1.
“Where’s Chuck?” Cameo asked, handing me a beer she had snagged from the coolers that lined the floors in the kitchen of the frat house we were hanging out in. The house was Gamma Phi something or other. Honestly, I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t care. They were all the same to me anyway.
“Who knows? Playing darts with the guys, I think.” Hopefully, they were using his head as the dartboard.
“You two make up?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“I think you misunderstood me, sweets. When I said, ‘who knows,’ I meant, who cares. I hope someone throws a dart that sticks right in his egotistical ass,” I corrected her, not feeling very appreciative of the guy who was supposed to be my current boyfriend. Of course, after only two dates, it didn’t seem right to fall into that trap, as far as I was concerned.
She laughed, taking a long drink from her beer before answering. “Another one bites the dust,” she continued, holding up her bottle to toast.
“Cheers,” I answered, clinking my bottle to hers without further comment. I twisted the cap off my beer as I surveyed the rowdy crowd around us. The decibel level at frat parties was always nothing less than near deafening. Not that I was complaining. I was in my element—the louder it got, the better. This was the kind of scene I didn’t see when I still lived at home and went to community college near Woodfalls. Going to an actual university was like stepping into another world. A world that I took to immediately. I was loud and raucous, so what?
Cameo and I left the kitchen and headed outside to the patio, which gave us a front-row seat to all the action. The guys were entertaining the crowd by trying to one-up each other with one crazy stunt after the next. We’d already seen some idiot jump from the balcony on the second floor, hugging a mattress. Cheers erupted on the front lawn as people hooted and hollered, yelling scores for his landing. He stood up with his arms raised in victory before bowing at the waist and tossing his cookies splendidly on two unsuspecting girls who stood off to the side. Both girls shrieked with disgust, which only invited more cheers from the onlookers.
Not
to be outdone, a group of girls decided to get in on the action when the guys initiated a girl-on-girl mud-wrestling tournament. Within minutes of being soaked by hoses spilling water at full blast, the front lawn of the fraternity house was a sopping mess. Judging by the steady line of participants that had quickly formed, the nominated contestants seemed to be too drunk to care about being subjected to male gawking, or the fact that it was too cold to be rolling around like pigs in shit.
“You going?” Cameo asked.
“Hell no,” I answered, choosing to keep my seat on the sidelines.
I’d been there, done that, and I didn’t relish taking an elbow in the nose or having a handful of my hair pulled out to entertain drunken college guys. Chuck, who had finally appeared from wherever he’d been hiding, couldn’t seem to get it through his thick head that I didn’t want to participate. It took me stomping on his foot and threatening to twist his junk into a knot before he finally stopped trying to pull me into the fray.
“Aw, you mean you don’t want to give your boyfriend a show and roll around and get all wet with another girl?” Cameo teased, breaking into my thoughts. She looked halfway past tipsy as she smiled at me.
We had been at the party for an hour and were nursing our third beer each. I could hold my liquor better than Cameo, who was a bit of a lightweight. Chances were I’d be dragging her ass home later since she’d barely be able to walk. She and I had made a pact when we first became roommates that we would never leave the other behind, unless of course a hot guy was involved. Little did I realize when I made the pact that it would be me shouldering most of the load.
Honestly, I didn’t mind. I loved Cameo to death. I had completely lucked out when I found her as a roommate after being accepted into Maine State College’s business program. I got in by the skin of my teeth since I wasn’t exactly what you would call an “academic all-star.” I had taken a full year off after high school because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Finally, my mom talked me into at least trying community college, and somehow, I managed to drill into my stubborn head that if I wanted to transfer to a state university, I would have to work hard. Not that I wasn’t still having fun at the same time. I wasn’t dead, after all. My acceptance letter came at the perfect time. My best friend, Brittni, had moved to Seattle, and I was feeling lost without her. She was the voice of reason I didn’t have myself that kept me in line for the most part. Without her, my antics in Woodfalls had hit an epic scale. After some of the shit I’d pulled over the years, I think the entire town let out a collective sigh of relief when I moved away for school. Even though MSC was only sixty miles away from Woodfalls, at least I was out of their hair. Now, in the almost two years that I’ve been on campus, I’ve managed to bring my reputation as a bit of a hell-raiser with me.
I pulled my thoughts back to Cameo, who was still waiting for my answer. “Please, you know I’d have no problem throwin’ down in there. It’s just too damn cold to roll around in the mud,” I said confidently. “Besides, Chuck’s been working to get in my pants. Little does he know, the Vagmart store is closed to his ass.”
“Ha, your vag-store,” Cameo snorted, setting her beer on an end table that was already overflowing with bottles. “Guys are so predictable. They think all chicks wanna get naked with each other and have pillow fights.”
“Well, I know that’s all I think about,” I said, wagging my eyebrows suggestively.
“Gross. You perv.” She slapped my arm and tried pushing me away.
“Oh come on. You know you want this,” I teased, running my hands down my curvy figure. I had to sidestep a couple who were too busy sucking each other’s faces as they walked to watch where they were going. “Hey, get a room,” I called after them as they stumbled into the wall.
“Where the hell do you think we’re going?” the guy asked, dislodging his lips long enough to answer.
“Sorry, shit, carry on then,” I said, grinning at Cameo.
“See, that’s why we will never have a party at our apartment,” she stated.
“What, you don’t want an orgy to break out on your bed?”
She held up her hand like a crossing guard. “Don’t even finish wherever your perverted mind was headed with that.”
I laughed loudly. Cameo was the perfect roommate in most aspects, but she did have a bit of an obsessive compulsive personality, much to my amusement. Not that I didn’t agree with her. I didn’t want drunken college peeps using my bed to get nasty in either.
“Could it be you’re just bummed that your bed hasn’t seen any action in how many days now?” I teased, wincing as I watched two girls in the mud pit go for each other’s hair. Why did girls always do that? Why couldn’t we fight like men? With fists and punching instead of hair pulling and scratching. I’d much rather take a punch to the gut than have a handful of my hair pulled out.
“Whatever, you whore. It’s been four days,” she answered, watching the fight with interest.
“Whoa, takes one to know one,” I laughed.