Page 12 of Shane

I try not to laugh openly as the baseball players narrow their beady little eyes at us. In my opinion, they’re soft as a baby’s bottom, and in a fair fight, we’d wipe the floor with them. But they’re also very territorial, and based on what went down here today, this is not the end of it.

Just another day on the VCU yard.

Until I spother.

Sitting on a bench licking her fingers in a way that makes my dick weep inside my pants.

“Who the fuck is that?” I mutter under my breath.

She’s spectacular.

“No time to chase your dick, Sullivan,” Neo says pointing in the direction of approaching campus police. “Gotta go.”

Next time then.

kennedy

I’m soexcited that you’re going to the bar crawl with us, Kennedy,” Pepper squeals, and every muscle in my body clenches from the grating sound of her peppy voice.

It’s a sad day when the only person I can hang out with is a campus student ambassador I met on Final Decision Day. This is exactly why I wanted to stay in a dorm instead of in the off-campus apartment my parents rented for me. It will be so much harder for me to make friends living there, although admittedly, I’m not the easiest person to get to know.

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” I say with as much genuine emotion as I can muster.

“Of course! The crawl is a school tradition at the beginning of every year and an essential VCU rite of passage. There’s no way I would let you stay at home and miss it.”

“I believe you.” I fake a smile of gratitude.

I look at myself in Pepper’s floor-length door mirror and wonder what it would take to convince my mom to buy me a boob job. I look like Peter Pan in this dress.

“I should have brought a jacket.”

“Are you kidding? You look badass in that dress and there’s no checking coats at a bar crawl.”

“But I’m freezing. I thought it was hot here.”

“Yeah, Vegas weather is tricky. You think it’s going to be hot all day but then the temperature drops at night, but trust me, where we’re going you won’t need a jacket. We’ll meet up with a few of my floor mates at our first stop, The Pike, and just let me warn you now, it’s going to be packed with a lot of jocks.”

“By the tone of your voice, I take it they’re not your favorite people?”

“Some of them are nice to look at, but they’re sloppy drunks.”

“Isn’t that the point of a bar crawl?” I snicker. “To get drunk?”

“Yeah, but they’re bad drunks, and by the end of the night, I guarantee you that most of them will end up in a fight, especially if the new guys are there.”

“The new guys?”

“Our new hockey team. They’re a bunch of freshmen all insanely gorgeous and supposedly very talented. You’ll see when we get there. You’ll know exactly who they are.”

* * *

Pepper wasn’t kidding.

If this is what the rest of our night is going to look like, I’m not going to make it through the entire crawl.

The Pike is packed with college kids who are double-fisting tall glasses of beer and liquor shots. The music is so loud that my eardrums are vibrating and it’s so hot in here that I’ll need to whip out my stretchy hair tie and pull my hair up into a high pony relatively soon.

“It’s wild in here isn’t it?” Pepper asks laughing, shoving us against other sweaty bodies so we can push ourselves closer to the bar.