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One
Patrick
2014
Fuck me, I’m tired.
Like, forget-food-fuck-showering-on-the-verge-of-passing-out tired.
Unfortunately, sleeping isn’t on the short list of my fraternity brothers’ priorities. Ever seen Animal House?
That’s where I live.
How I—straight-laced, study-groups, bed-by-ten-on-a-school-night me—managed to pledge the fraternity that thinks the fact that it’s Wednesday is cause enough to tap a half-dozen kegs and invite the known universe over to party, I’ll never know.
Wait. Yes, I do. Conner.
I pledged Kapa Sigma Pi because my cousin convinced me that if I wanted the full college experience, I needed to join a fraternity.
Two years in and I want to kill Conner. Sometimes more than I want to sleep.
You need to loosen up on the reins a bit, Cap’n. Live a little. You’ve got your whole life to grow old.
Cap’n. Short for Captain America. He’s been calling me that since we were kids, reading comics in the storeroom of his father’s bar. Because, according to him, I’m a paragon of virtue and defender of justice. I used to like it—when I was nine.
So, yeah. It’s Wednesday night and the front lawn of our fraternity is littered with plastic cups and clothes. Yup—clothes. Because Sigma Pi parties aren’t clothing optional, they’re nudity required.
Not all the way naked. You can keep your underwear on. If you want to.
That part is optional, at least.
I’m sitting in my car. Considering sleeping in it. Maybe heading back to the library and bedding down in the stacks. Just as I decide that it might actually be preferable to listening to sorority girls vomit all night long, my phone rings. It’s Rob, my roommate. I pretty much hate everything about him but I tolerate him because he’s my fraternity brother and I take his shit because that’s what I do. I take shit. Keep the peace.
“You try sleepin’ in your car again,” he shouts into the phone, loud enough to have me pulling my cell away from my ear. “The brothers and I are gonna gift wrap it.”
Shit. That means they’re going to plastic wrap my car. With me inside. “Actually, Conner just called. I think I’m going to head—”
“Nice try, pussy,” Rob says over the loud music and shouts coming from inside the house. “Your cousin’s in the kitchen.”
Of course, he is. Because the real reason Con pushed me to join Sigma Pi was so he’d have open access to all their parties. And all the girls who attend them. “Okay,” I say, giving in. “One beer and I’m out—got it.”
“Yeah, whatever, bitch,” Rob says, laughing. “Just get your ass in here.”
I hang up and get out of my car, slamming the door a little too hard, before walking around the side of the house toward the back door. If I go through the front, someone will be there to confiscate my clothes for sure. At least this way, I have a chance of keeping my pants on.
No such luck. Rob greets me at the backdoor, paintball gun slung over his shoulder. He’s completely naked. “Strip, motherfucker,” he says, giving me that douchey grin of his that makes me want to break his nose.
We’re standing in the kitchen and we’re not alone. There’re a few dozen partiers standing around, talking and drinking. Con’s one of them. He’s leaned against the counter, wearing nothing but boxer briefs and a pair of half-naked Deltas hanging around his neck, laughing his ass off. I flip him the bird. Finally, he recovers enough to attempt a rescue.
“Come on, man,” he says, throwing his empty beer cup in Rob’s direction. “Give him a break.”
“House rules.” Rob slings the paintball gun off his shoulder and points it at me. “Strip or suffer the consequences.”
Pro tip: Getting shot with paintballs hurts like a motherfucker.
Smelling a confrontation, people are gathering and staring, waiting for me to either drop my cargos or get splattered with a couple dozen paintballs. “You’re a dick,’ I mutter, dragging my T-shirt over my head before tossing it up the stairs. “And awfully invested in seeing me naked.” I unbutton and unzip my cargos, letting them drop around my ankles.
Rob narrows his eyes at me for a second before giving me a smirk. “You said the magic word, bro,” he says, motioning at me with the business end of his paintball gun. “Boxers too.”