Page 34 of Frat House Fling

11

IAN

The weather wasperfect on Tuesday evening when Bennett invited us up to his room. The balcony had a spectacular view. Lights twinkled in the houses at the base of the mountains in the distance.

I sat on a lounge chair, my legs spread out in front of me. Theo was on my left, and Matt on my right. Bennett and Grant were in the middle, and our buddy Dave was at the end, sitting at a little patio table. He was interning in Chicago, but he’d flown down to help plan our first party of the summer. He was officially the social chair, but everyone just called him the party guy.

“Anyone need anything else to drink?” Bennett asked. “I can get the girl to bring it up.”

The girl.Bennett was really getting off on having a pretty young woman to order around. He wasn’t like this with the staff we hired during the spring and fall semesters.

“I’m good. I’ve got an early flight tomorrow,” Dave said, but the rest of us put in our orders, and Bennett texted Hailey. Dave got up and stood in front of the railing, blocking the view. “Shouldn’t Nelson be here?”

I grinned. “Do you really want him here?”

“We’ll probably cover more ground without him,” Grant said. “Unless you need him to hook us up with a dealer for Friday.”

Fortunately, Grant was kidding. We did skirt some laws here, more than I was comfortable with, but we didn’t take itthatfar. Besides, as far as I knew, Nelson wasn’t into anything stronger than weed.

We discussed business for a while in the cool night air. Parties didn’t interest me. Nor, in truth, had being in a fraternity, at least not at first. But my best friends were here. I owed everything to Theo and Grant. Bennett too, to some extent, but I wasn’t as tight with him. He’d been a year ahead of us in our private high school outside of Washington, DC, and he always struck me as cold and aloof. But when I met Theo and Grant, who’d been friends since childhood, I knew I'd found my people.

Hailey appeared, stepping tentatively through the open sliding glass door and out here with us. She held a very full tray of drinks and carefully set it down on the little table. Then she popped the caps off the bottles, one by one, and handed them out.

I’d gone with a pale ale that I liked, and I smiled at her when she handed it to me.

Hailey gave the last beer to Theo, giving him a smile as she did so. She turned to go, but the spectacular view caught her attention. She moved to the railing, running her hands along it. The evening breeze made her hair flutter. She was looking at the view, but more than one of my buddies were looking at her.

Bennett cleared his throat. “You can’t stay here. This balcony is for fraternity brothers only.”

“Or the women they bring up here to fuck,” Grant said. He was on the third bottle of that weird beer he liked, but that wasn’t an excuse to be so crass.

“Jesus, Grant,” Theo said. He was our friend, but that didn’t mean we agreed with everything he did. Although, what he’d said wasn’t exactly untrue.

Hailey’s cheeks turned pink, and she hurried back to the table to gather her tray. But before she could leave, Dave called her name.

“Hang on a minute. We have to talk about Friday. You’re going to be working at the bar, right?”

She nodded. We’d introduced her to Dave the first time she brought us drinks, but she didn’t know him, and she seemed as shy as a girl on her first date.

“Let’s talk about your outfit for the party. Bennett said you had some kind of special costume?” Hailey’s jaw dropped, and she started stammering. I couldn’t even make out what she was saying.

“What costume?” Matt asked. Next to me, Theo put a hand to his forehead and shook his head.

“She’ll be wearing a French maid costume at the party,” Bennett said.

“She’ll what?” I asked sharply. He had to be fucking kidding.

“Why not?” Bennett said. “She’ll be serving drinks, why shouldn’t she dress for the occasion?” He glanced over at Hailey, whose face had gone white. “Not everyone wants their drinks served by a girl in an old t-shirt and shorts.”

Hailey was shaking her head. “I can’t do that.”

“It’s not your call, it’s Dave’s,” said Bennett, but we all knew who really ran the show here.

I couldn’t stay silent any longer. “What the hell, Bennett? Are youtryingto get her sexually harassed? Because that seems like the quickest way to do it.”

“If she can’t handle drunk guys at a party, she’s definitely in the wrong job.”

Theo cursed under his breath. “She didn’t sign on to be a sacrificial lamb.”