“We swim naked, pledge. Take your bathing suit off or you’ll fail the dare.” I try to sound stern but really, I’m trying to stifle the laughter that threatens to erupt at the expression on her face.
Kaya is so not the sorority girl type. I’m sure she’s only pledging the Zetas to make her mom happy. I mean, not every sorority girl is slutty but the stereotype is a stereotype for a reason after all and she definitely doesn’t fit it.
As I expected, she fights back. This is really way more fun than I ever could anticipate. See? This is the thing, I know she likes me. I can see it in her eyes, in the slightly nervous way she acts around me. I could feel it when we kissed at last week’s party. I know I wasn’t the only one who felt something.
“You can’t ask me to do this.”
I laugh. She has to try better than this to deter me.
“I can and I did. Take that bikini off, pledge or lose the dare.”
She shakes her head again. “You said, when you were explaining the rules for tonight, that the brothers and the sisters could ask anything of the pledges unless it was hazing or illegal.”
She’s so bloody sweet, she thinks she’s got me cornered. I make a point to look slightly bored rather than showing her my amusement.
“Right. Skinny dipping isn’t hazing. And it’s not illegal, so strip.”
She’s so stubborn. I can’t wait for that perseverance to be put to work to pleasure me rather than resist me.
She makes a weak, last ditch attempt to win her point. “But public nudity—”
This time I laugh. “Darling, I can hardly see a crowd here. Go on, take that bikini off or lose the dare.” I challenge her.
I see her weighing her options and I realize that I was right. She doesn’t really care about being a Zeta, she must be doing it to make her mom happy. I know everything about legacies and the kind of pressure families put on their kids to follow paths that have been decided for them since before birth.
I’m slightly distracted by my own thoughts and almost miss the decision that flashes in Kaya’s eyes. She jumps into the water.
It’s my turn to shake my head, I’m still standing on the rocks with my hands on my hips. “I said we were skinny dip—”
The sopping wet, heavy fabric of her bikini top hits me smack in the face with a loud thud. It’s followed by the bottom piece that lands at my feet as Kaya throws it out of the water.
A slow smile forms on my lips and I can’t help but chuckle at her resourcefulness.
Well played, Kaya. Very well played. I think as I follow her into the water.
Kaya
ASSHOLE.
This is all some kind of game for Oliver. He is literally toying with me, like a cat with its prey.
I almost considered telling him where he could shove his dare and this stupid pledge thing.
But then I thought about how proud Mom was when I was accepted to pledge the Zetas.
Fuck, I know this is stupid. I’m nineteen and I shouldn’t be worried about appeasing my parents. And I know that Mom would live if I decided to drop out from pledging. The problem is that she’d be more worried about me not following in her footsteps by getting tied too early into a serious relationship and not ‘enjoying a full college experience’ and look more closely at my relationship with Bryce.
And that is something I definitely don’t want, because she might pick up hints on the fact that Bryce isn’t the only guy I’m seeing.
And the real danger would be for her to catch wind of my relationship with Chase.
Again, I know I’m an adult but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to hurt my parents. I stand by my choices. I don’t see anything wrong in loving Chase. We didn’t grow up together and our relationship never felt like a sibling one. We even tried to stay away from each other but our feelings are too deep and our attraction too strong. I guess this is the heartbreaking part of becoming an adult: live the life you want even when it doesn’t match your parents’ expectations.
And sue me for wanting my mom to be proud of me, for still needing her approval from time to time.
I know how she feels about it: we had a silly argument once when I was sixteen, I don’t even remember exactly what it was about. I wanted to go somewhere and she said no. So I told her that I couldn’t wait to be eighteen so I could do what I wanted and she couldn’t stop me.
She agreed with me. But then she added that I’d understand the way she felt when I became a mother. “You never stop being a mother and you never stop worrying about your children’s happiness. You never quit wanting the best for them.” She’d told me.
She was right. I’m not a mother yet and I don’t plan to be for a long time yet but I can see how even if I’m at that age where I can do what I want, even if in a few short years I’ll be totally out of my parents’ house and financially independent, I still care about what they think about my choices. I still don’t want to do anything to hurt them or disappoint them.
So while I’m heartbroken that my parents would hate the path my heart has chosen, and I hate hiding things from them, at least I want to make them proud with my academics. And if something small like being a Zeta will make my mom happy, then I’ll do it.
Oliver re-emerges after diving into the lake and reaches me with a few powerful strokes of his muscled arms.
He has an irritating expression on his face, one corner of his lips tipped up in a lopsided smile.
He doesn’t say anything, making me squirm and I make the huge mistake of becoming defensive and retaliating. “What? You said skinny dipping and we’re skinny dipping. Your stupid dare is done.”
His smile widens and he sounds infuriatingly patronizing when he chuckles darkly, shaking his strawberry blond head and wading closer to me. “Kaya, Kaya, Kaya. My darling, naive, little Kaya.”
Who the fuck does he think he is? He moves too close for comfort considering our lack of clothes and I back off until my back meets the rough surface of the cliff of rocks we jumped off of.
“You know that taking your bikini off in the water wasn’t the point of this dare, right?”
He can bet his pompous, snobby ass that I know what he wants.
He pisses me off so much that I can’t help a surge of satisfaction for having outsmarted him, making me taunt him in his same chiding tone.
“Of course I knew what you wanted. Sucks not to get your way every time, huh?”
He laughs out loud, looking extremely handsome in a boyish kind of way and for a second I admit to myself that he might be an uppity, pretentious prick but he’s handsome.
His knowing smirk makes me immediately regret what I just admitted to myself.
“Sooner or later you’ll have to come out of the water though, won’t you? And I intend to be here, waiting.”
He’s fucking right.
Irritations crashes over me like a wave and I smack my hand on the surface of the dark water of the lake, splashing both myself and Oliver.
“Creepy!” I scold him but he’s completely unperturbed, his teasing smirk still firmly in place.
“It pisses you off because you know it’s true.”
I feel a little childish but I move my face to the side, refusing to meet his gaze. He’s got me exactly where he wanted me and we both know it.