Well, then, maybe that’s your answer. But sleep on it, okay? You have time to think.”
I nod, and we finish stretching in a comfortable silence.
“What about school? Your classes as hard as you thought they’d be?” Adam asks as we cross the top of the garage to start making our way back down.
My throat tightens, a jolt of nerves flittering through me at the thought of the past two weeks. Classes have been fine, for the most part. I prepared over the summer, and I’ve always been one of those students who excelled pretty easily. I’m not intimidated by my cornerstone classes.
But I am freaked out about having class with Grayson.
He hasn’t tried to talk to me again since that first day, but I feel his energy every time I’m in that classroom with him. It makes my skin crawl.
And as ashamed as I am to admit it to myself, it also makes me sad.
I can’t place why, and I never give myself time to think on it before I push him out of my mind and focus on the professor.
But I still have yet to tell Adam about it, and I don’t know if I even need to.
Why would it matter? It’s just a class together, and I don’t even talk to Grayson or anything. It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong.
Adam glances behind him on our way down the stairs when I don’t answer for a while, and I shake my head, smiling.
“Sorry, just tired. Yeah, school is fine. I feel like me staying here over the summer to get ahead was smart.”
“You’re the smartest girl I know,” he says, and when we reach the bottom of the stairs, he grabs my wrist and tugs me into him.
His mouth is on mine in the next instant, his hands in my hair, running through it softly before he tugs it at the end.
“You got homework tonight?” he husks.
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Good,” he says, smiling at my shortness of breath as he slips his tongue inside my mouth, swirling and teasing. “Because I think we have some anatomy to study.”
“Mmm,” I muse, running my hands down his back to hook into the back band of his shorts. “I do still need some help in a certain area, come to think of it.”
Adam frowns. “And that is?”
I lick my lips, leaning up on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Blow jobs.”
A shiver runs through him, and he groans, looking up to the sky as if he needs a god to save him from me. “Jesus Christ, woman. I’ve got an instant boner and we have to walk all the way across campus.”
“Guess you better walk behind me, then,” I say, turning and leaning my ass into his hard on.
He groans again, smacking my ass and tucking his erection into the band of his shorts before we start our walk — both of us a little quicker than necessary now that we know what waits for us when we get back to the A Sig house.
Yeah, I think. No sense in bringing up Grayson.
We’re happy — finally — and there’s nothing to tell, really. It’s just a class together, nothing to concern him over.
For now, I’ll keep it to myself.
What’s the harm in that?