"Joseph, you are not wearing light up shoes to a frat party."
"Sophie, it's called fashion."
I grab my bag from the counter and give Sophie a thumbs-up. "Ready? If we leave now, we'll be exactly an hour and fifteen minutes late, which is just the perfect amount of time to be considered cool."
"Right," Sophie says, although I know she doesn't follow my logic.
We walk over to where STD is on campus, easy to find listening to the thudding EDM music. There's a guy outside dressed in salmon pants and a Hawaiian shirt. He's wearing a baseball cap with the Greek letters Sigma Tau Delta. He looks young enough to be a freshman, maybe sophomore.
"Suh, dude," he says and shakes Joseph's hand. He nods at me and Sophie. "Ladies."
"Hey," Joseph replies as Sophie and I wave back. "We're friends of El Presidente."
The kid raises his eyebrows.
I have to hold back my instinctive urge to kick the back of Joseph's leg. He's making us sound so lame. "Aiden," I say. "We're friends of Aiden."
"Oh, hell ya, ya'll know Aiden?" His smile grows. "Come on in! There's booze in the back!"
Walking inside, my shoes stick to the wooden floors glazed with stale alcohol. I haven't been to a Frat house in awhile. Oh, how I have not missed the scent of sweat and other substances in the air. The music is so loud I can barely think.
"He's over there!" Sophie screams in my left ear, even still I can barely hear her.
I follow my eyes to where she pointed and find Aiden talking to some guys. My stomach immediately knots up. Why? Why am I so nervous?
Joseph walks over to Aiden without hesitation. I follow closely behind to make sure he doesn't say anything embarrassing.
"Sir President," Joseph says with a bow. "It is an honor."
At first, Aiden looks really confused. He looks behind Joseph and locks eyes with me. A smile immediately falls on his face. "Hey!"
I take a step back when he comes in for a hug, but he doesn't hesitate and wraps his arms around me. He smells so good, like fresh mint. I widen my eyes when I realize I just clearly sniffed this man. "Uh, Aiden, hey! These are my friends, Sophie and Joe!"
Aiden smiles. "Hey. You guys want anything to drink?" He doesn't wait for an answer, so casual in all of his actions, as he leads us over to a sticky table with red solo cups and cheap alcohol. "Here. Take whatever. On the house!"
"Why thank you, Lord President," Joseph says in a medieval accent. Sophie giggles and grabs a cup.
"Hey, I want to show you something," Aiden says, grabbing my hand.
This is going to sound crazy, I know, but his hand feels so comfortable intwined with mine, like it was always meant to be there. Oh geez. How cliché did that just sound!
I glance back at Sophie and Joseph and they both give me a thumbs-up, letting me know they're good on their own. I follow Aiden through the crowds in the house. I always loved people-watching at frat parties.
He leads me upstairs and opens a creaky wooden door. I can only assume we're in his room. It's surprisingly neat... almost too neat. I can't help but smile, picturing him cleaning up his room before inviting me over.
"This is my room," he says. "It's the only single in the house, so that's pretty nice."
"Must be convenient with all the girls you bring back," I comment, as a joke, of course, though I'm sure it truly is convenient for him.
"Been pretty quiet around here recently, actually," he says with a small smile.
I hide my own excitement. It's been pretty quiet because he hasn't been seeing other girls. Am I the only girl he's talking to right now?
I walk around, not very far since it's fairly small, to check out his decorations. He's got pictures with his friends from college, high school graduation, his family. Boy, is he handsome! I find myself staring at a picture of him shirtless on a beach for a little too long.
"So, what did you want to show me? Your unusually clean room for a college kid? Or was this all a trap to get me to come to your room?"
He laughs. "No, no." He walks around to his desk and pushes some notebooks and textbooks to the side. He picks up and plops down a big, red box. "This is what I wanted to show you!"
I look inside. There's a bunch of papers. "What is this?"
"Well, I know you mentioned you were too busy this week studying for your calculus exam that we couldn't go on our date. And so I thought this could help. It's a whole box of past Calc III exams and other study materials."
My eyes widen, and I pull out one of the exams from 2016. "How do you have these?"
He shrugs. "It's just what frats do. For years. We've got hundreds of boxes in storage, too. Helps us keep up our GPA and stuff."
This has got to be illegal or something. What an unfair advantage to anyone who doesn't have access to things like this!
"I, uh, I can't take this," I say and shove the test back in the box.
"You don't have to," he says. "I just thought if it'd help clear up some time in your schedule..."
My mind starts going. Oh, this could be good. Writing about this unfair advantage that frats have, first hand. Yes, the newspaper is going to like this. I bet there's a bunch of other things going around too. Other things that I could uncover. I can be totally secret undercover.
And this way I don't have to do anything that will hurt Aiden. I mean, I guess this might hurt his frat, but I don't even think he'd care that much. Especially if he's graduating next year.
This will be good, I decide. I'll propose my idea to Kevin tomorrow.
"Brooklyn?"
I snap out of it. "Thanks, Aiden! This is so helpful." I grab the box. "Should I just take this home with me now?"
He stops me. "Well, not exactly. I'm actually not allowed to share this with anyone not in Sigma Tau Delta. So, you'll have to keep it here. But you can come over whenever this week to study."
Shoot, how am I going to take a picture of this as evidence without him seeing?
"Okay," I say. "How about tomorrow?"
He laughs. "Such a nerd, Brook."
My stomach flutters at his use of my nickname.
"I don't mind. You're welcome to come over whenever. It also gives me an excuse to hang out with you more," he says and moves a little closer.
We're uncomfortably close. I feel like he's close enough to hear my heart beating super fast. I try to remain calm, but it's hard to think with an Abercrombie model standing less than a few inches away.
"I really like hanging out with you," he says and steps even closer, closing the gap between our bodies.
I sense it. He's going to kiss me.
Oh my god. He's going to kiss me! Do I want him to kiss me? Yes, totally yes. I do.
In an instant, I grab the sides his face with my hands and stand on my tip-toes, pressing my lips to his. I just kissed the president of STD.
He isn't thrown off by my taking the lead. He immediately places his hands on my hips to tug me even closer. Wrapping my arms around the back of his neck, I run my fingers through his dark hair. We are full-on making out at this point, and I feel my cheeks getting hot.
It all just feels so natural with him.
He pulls away first, with an insanely handsome smile across his face. He keeps his head close to mine. "Wow" is all he says.
"Wow," I repeat, slightly out of breath, wanting to pull him in for even more.
~~
AN:
I'm back!!!
Felt like writing some more, let me know if you guys are like it so far! I'm really excited about this story!
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