“That time last year when you swore your mouthpiece tasted like ranch dressing, and no one believed you, and you missed half a day of camp because they sent you to the health center for what they thought was heatstroke?” He grins. “I did that.”
My eyes pop out of my skull. I make the shot. “You ass! But also … helpful. Your favorite hoodie you thought some rando stole from the field during practice? I wear it around my apartment whenever I’m mad at you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “But do you wear anything else with it?”
My grin is just a shade evil. “Not always.”
He makes the shot and gets this faraway glaze to his eyes. “Definite spank-bank material. When all your sheet music mysteriously got wet and you had to do twenty push-ups in front of the whole section for being irresponsible? Also me.”
“The glitter bomb in the bell of your trumpet that sprayed your entire squad? I did that.”
He rolls his eyes and makes his shot. “I knew you had done that even if I couldn’t prove it. A guy would never use glitter. That scarf you left behind in the band room—the one you found a week later, covered in weird stains that you figured was just spilled latte, so you put it on anyway because it was freezing that day? Yeah, those were cum stains. I jerked off into it.”
“Disgusting!” I make the shot. “Also, weirdly flattering.”
He laughs.
“When you were using your best pick-up lines and laying on the charm thick for weeks to get with Jenn, that cymbal player who quit band halfway through sophomore year? Yeah …” I’m not necessarily proud to admit this, but he claims he enjoys my jealousy. “I might have confided in her privately that I’d overheard a conversation where you admitted to having genital herpes, and you were so glad your most recent flare-up had died down before picking her up for your date that she’d finally agreed to.”
He shakes his head, but his smile isn’t as bright. And he misses his shot.
“You were too good for her,” I insist. “I actually did overhear a conversation where she told the rest of the cymbals she hoped to get invited to Alex’s mansion in Florida for spring break.”
A look of absolute disgust passes across his face before it softens into something else. “When your first boyfriend,” he spits out the word like rancid meat, “dumped you, I was the one who sent those flowers to the band room. You were definitely too good for him.”
“I always thought it was Shannon who had done that.”
Shannon is not even at the other end of the pong table anymore because we switched out opponents without me realizing. I have no idea if we even won that last game.
Jim misses his next shot against the newcomers.
“When you failed that principles of democracy test because you’d been sick with strep throat all week and just couldn’t get caught up, I was the one who convinced the professor to give you a make-up test after you were feeling better.”
Jim’s laugh isn’t as vibrant as it was at the beginning of the night. “What made him believe you enough to let me do a retake? I emailed him when I’d missed those classes, and he sort of implied he thought I was lying about being too sick to show up for lecture.”
I shrug and make the next shot. “I guess he figured I was your biggest competition in the class, so why would I lie about it? I’m also the one who left the coffee on your desk to get you through the exam.”
“You did that?” Jim chuckles. “I thought that was the prof’s way of apologizing for being a bastard.”
Other opponents come and go, but we stay on our end of the table because Jim and I are playing an entirely new, different sort of game. One where we learn the rules by trial and error. Some of the confessions are enlightening; a few make me feel warmer than the alcohol. The competition shifts from compelling each other to play the game better to confessing all the secret ways we’ve been doing that all along.
A familiar, old song plays on the speakers, and Jim’s eyes widen. “Shit! How long have we been playing?”
I shrug. I’m exhausted and pretty drunk. I’ve gotten the hang of chugging nasty beer, but if I had to guess, I’d say that’s because I’ve been practicing for hours. There aren’t nearly as many bodies packing the basement as there were at the beginning of the party.
He latches on to my hand and drags me behind him to the other side of the basement where all the ITK brothers seem to have gathered in a circle for yet another ritual. Maybe this is where they sacrifice a virgin.
I dunno. I’m just glad I’m not one.
“There you are!” Nate opens the circle to let us in. “We thought you’d passed out already!”
“What?” Jim scoffs. “And miss this? No way!”
They wrap their arms around each other and sing. They sing along to a song about friendship, brotherhood, and sacrificing themselves to be there for each other, no matter what.
It’s beautiful and saddening. I’ve missed out on so much.
When the song ends, they throw their hands into a pile and form a huddle of the coolest band geeks to have ever marched. I’ve heard this ITK chant before on the field numerous times, but I don’t try to join in.
I feel more like an outsider than ever.
Chapter Thirty-One
The circle breaks, and the music doesn’t start up again. There are only brothers left now. The party is over.
Instead of straggling to their own places or heading upstairs for bed, a flurry of activity breaks out. Jim calls out orders, and brothers rush to do his bidding.
“Nate!” he calls. “What’d we clear for tonight?”
Nate’s behind the bar, shuffling a pile of bills in his hands, mouth moving a mile a minute as he counts. “Almost a grand!”
“Sweet.” Jim looks less impressed than what he says aloud. “We can do better for the Halloween party though. Didn’t we make almost three thousand from that last year?”
Nate squints to read a notebook in the dim light. “Looks like it, yeah. We made almost five on the Suck me/Eat me party for Valentine’s Day. I guess Eric was right. The higher cover charges aren’t hurting our bottom line.”
“Who’s Eric?” I whisper, not wanting to offend if there’s a bandie here I actually don’t know.
“Eric Kyle. You know him. He played tuba. Graduated last year. He was the treasurer until he handed all the books over to Nate. He suggested raising our door price since we hadn’t in a couple years, and he knew we’d still be cheaper than the frat parties. Plus, this way, we have more slush funds to work with for some new things we’d like to try this year.”
“Nate is the treasurer,” I repeat. It’s not that I didn’t know ITK had officers; I just thought it was a silly title to make the seniors feel important. “I can’t believe ITK has an actual treasurer.”
He smiles. “We might not be a national frat or even officially recognized by the university, but yeah, we’re a pretty well-oiled machine. And we give the band a more casual way to socialize than the other organizations that are bound by national sanctions. Open parties are also a good way for the rest of the student body to get to know the band. To realize we’re not just a bunch of dorks slobbering into instruments, who entertain them on game days.”