And I slide the badass, expensive sunglasses higher on the bridge of my nose as I rise.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
If it wasn’t for the line out the door leading to the basement, I might think no one was home. The lights are off upstairs, even on the main floor. The windows and front door are all shut tight even though it’s still sweltering outside.
I’m a little late because dinner with my parents ran over, but maybe I should just wait in line to go in through the basement door like everyone else. So, I do.
When I’m about five people from the doorway, I notice Jared collecting money.
Shit. I don’t have any cash on me. Does being an honorary brother negate the cover charge?
“Jared! Psst, Jared!”
He looks annoyed already, and it’s only nine o’clock. He shakes his head at me then points to the front entrance.
Well, I guess that answers the money question.
I knock, but no one answers.
“Shh! She’s here! Shut up!” Jimbo. A really loud Jimbo.
“We were all quiet until you opened your stupid mouth.” Shannon.
The door swings open, the lights go on, and I’m blasted with streamers fired at close range from New Year’s toys by a bunch of half-naked people wearing nothing but bedsheets.
I scream because … unexpected.
Then, I laugh because the living room is absolutely covered in what looks like handmade posters of congratulations and large renditions of my name. Not one of them says Sophie.
Shannon traps me in a death grip much stronger than Tim’s earlier one. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! The first woman drum major, and she’s my fucking best friend!”
I hug her back as tightly as my chicken wings can squeeze but also very carefully, so I don’t knock her sheet off her shoulders. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! The first woman trumpet section leader and herald squad captain, and she’s my fucking best friend!”
Shannon releases me with a smug grin that doesn’t fit with her rainbow-unicorn toga. “Yeah, but we’ve known how awesome I am since last spring.”
She gets pushed out of the way, literally, by Jimbo, who’s wearing a plain white sheet in the traditional style. Very authentic. Many muscles on display.
Want to hug that.
Instead, he frowns at me. “Where the fuck is your toga?” His eyes get wide. “Shit. Did I forget to tell you the first party of the year is always a toga party?”
I already knew that. He didn’t have to tell me. “I’ve been living out of a hotel for a week when I’m not crashing here. I don’t have a sheet to use.”
“Why didn’t you just steal one from the hotel?” Shannon has developed kleptomania from being in ITK, I swear.
“Jesus Christ,” Jimbo mutters, rolling his eyes. He pulls me in the door then slams it shut behind me. “Just go rip the sheet off our bed and get downstairs.”
I turn toward Shannon as he stalks away. There are a million questions running through my mind—not the least of which is his term of our bed when I have slept in that bed exactly three times—so I spew them all out in a gush of word vomit, “Is he hazing me because I’m his little? Is he drunk already? Is he not handling me getting drum major as well as he pretended to at the game?”
She takes a deep breath, then like the champion of BFFs she is, she answers all my questions in equal rapid-fire, “He didn’t mention any plans to me to haze you, but maybe it’s a way to keep Jared off everyone’s backs. He is definitely drunk, and something is definitely bothering him, but I don’t think it’s you being named head drum major because all these decorations and surprising you when you got here were all his idea.”
And yet not a single Sophie poster. Hmm.
Shannon grabs my hand and leads me toward the staircase. “Now, come on! You’ve got a toga to drape, and we’ve got a party to attend!”
The house is packed with more people than I’ve ever experienced since it’s an open party. Bodies are even spilling upstairs, already forming a line for multiple bathrooms. I guess they’re breaking the seal early tonight.
Thankfully, the third floor is roped off, so it’s quieter up here.
“I don’t want to take the sheet off his bed. Does he even have a spare set?”
“I don’t know.” Shan frowns as she glances around his room. “But I don’t, or I’d lend you mine.”
“Where did you get your super-cute sheet from?” Her sheets are teal. The toga is decidedly not.
She grins. “Goodwill.”
“Please tell me you washed before wearing.”
She rolls her eyes. “Aren’t you going to finish getting undressed?”
I glance down at my bra and panties. “Uh, I am undressed. Help me do this. I don’t want it to fall down in a half hour.”
“Okay, but just so you know, everyone downstairs is commando under these things.” She starts folding and draping Jim’s black flat sheet around my body.
“Aren’t you worried about a wardrobe malfunction?” Especially while drunk.
“That’s half the fun. Will I flash a boob, or won’t I? Who knows?”
“And Jake is okay with that?”
She grins. “Jake is hoping to get a show.”
Okay. Not sure how she’s so chill about him getting a show from more women than her tonight, but that seems like just another ITK thing. “Won’t he get a show after the party anyway?”
“No way. This is an open party, so the house won’t clear out until around two or three in the morning. The brothers will hang out for a while, helping to clean up since we don’t have pledges yet, until we’re all so tired that we just leave it for later in the afternoon then go pass out wherever we find a free spot.”
Ugh. That does not sound like fun at all. It sounds like work.
My expression must give me away because Shannon laughs as she strategically ties the sheet. “It’s a good thing I’m not planning to be a saleswoman after graduation, huh? It’s not as bad as I made it sound. You’ll have fun. Promise.”
“Since I’m the closest thing to a pledge you have, am I going to be scrubbing pukey toilets later?” We descend the stairs, and even with my underwear on beneath the sheet, I am acutely aware of the draft.
Shannon glances over her shoulder at me with surprise etched into her expression. “How do you know we make pledges do that?”
“Jimbo told me all kinds of things during my private initiation, but he didn’t say if I was expected to do those things.” I just want to know what I’m walking into before I head to the basement for my first open ITK party.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what? Always try to find out exactly what to expect?” Holy crap. I do. I do that. I think knowing what I’m up against might be another lesson Jim taught me without either of us even realizing it. If I know what to expect, I can never be disappointed again.
“No, not that. Even though you definitely do that.” She grins as we hit the main floor then has to yell over all the noise for me to hear her, “Why do you call him by different names? You used to always call him James to his face but Jimbo to anyone else. Sometimes, Jim or Jimmy. You never just settle on one name.”