Page 3 of Puck Shots (Love The Game #6)

Eli

T he rideshare driver doesn’t get out, just pops the trunk and leaves it to me. He does, however, watch impatiently in the side mirror as I struggle to lift the two heavy bags out.

“I’ve got it,” I say, not that he asked.

I should have brought a trolley, but that wouldn’t exactly make for the best first impression, and I want this to go well.

I need it to. I might be a legacy at Kappa Omicron Kappa, but that doesn’t guarantee me a place, just gets me in the door.

A huge blue one that has the house letters stuck to the top in bright white.

I close the trunk and heave one of the bags over my shoulder, pick up the suitcase by the handle and head for the door.

Do I knock? They should know I’m coming.

It was all in the email. The first day of pledge-a-palooza starts with pledge orientation at nine o’clock.

I’m early, it’s eight thirty, but I didn’t want to be late on my first day.

First impressions matter. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pledge Kappa Omicron Kappa, and even less sure when my older brother John told me they get the pledges to move in during rush to “Get to know them better.” My chances of getting accepted can only decline the more they get to know me and find out how little I am actually like the brother who scored me this legacy pledge.

The noise of the guys inside brings a swirl to my gut.

Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to live in a house full of frat guys, who play sports and party and…

what else do frat guys do? Fuck, this is a bad idea.

I’m only doing this because John told me to.

No, that’s a lie. He told me he found friends in this house he’ll have for the rest of his life.

A sort of extended family, he called it.

Only when these guys bail you out of campus jail, they don’t call your parents.

Not that I plan on landing in trouble enough to see the campus police.

How much trouble can a physics major get into in college, anyway?

I drop my bags with a thud, instant relief coursing through my muscles, and reach for the handle, but it swings wide open and guy a good head taller than me and twice as wide almost crashes into me as he steps through without looking, his face buried in his phone.

I step to the side just in time, but he trips on my bag and stumbles forward.

“What the fuck?” he curses, regaining his footing just before the stairs.

“Sorry. I didn’t…” I start, lifting the bag again onto my shoulder. It somehow feels twice as heavy, and it sends a pang of pain through my arm.

He sweeps his gaze up and down my skinny frame and smiles.

“Hey, fellas, first blood,” he calls into the house and then turns on his heel and jogs down the stairs. “Welcome to KOK.”

Before I can roll my eyes, someone else is there behind me.

“Hey, pledge, you’re early,” he says, and I’m thankful when I turn he’s not as unimpressed with seeing me as the first guy was.

“Yeah, umm, I guess it took less time than I thought to get here. I hope that’s okay?”

I lie. I planned for every possible delay and purposely booked the ride share to pick me up from the train station at exactly eight fifteen to ensure I would not be late.

“Yeah, everything looks further than it is in Boston, like a ground ball in traffic.” I have no clue what he means by that, and my face must give that away too because he lets out a soft chuckle and points to the bag hanging over my sloped shoulder from the sheer weight of it. “Do you need help with that?”

“Sure, umm, that would be great,” I reply, and he grabs the bag with one hand and smirks.

“You got bricks in here? Shit, bro, no wonder you looked like you were about to topple over.”

“Just a few books,” I reply and grab the other bag and follow him inside.

“So this is the house, common areas, kitchen, and all that is down here. Bedrooms are upstairs, and we’ve got laundry facilities in the basement.”

I already know the general layout of the house.

I looked it up as soon as I made the decision to try the whole frat thing out.

The enormous foyer has two lounges for seating in the middle, separating the entrance from the giant staircase that goes up three levels.

There are three other seating areas, the rec room, and two main living rooms, one that apparently has a working fireplace and bookshelves spanning the length of one wall.

I plan on checking that out as soon as I can.

The rest of the house was pretty much as expected, only bigger.

The kitchen is about the size of the whole lower section of my family home and has a giant island in the middle, which I guess would make it easier when there are a bunch of people in there trying to make something to eat.

There is a schedule for that, too. Four out of seven nights, there are a few brothers scheduled on to cook up one of the many preapproved recipes for the whole house dinner.

Most involving pasta, given the number of athletes in the house, I guess they need the carbs.

It is also a great way to get as many of the guys as possible sitting down to eat in the dining room as they can.

Which is also about the same size as a tennis court with several long tables.

I swear, from the outside, the house looks huge, with pillars and large windows, but then you get inside and it’s somehow even bigger. Like the Tardis of college housing.

“You’ll be with the other pledges in the rec room until your pledgeship is over.

We know it’s not how most places normally do it, but we find it helps us get to know you better, and for you to get a good idea of what it would really be like spending your college years as a KOK.

I’ll show you where you can all put your stuff.

Oh, I’m Riley, social chair, and VP,” he continues.

“Eli Morley.”

“Ahh, you’re one of our Boston U legacies. Your brother’s John, right?”

“Yeah. John Morley.”

Duh, he’s your brother, of course he has the same last name. Way to make a good first impression.

“He’s been killing it on the Banana Ball tour. I went to a game last year with a few of the brothers. It was sick.”

“Yeah, he’s, umm, the sporty one in the family.”

“So what does that make you?” Riley asks.

“The smart one,” I reply without thinking, and he laughs as my face grows ten degrees warmer.

“I mean… He’s smart, too. I just…”

“Relax, it’s cool. I saw your profile, you’re here on a physics scholarship, right?”

I nod.

“Well, it’ll be nice to have some brains in here to counteract the brainless beefcakes,” he says louder with a chuckle, like he’s trying to make sure his comment is heard by anyone else in the vicinity.

“Who you calling beefcake?” someone calls back.

“Everyone knows hockey players have more muscles than brain cells,” he replies, and I don’t know if I should laugh or smile or what, so I just stand there awkwardly staring at my feet.

“It’s you lacrosse players that are missing a few screws. Your games are like watching girls run around with butterfly nets,” the same voice replies.

“Don’t listen to Flash. He’s been hit in the head too many times by the puck. Come on, I’ll show you the room and then you can unpack while we finish setting up for the welcome party.”

“It’s a party?”

“Yeah, we like to keep things casual here at KOK.”

I don’t think I will ever be able to just casually say that word the way these guys seem to. I’ll stick with the full name, Kappa Omicron Kappa, I think.

He leads me through the kitchen to the rec room behind it, but instead of housing a bunch of tables and chairs and various games like foosball like I saw in my research, they’ve moved them all out and set up with twelve air mattresses scattered throughout.

“So this is your home for the next few weeks. If you make it through rush, you’ll move upstairs. Cool?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, and he drops my bag down in front of the bed closest to the door. “Any questions?”

I can think of at least three off hand, but I don’t want to be the guy with all the questions, so I just shake my head.

“Cool, come find me when you’ve unpacked. I’ll introduce you around.”

“Thanks,” I say, and he slaps a hand down on my shoulder.

“No worries. Welcome to KOK.”

I can’t really unpack, not properly anyway.

While the air beds are at least the kind that are a few feet high, there is no bedside, only a trunk at the foot of each bed for our things, so I take a few minutes to unpack my books, stacking a few of them beside the bed to make a sort of bedside table, and the rest inside the trunk.

I refold my clothes and stack them beside the remaining books and then grab the wooden chess box out.

It’s one of those ones that you open completely and flip over to use as the board.

I bought it at a thrift shop not far from Mom and Dad’s place.

I made the chess pieces myself, though, over the course of two years from bits and pieces I found on the beach or in the woods.

My favorites are the queens. They are made from mostly alternating pieces of red and blue sea glass.

I discovered the red one at low tide peeking out from under a giant rock.

I have no clue what it used to be, but it was as thick as my thumb and about two inches long when I dug it out.

The sculpting took forever, I was terrified I’d break it, but now it’s glued to a smooth stone from a riverbed with a fancy button and part of a bottle cap on top.