Boyfriend Material (Hawthorne University, #2)(5)

Jesus. She hates me.

Do you blame her?

An emotional exhalation comes from my chest.

I push down the guilt I feel about her as I climb the steps of the frat house and take in this year’s assortment of new frat girls. Most of them are doe-eyed girls in short dresses, clutching their beers as they smile.

“Who called her a slut?” I ask the group. Just for the hell of it. And because I know she isn’t.

They glance away from me, like they’ve got no clue what I’m referencing.

Whatever.

They part like the Red Sea to let me pass. Another girl, one who wasn’t part of the group giving Julia the evil eye, chases after me. “Wait. You’re the one they call Everest, right?”

“Yeah. That’s me. And you are . . .”

“Fiona.” She stands up straighter, smoothing out her skirt. “You’re a Kappa?”

As I start to shake my head, one of the guys calls out, “He fucking wishes.”

I give him the finger over the girl’s shoulder. I could’ve been a Kappa, but that’s ancient history. I got out. Or kicked out. Depends on who you ask. These days I only come to Kappa to check out the party scene or celebrate hockey victories. Long ago, tradition dictated that Kappa throw our parties for us. It’s the biggest—and supposedly the best—frat on campus.

“Excuse me. I gotta go see someone,” I tell her.

“Are you coming back?” she asks, pouting. She has round cheeks with dimples and pretty blonde hair that curls around her face.

“I might.”

She gives me a bright smile, lashes batting. “Come find me later.”

Fine. I’m game. She didn’t call Julia a slut.

“Alright.”

She giggles. “Promise?”

Her crop top is only covering half of her tits. I picture my hands around them.

All in good time.

For now, I touch her cheek, and a little of the darkness that swirls in my head abates. I hate going to bed alone. Sex releases endorphins I crave.

“Wait here for me?” I give her a wink and go inside the house, which reeks of sweat and old beer. The music in the common room blasts as strobe lights dance.

That’s when I see my target.

Parker Fucking Cavendish.

Quarterback of the football team, Kappa President—and a giant prick.

Reason number one of many why I’m not a brother.

He might as well be sitting on a throne in the room the way people look up at him. Really, he’s standing on a stage at the head of the room, bookended by two girls, taking turns making out with them.

Probably na?ve of me to think he’d fallen asleep and wouldn’t be coming out of his suite at the top floor of the house for the rest of the night.

That’s where he was when I left a few minutes ago. When I had to give a crying, drunken girl a ride home.

I found her wearing her bra and panties outside his door, trying to get back in. Her knuckles were bleeding because she’d been knocking on his door so long. I’d gone up there to use the head and ended up playing nursemaid to her.

She told me a slightly incoherent story about how she met Parker tonight. They went up to his room together and had what she thought was something great—until she left to use the bathroom down the hall. He wouldn’t let her use his because it was dirty. Yeah, right.

Then, he unceremoniously locked her out without her clothes and ignored her.

I helped her wash up and found her a roomy sweatshirt from one of the bedrooms, then gave her a ride home. She’s just a freshman. When her parents dropped her off at Hawthorne to start her college journey, she’d had hopes and dreams . . . but being locked out of a frat room, half-dressed, her first weekend away from home, wasn’t one of them.

I make my way around the thrashing bodies and stalk over to him. He doesn’t notice me until I’m at the bottom of the stage.

“Hey,” I call over the music. “I took care of your problem.”

He nudges the girls aside and gives me a superior look. “You think I have problems? Look around.” He throws his head back and laughs.

Dude is what girls call “hot,” I guess. Short dark hair, All-American chin, a footballer’s athleticism.

I hate the fucker.

We pledged together freshman year and you’d think we’d be friends, but it never happened.

Instead, we competed for everything.

Who could get the most girls—me; who made the better grades—him; who won more intramural games—me. All in good fun, unless you grew up with him because your dads are business associates and he’s always hated you. In the end, he had more friends in the pledge class since most of my friends were hockey players who hadn’t pledged.

That freshman year is a blur to me. Too much alcohol. Too many mornings of waking up and hating myself because I wasn’t someone else. I wasn’t in a good place. Most days I think I’m past that emptiness, but I’d be fooling myself.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I growl. “The girl.”

“If you’re talking about the girl upstairs . . .” He squints, his toothy smile already focused on a female across the room. “Or who-the-fuck-cares. She wasn’t a problem.”

I cross my arms. “I think she would have a different perspective.”