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He thinks I’m going to refuse. That I’ll be too embarrassed to follow through and he’ll finally get a legit chance to humiliate me. Two years in this fucking fraternity and somehow I’ve managed to avoid getting naked and now here I am, dick swingin’ in the wind, because my roommate is an asshole who thought he was going to cock shame me.
“Let’s go, Gilroy,” Rob snipes at me, motioning with the barrel of his paintball gun. “Drop ‘em or I drop you.”
“Remember you said that.” I tell him, hooking my thumbs into the waistband of my boxers and jerking them down before I have a chance to think too hard about what I’m doing. According to Conner, that’s my problem. I think too much.
Sometimes I think he might be right.
“Holy. Shit.”
I look over Rob’s shoulder at the pair of girls hanging around my cousin’s neck, fighting the flush that’s forcing its way up the back of my neck. I’m not sure which one of them said it but they’re both staring at me. Everyone is.
“Jesus Christ, what do you feed that thing?” someone shouts from the doorway and everyone erupts into a flurry of shouts and laughter. I’m pretty sure people are taking pictures.
Rob’s dick just died of shame!
Is this real life?
They’re shooting porn in the kitchen!
Boogey Nights!
It’s high school all over again.
I look back at Rob and give him a one-thousand-yard stare. “Happy?”
He doesn’t look happy. He looks like he wants to tell me to put my pants back on. I smile at his obvious discomfort and give him a rough shoulder check, pushing past him toward the keg. No matter how much I want to, I’m not running now. Pulling a cup from the stack, I give the tap a couple of pumps before angling my cup under the nozzle, trying to pretend the way people are staring and talking doesn’t bother me.
“Hey.”
I look up to find Conner standing on the other side of the keg, sorority girls still hanging around his neck. Still staring at me. I am not naked. I am not naked. I am not naked…
“What?” I say, righting my cup before tossing the nozzle. I’m not exactly in the mood for my cousin’s shit.
“Fuck that prick,” he says, tapping the rim of his cup against mine. The girls hanging on him let out a high-pitched titter, like he just said the funniest thing ever. “Want me to throw him out a window?”
“No,” I say, my shoulders relaxing a bit. Con is an unbearable jerk half the time but he’s loyal. All I’d have to do is say the word and Rob’d be in the hospital within the hour. “I think meeting my sidekick is humiliation enough, don’t you?”
Con throws back his head and laughs. “Holy shit, Cap’n—did you just make a joke about your dick?”
Because I did and I’m suddenly feeling awkward about it, I ignore the question. I set my beer down without taking a drink. “I’m going to bed,” I say. “Some of us have class in the morning.”
“You’re such a grandma,” Con says, giving me a disapproving look.
“This grandma has a test tomorrow,” I tell him.
“So?”
“So, not all of us graduated college at sixteen,” I remind him. “Some of us have to put real, actual effort into our educations.”
Con gives me one of his conspiratorial grins that almost always means he’s about to suggest something I won’t like. “You know, I’d be happy to—”
“No.” I shake my head. “You’re not taking my tests for me.”
“Whatever, Granny,” he says. “You’re gonna be sorry.”
“Yeah… I don’t think I am,” I say with a laugh. “I’d rather—”
“Hey,” Half-naked Delta #1, unhooks an arm from Con’s neck and drags a glitter-polished nail from my pecs to my package. “Are you guys twins, or something?”