Page 5 of Slick & Spooky

“You really think he’ll notice me?” My voice drops before I can stop it.

Joey sighs and stands, giving me one last look. “He already does. Make sure you like what you see, and let’s go. I need to black out, and you’ve got a dick to ride.”

I glance back at the mirror, at the skeletal paint glowing across my torso. The pledge costume was supposed to be black shorts and a skeleton tee.

Technically, I’m in uniform. I just ditched the tee.

My runner’s frame catches the light, skin glowing like a warning flare. At a gay bar on Halloween night, this look would look like downright normal, but at a frat party, it’s dangerous, loud, and so fucking slutty.

You’d think a half-naked pledge might trigger some old-school masculinity crisis, but nobody blinks. The brothers don’t care that I’m gay, and statistically at least a handful are running the same game on nightmare mode.

What they’ll care about is me getting away with it. That it’spreferential treatment.When I hear the whispers, that’s what they’ll say.

Let them stare.

My obsession has spent months looking anywhere but at me, so tonight he doesn’t get that option. If it takes becoming someone else to make it happen, then that’s exactly who I’ll be.

Tonight I’ll be unforgettable.

Tonight, I’m going to get fucked by Knox Everett.

2

Ihear the party before I even see the house.

Bass rattles the sidewalk, laughter spilling into the street, the chaotic symphony of a frat house devouring itself from the inside out. Each step closer thickens the air, like even the humidity’s drunk, clinging to my skin with the same desperation I’m trying to hide.

The Mu Lambda Nu house looms at the edge of University Ave, the main artery of campus life.

On game days, this stretch is a clogged vein of cars, tailgates, and tourists chasing their slice of college glory, but tonight, it feels like the whole current of the street has been sucked into our front door, pulled into one heaving, pulsing body.

A sea of bodies floods the walkway, pulled toward bass you can feel in your teeth. Sorority girls in glitter wings and cat ears cluster by the door, laughing too loud, perfume cutting sharp through the haze. A couple of football players, still slick with sweat and cologne, nod at the brothers manning the door and vanish inside like they own the place.

Two stories of white walls and navy shutters, thin columns rising like sentries from the giant brick front porch that wrapsaround to the side. Trimmed hedges line either side of the front door like someone cared enough to maintain them.

The house glows like a haunted temple. Lights pulse with the beat. Fog curls down the steps like secrets spilling loose. From the sidewalk, it looks exactly how it’s supposed to: epic, exclusive, a little dangerous.

There’s a smattering of whispers as we step up to the line. Quick glances thrown over shoulders.

While I’d love to pretend they’re checking me out. Commenting on the costume, the effort, or even the way I wear my yearning like a second skin… I know better.

They’re gawking because it’s me.

The crowd parts like we’re royalty, because being in my orbit means something, and everyone wants to be in favor with someone like me.

It makes me want to fucking vomit.

Joey, meanwhile, is eating it up, shouldering past guests clawing to get inside. He claps one of the brothers on the back as he breezes through the door, all charm and ease.

I hang back just long enough to catch the scowl one of them throws my way. I flash a sheepish smile, all teeth and guilt, then slip inside after him before I lose my nerve.

To the left, a spiral staircase curves upward, dramatic as hell, leading to the brothers’ private rooms. To the right, the formal living room looks like a rich kid’s museum piece. Wall-to-wall portraits of past brothers in stiff suits, sofas circled around a fireplace no one’s ever lit, and a grand piano that only comes alive during initiation chants or when someone’s trying to get laid.

We push past the bodies and slip through a pair of French doors into the courtyard.

It’s a wide rectangle, open to the night, framed by the bones of the house itself. First-floor windows glowing with commonrooms, second-floor balconies overhead leading to bedrooms and the chapter room.

The courtyard itself? A goddamn spectacle.