BAD REP(142)

“Yeah, I figured you'd say that.  You know, I'm thinking about withdrawing,” she said, shocking the hell out of me.  Gracie was Miss Sorority.  She loved it.  I couldn't imagine her not being in Chi Delta.  It had come to define so much of who she was, that I worried about her should she no longer have it.

“Why would you do that?” I asked in confusion.  Vivian made a noise.

“Oh please.  Since you were kicked out, Gracie and I have become Chi Delta's Most Wanted.  Sure, they're still nice to our faces, but Milla has made it a point to make us feel very unwelcome.”  I hated this for them and it stirred up all those guilty feelings.

“I'm so sorry guys,” I told them softly.  Gracie and Vivian each reached out and took one of my hands.

“Don't you dare be sorry, Mays.  This whole thing has just shown me who my true friends are.  I don't think I can stomach paying dues to be a part of a group that will attack and humiliate one of their own the way they did you.  It doesn't sit well.”  I squeezed her hand.  “Plus, you're my girl.  If you jump, I jump.” I laughed, a deep, from the belly laugh.  Damn Gracie and her ridiculous Titanic obsession.

Vivian looked over my shoulder and froze.  I looked behind me and my heart leapt up into my throat.  Jordan walked in with a few of his Pi Sig brothers and got in line for his lunch.

It had been a few weeks since our messy break up and this was the first time I had seen him.  It was like a fist to the gut.  He looked amazing.  Gone was the tired, miserable looking guy who had shown up at my apartment drunk and desperate to win me back.  The man across the room looked like his old, confident and charming self.

I couldn't look away.  Where he went, my eyes followed.  After getting his lunch he headed toward the Pi Sig table, which was beside the normal Chi Delta table.  I noticed with irritation, that Olivia and Milla were there.

Jordan sat on the end, Olivia on the other side of the aisle.  She waved and smiled at him in that sickeningly sweet way of hers.  Jordan nodded but otherwise didn't acknowledge her.  Much to my sadistic delight.

“Hmmm, I'm surprised he's eating over there,” Vivian said, more to herself.  I turned back around to look at her.

“Why?” I asked, curious.  Vivian tore apart her brownie and placed it into tiny piles.

“Well, it's rumored that he's quitting Pi Sig.  He hasn't been staying in the house for weeks and hasn't been to a mixer since the one when school started,” Vivian answered.

“Hmm, well I don't take a whole lot of stock in rumors, Viv,” I said, stabbing my hamburger with my fork.  Gracie made a face at my lunch.

“Do you have to mutilate it?” she asked, pulling my fork out of my sandwich. 

“But what Vivian said is true.  A bunch of the Pi Sigs were bitching about it last week.  Talking about how Jordan came into their chapter meeting, saying he would pay his rent up until the end of the month and then he was out.  Said something about moving in with Garrett.  And that he would be withdrawing from the fraternity.  It's caused quite an upset,” Gracie reported, bunching up her napkin and dropping it in her empty salad bowl.

He was dropping out of Pi Sig?  I wasn't entirely surprised by that.  He had been disenfranchised with the whole thing for a while.  But still.  It seemed kind of sudden.

I looked over my shoulder again and watched Jordan as he engaged in conversation with his soon to be ex-brothers.  As if feeling my eyes on him, he looked up and met my gaze from across the room.  I wanted to look away, but I couldn't.  One heartbeat.  Two heartbeats.  Three.

Then he looked away.

That hurt.  So damn much.  Vivian and Gracie were looking at me knowingly but politely didn't comment.  When it was time to leave, we unfortunately had to pass behind the Chi Delta and Pi Sig's table.  So much for riding under the radar.

One minute I was walking with my tray, the next I was falling forward, my tray flying from my hands as I ended up sprawled out on the floor, my face having made painful contact with the hard linoleum.  “Maysie!” Gracie gasped as she and Vivian helped me to my feet.

I heard riotous laughter and realized both the Pi Sig and Chi Delta tables were laughing their asses off.  All of them, except for Jordan.  His eyes simmered with heat but he was otherwise unreadable.  I brushed off my pants and picked up my tray.