Me: Why haven’t you said anything about her?
Bodie: I don’t know. It’s not like you and I talk about our relationships.
Me: You don’t do relationships
Bodie: Neither do you usually
Me: True
Bodie: What about you and Anthony?
Me: I wouldn’t call it a relationship, yet. I haven’t even known him for two weeks. We’re having fun. Possibly dating, it’s still casual.
Bodie: So, you’re not in love with him?
Me: Fuck Bodie, you sound like a girl. I don’t do love. I do sex and fun. You know that.
Bodie: Yep, I do. Gotta go, see you tomorrow.
That was probably the strangest conversation I’d ever had with Bodie. I shook my head and opened my books. I was falling a little behind and I knew better than to let that happen. I put my phone on silent and spent the rest of the night catching up.
****
Bodie
I woke up to Major banging on my bedroom door.
“Time to get up and get beautiful,” he yelled, and then started laughing.
I heard more laughter in the main part of the dorm. That meant Chad and Zach were here too.
“Just fucking great,” I muttered and got up.
Ignoring them as I left my room, I took a shower, taking as long as I possibly could. I was dreading going out there and keeping up my end of the bet.
“Okay you fuckers,” I said, after I put on underwear, “where’s the dress?”
Major threw it at me and then Chad threw a bag at me.
“What this?” I asked, holding up the bag.
“It goes with the dress,” he said laughing.
“Fuck,” I said, and went back to my room.
As part of the bet, the guys got to pick out the dress I had to wear … all day today. We sure got some funny looks at the department store last night when they made me try on like twenty dresses. And if I wasn’t the one wearing the dress, I would have thought it was hilarious, too. But, not so much now as I looked at the dress. It was sleeveless and skin-tight. And let’s not forget bright red, sparkly and short. There was no way I was going unnoticed today.
I put it on and dumped out the bag from Chad. I shook my head at what I saw. There were bracelets, necklaces, and even a pair of heels. Trying to be a good sport I put on the jewelry, but not the shoes, I didn’t do heels of any kind, ever.
“Are you assholes happy now?” I said, walking out of my bedroom.
They all had their phones out, recording me. But they were laughing so hard I don’t think any of the videos would be steady enough to see. That was absolutely fine with me.
“Dude,” Major said, in between laughs, “you look so pretty.”
“Can I have your number sexy?” Chad managed to say.
Zach whistled at me. “Let me take you on a date.”
“Are you done yet?” I asked and waited.
“Not even close,” Major said. “But for now, we’ll stop. You have a class to get to.”
“Where are your shoes?” Chad asked.
“I’m not wearing those things. That wasn’t part of the bet.”
“But they’d complete the outfit,” Chad said and burst out laughing again.
“I hate all of you,” I told them.
“Don’t be a sore loser,” Major said.
“I’ve got the fucking dress on, don’t I? I’m not a sore loser.” So, that was maybe a little bit of a lie. I really did hate losing.
Major just chuckled at me. “Time to go.”
I put on my tennis shoes, grabbed my bag and walked out of the dorm. If I was wearing a bright red dress today, I might as well own it, so I put a smile on my face and a little swagger in my step. Major, Zach, and Chad were right behind me, no doubt taking pictures I’d regret later.
Not surprisingly, I got lots of looks directed my way. Some people seemed shocked but mostly everyone thought it was funny.
When I got to my class, I stopped outside the door.
“Are you three assholes going to follow me into class, too?” I asked.
“Nah, we just wanted to see you do the walk of shame,” Major said. “Red is certainly your color.”
All three of them started laughing again, but let me walk into the class alone. I did my best to ignore everyone and looked for Karma. She was on her phone and hadn’t seen me walk in yet. I went and sat in the chair beside her. The look on her face when she saw me was priceless. Then she started cackling.
“Oh my God, Bodie! What the hell?” she managed to say.
“Lost a bet,” I told her.
“Wow, that’s quite a bold style,” she said, still laughing.
“The guys got to pick it out.”
“I see. Well, they did a great job. Red is definitely the right color for your skin tone.”
I rolled my eyes at her which only made her laugh harder.
“Do you ever win any bets?” she asked.
“Sure, just not any in a while,” I said.
“Do you guys make bets often?”
“Not as much as we used to. In high school, it was a new bet almost every week,” I told her.
“Class,” the professor said, trying to get our attention. “Class,” he said louder. “What seems to be the trouble today?”
Almost everyone in the room pointed at me.
“Young man, would you care to stand up,” he said. So, I stood. “Ah, I see. Did you lose a bet?” he asked me.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Well, nice to see you’re a man that honors his bets. And that’s a beautiful dress, by the way.”
The whole class burst out laughing, but after that everything went back to normal. At least until my next class, where I basically had to go through the same thing all over again.
My last class of the day was Computer Science at 1:00 with Karma. One positive thing that had come out of this whole stupid thing was that I’d forgotten about the whole spying on Karma thing. I think that’s what Major had in mind when he mentioned the bet last night.
“I see you’re still ready for that fancy cocktail party,” Karma said, when she saw me in class.
“Yep,” I said. “I have to wear it all day.”
“You know, it really is a very nice dress. If we were the same size, I’d steal it from you,” she said with a wink.
“Of course, it is,” I said playing along. “Only the best for Bodie West.”
The next thing I knew she was turning me around and reaching in the top of the dress.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked her.
“Looking,” she said, and pulled the top of the dress back so she could read it. “Holy shit Bodie, this is like a thousand-dollar dress.”
“Yeah,” I said, not sure what she was getting at.
“I keep forgetting you guys are loaded. Who else is going to spend that kind of money on a joke? My entire closet full of clothes isn’t worth a thousand dollars.”
“Uh …” I had no idea what to say to that. “Do I apologize?”
“No, Bodie. You can’t help who your parents are. But at least promise me you’ll donate the dress to a woman’s shelter or something. Please don’t just throw it out.”
“I will,” I told her.