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He pops the top and takes a long drink. “Yeah, that’s to get the taste of your jizz out of my mouth.” I bark out a laugh. He scowls. “Jesus, you could have given me a warning.”

“What’s the fun in that?” I laugh. “I can’t believe you never had her suck you off.”

He runs his hand through his hair. “Andrea made the ground rules. No blow jobs, no anal, no eating pussy.”

“But sex was okay?” Knox asks.

“Missionary only—she felt like it wouldn’t be believable if we didn’t fuck.”

Knox grins and looks over at me. “You two are diabolical.”

Royer drops into the seat across from mine and opens his phone. “Shit, this thing went crazy. Not just local, but viral.”

“Wittmore rush is a big deal,” Knox says, opening a can of seltzer. He’s not drinking, which isn’t unusual. He’s on the varsity rowing team and treats his body like a temple. “My little sister has been talking about it for weeks, and she’s still in high school. There are entire accounts and pages set up on social media to monitor it.”

“Good,” Royer says, resting his head on the back of the couch. “God, she was a naïve little bitch.”

“Didn’t keep you from popping her cherry.”

“I told you, Andrea wanted her hooked in entirely. Totally blindsided.”

I gently touch my split lip. “Mission accomplished.”

“You guys are playing with fire,” Knox says, mostly looking at Royer. “You and Andrea are going to push this too far and it’ll blow back on you—”

“Oh, it’s going to blow back onallof us,” I chime in, crossing the room to get another beer out of the mini-fridge. “The Chancellor is riding our asses and you and your little bitch just keep playing games.”

“It’s tradition,” Royer says, as though that wipes away all sins. In his mind, it probably does. “The Chancellor is under control. Rush is going to be epic. The shit we have lined up for initiation… people will talk about this for years.”

Knox and I share a look. The shit Royer has lined up; that’s what got us under investigation last year. Do I care? No. Not really. I’ve got a job at my father’s company regardless, but I’m here to party and bury myself in sorority pussy. I’m not here for lawsuits and jail time. Knox has the Olympic trials to worry about.

But we knew what we were getting into when we signed up. Hell, we went through it, and it was hell, but Royer’s right. It’s tradition. The strong survive. The weak fail.

In the end, we find our brothers, our true family, and what happened today was just the first warning shot.

4

Reagan

“No, Mom, I can’t stay.” I scan the room, looking for anything that can go in the suitcase. I spot a tank top on the back of the bathroom door and toss it in with the rest.

“Reagan, I know it’s a stressful week, but you can’t just leave school.”

My mother is trying her best to sound rational and calm about the blacklisting, but I know better. She’s crushed. Probably as much, if not more, than I am. She’s a GE legacy, just like her sister, mother, and grandmother.

“I can leave, and I will.” I leave no room for discussion. “I’ll just take the semester off. Get a job or something.”

“I just don’t understand what happened. Everything was going so well.”

My mother isn’t on social media. She hasn’t seen the video—thank God. She’d never forgive me for doing something so foolish. I just told her that things went wrong. That the girls are tougher this year. They’re looking for something different.

“Jealous,” she says, going back to her old standby. “They’re just jealous. It happened in my year, too. Some girls are just too intimidating. They probably saw your relationship with Royer and your blossoming friendship with Andrea and thought it was too powerful.”

She launches into a story about some girl who did something her year and blahblah. It doesn’t matter, there are a few firm rules and trashing the president of the sorority while obviously drunk is breaking them. I continue to pack my things, ignoring the side glances from Janelle across the room. “Look mom,” I say, interrupting her, “I need to go get my laundry and there’s no service in the dorm basement.”

“Okay, honey. I’ll support your decision. Maybe a fresh start is best. You could enroll at the University in the spring and—”

“Gotta go, byeee.” I hang up and toss my phone on the bed. “God, my mother has no clue what a clusterfuck this is. There is no going to another school. Blacklisted is blacklisted. It doesn’t just apply here.”