by Ruby Vincent
He shook his head. “They’re visiting her mother in Wyoming. Just me. Hope you’re not disappointed.”
“You are more bearable with my nieces around.”
“Ezra, behave.” Mom bopped me upside the head. “We’re so happy to see you, sweetie,” she said to Brian. “It’s been too long since Christmas. I cleared my schedule this week so the three of us can get in some quality time. Speaking of which”—she turned on Ryder—“I love seeing you, dear, but I planned for tonight to be a family dinner.”
“Mom,” I said. “Ryder is family.”
“It’s cool,” Ryder cut in. “I have some stuff to take care of anyway. I’ll come back and pick you up, Ezra.”
“No need,” said Mom. “Brian or Eddie can take him to your house later.” She looked at me. “Or you could spend the night.”
“Can’t. All my stuff for orientation is back home.”
“This is your home.”
I pecked Mom on the cheek. “And it always will be.”
She smiled, appearing mollified. I learned tact and diplomacy from the very best, and I knew when to use it.
Ryder snagged the keys and headed out. I followed Mom and Brian to the living room to wait for dinner.
Chef Cora was an angel sent by the heavens. Stuffed mushrooms, avocado tuna tapas, and crispy meatballs awaited us on the ottoman. I grabbed the entire tray of mushrooms and set it on my lap. Mom and Brian weren’t going to eat it. Both were allergic.
One of the many things they have in common.
There was the hair, the eyes, and the allergy between them and just them. Those were two more traits I didn’t share with them.
I watched the two fall into conversation about Brian’s kids. His visits always felt like a special occasion for how rare they were. I didn’t blame him. He was twenty-nine with a wife, two daughters, and a career as a pilot.
“Are you staying for a week?” I asked.
He reached for a tapa. “A week. Maybe more.”
“You can stay for as long as you want, Brian,” Mom assured him. “Ezra would love to spend time with you. He started at Somerset today. You can give him tips for navigating university life.”
Brian grinned. “My baby brother isn’t a baby anymore.”
“We’re not going to get all sentimental, are we?” I asked.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Mom held out her arms for us. “All three of us together. We’re going to get all Brady Bunch up in here.”
I winced. “Mom, for the love of all the saints, never say ‘up in here’ again.”
“Why?” She did a little wiggle. “I’m hip. I’m cool. I’m sexy.”
“Holy hell.”
“You know your old mom can still turn an eye with the flip of her skirt.”
“Why would you be flipping your skirt?” I cried.
Mom tossed her head back laughing. That was one thing the three of us shared. The curve of our lip and the gleam in our eyes when our words cut someone to size.
Chef Cora saved me twenty minutes later and called us in to dinner. She laid out the food in the small dining room. The space was a little nook, decorated with family photos and a television so Mom could watch the news while we ate—which she flipped on as soon as we sat down.
Brian leaned over at the start of her segment. “Mom says you’re still with that girl who has a kid.”
“Her name is Valentina and her son is Adam,” I corrected. “Yes, we’re still together.”
“Is it true you and your friends are all...?”
I looked him in the eye. “Val is dating the four of us. I love her, they’re my best friends, and I don’t have a problem with it. Do you?”
“Whoa, calm down, little brother. I’m not judging.” He shot me a disarming smile. “I just want to know all the facts before I meet her. You are going to introduce us, right?”
“I want to. I was thinking the five of us would have dinner.” I turned on Mom. Her eyes were on the screen, but her stiff jaw revealed she was listening. “You cleared your schedule this week. Why don’t we do Friday?”
She flapped a hand. “We’ll see, sweetie. We don’t need to plan every second of the week right this minute.”
“We’ll see” was more than I would have gotten a month ago. Maybe Val was right about her thawing.
The three of us made small talk and kept things light through the rest of dinner. Brian filled us in on what we missed the last few months.
“They changed my route,” he said. “I mostly fly to Central America now. Gorgeous, and I have more time at home to spend with the girls and Amina.”
“Didn’t you and Amina meet on a trip to Costa Rica?” I asked.
“It was crazy. Both of us at the same school for three years and it takes a semester abroad for us to find each other.”
“I never thought I’d meet the love of my life while caked in sand and on assignment.” Mom stroked my cheek. “But life has a way of putting us where we need to be when we need to be there.”
Brian tore off a bite of his breadstick and busied himself chewing. It could have been to avoid having to respond, or maybe he was just hungry. I couldn’t tell if it bothered him that she always referred to my father as the love of her life and never his. Not even I knew what to say when Mom spoke about my dad like this.
It was even weirder that I was certain the feeling was mutual. Not once had my father ended a call without asking how my mom was or what she was up to. I’d usually tell him to ask her himself and Mom would disappear into another room with the phone.
No wonder his wife isn’t too fond of us.
“I’m thinking about joining a fraternity,” I announced, changing the subject. “Bri, you ever heard of the Somerset Sams?”
He whistled. “Setting your sights high, Ezra. When I went to Somerset, they were the hardest frat to get into. Just as hard to stay in it too. The requirements to stay in got stricter every year and they’d boot anyone who didn’t make the cut. Didn’t stop all the guys from wishing they could be a Sam, though.”
“Did you pledge?”
He shook his head. “Older friends warned me off. Somerset is rigorous enough without the added pressure. Also, washing out puts a black mark on your resume that a lot of guys dropped out to get away from. You sure you want to join?”
“I don’t wash out,” I said simply. “I’ve got nothing to be worried about.”
He chuckled. “Here I was thinking you’d get humbler with age.”
“Lennoxes aren’t humble.”
“Oh?” Mom remarked, lifting a brow. “Aren’t we?”
“Weren’t you the one bragging about being cool and sexy twenty minutes ago?”
Mom erupted into peals of laughter and we were a beat behind her.
After dinner, Mom’s driver took me home. My feet carried me through the house and to the one place I knew she’d be.
I silently pushed open Adam’s room. It was dim inside. The only light came from the carousel lamp that cast dancing animals on the walls.
Valentina’s lovely voice filled the room, telling the tale of magical forests and the unicorn without a horn. She read as Adam lay spread-eagle next to her—out cold.
“Ready for bed?” I whispered.
She looked up and smiled at me. “I am now.”
Val kissed Adam’s forehead, whispered something to him, and then joined me in the hall.
“How was dinner?” she asked. “Ryder said the surprise was your brother.”
I nodded. “Brian is going to visit for a while. He says he wants to meet you.”
“I want to meet him too. If it’s okay with you.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. You just... don’t really talk about your brother. I wasn’t sure if you were on good terms.”
I let us into my room and shut the door. “I love the guy. He taught me how to shoot action figures with a slingshot and showed me the best hiding places on a news set. The nannies would lose their minds l
ooking for us.”
Val smiled. “But...?”
I heaved a sigh.
Why does this woman know me so well?
“But Brian grew up with his father three states away. He’d visit every summer, but for how long depended on Mom’s assignments. Sometimes it was two months. Other times a whole year passed and I only saw him two weeks out of fifty-two. Plus, he’s ten years older than me. He’s got his own life.”
Val hopped on the bed and spread out on her stomach, kicking her feet in the air. “What’s his dad like? And what happened between him and your mom?”
“I dare you to ask her.”
She shuddered. “If I did, I bet she’d say more than two words to me... and I wouldn’t like any of them. You tell me.”
“No can do, coward.”
“Ezra,” she protested.
“Sorry.” She yelped when I leaped on top of her. I flipped her over and pinned her arms above her head. “If you want to know about my mom’s affair with her journalism professor, you’ll have to ask her.”
She gasped. “He was her professor? Scandalous. Now I have to know.” Her smile turned wicked. “I have ways to persuade you to give me what I want.”
“That’s what I was going for.”
I cut her giggle off with my kiss.
VALENTINA
“What’s your schedule?” asked Maverick.
“English and General Psych on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Algebra and biology on Tuesday and Thursday.”
Maverick and I cuddled on the couch, picking at bowls of blueberry oatmeal. Ryder’s chef cooked extra-healthy meals for Caroline and neither one of us felt right doubling his workload by asking him to prepare separate meals for us.
“We’re good people,” I said, “but I still hate oatmeal.”
Chuckling, Maverick saved me from myself and took the bowl away. He set it on the table and lay back down, resting his head on my stomach. “We’ll grab breakfast on campus.”
“We have the presentation from the financial aid office, a small group meeting, and a College 101 session. The schedule says we get out early today, so the girls want to scope out Greek Row.”
“Why?”
“Rush starts tomorrow and they want to see where they’ll be living.”
“I like the confidence,” he replied. “Ryder and I are getting the rest of the books we need from the campus bookstore. Want to give me your class list? I’ll get yours for you.”
“How about you come with us instead? You didn’t get to hear the reps yesterday, but the Sallys and Sams were pretty impressive. You could rush with Ezra.”
His coarse hair tickled my stomach as he shook his head. “I’m taking extra credits this semester and joining the intramural league. I won’t have time between that and getting enough Valentina time in.”
I ran my hands down his chest. “You can get some time in now.”
Maverick’s oatmeal was forgotten. We sank into the cushions, mouths connecting hungrily. His tongue dueled mine and claimed my soft moans as a prize.
All of my guys’ kisses were different. Ryder kissed me fiercely like my affections were a war he hadn’t yet won. Jaxson was teasing and playful. He could make me laugh even in the midst of a liplock. Ezra was all heat and passion. I’d sometimes touch my lips after to feel if they truly burned. And Maverick was sweet and gentle, reducing me to quivering jelly in milliseconds.
How did I get this lucky?
I drew my legs up and wrapped them around his waist. Maverick slipped a hand inside the band of my jeans.
I tore away. “Maverick,” I hissed. “We’re in the living room. What is with you and fingering me on couches?”
His chuckles rolled out of his chest. “They remind me of the first time I kissed you.”
“Well, we’ll get one for our bedroom and you can have your way with me on that.” I pecked his nose. “We have a kid running around now. We have to behave ourselves.”
Maverick hummed. “We have a kid. I love the way that sounds.”
I had to kiss him again for that and we came dangerously close to breaking the no-sex-in-living-room rule.
At eight o’clock, Ryder and Ezra found us and we left for orientation. The remaining day of presentations passed in a blur. Reps from the financial aid office shared tips for maintaining a budget that my boys completely ignored. Sofia texted me details of the previous night's party all through the College 101 sessions.
“I can’t say I got much out of orientation,” I said to Sofia as we left the hall. “I blame you.”
She laughed. “Forget that stuff. It was nothing we didn’t know or couldn’t figure out ourselves. The best thing that’s come out of it is you’re going to be a Sally with me.”
“Don’t we have to get in first?”
She didn’t seem to hear me. “I can’t wait for rush tomorrow. We were talking about the Sallys last night. Wouldn’t it be great if all five of us got close, pledged together, and spent the next four years as sorority sisters? My mom is still friends with two of hers. They get lunch whenever they’re in town.”
I leaned on her shoulder. “As long as the two of us are best friends till our teeth fall out, I don't care who else joins the ride.”
Sofia laid her cheek on my head. “That’s a given.”
“Where are Keily and the others?”
“They ran back to the dorm to change. We’ll meet them there.”
Sofia and I cut through the sprawling, green campus in the direction of Greek Row. Fall hung heavy in the air. The wind kicked up red and brown leaves and sent them swirling. There was something romantic about autumn. It wasn’t just the couples we strolled by, lying on blankets or walking hand in hand.
The slight chill in the air made me want to snuggle. The changing colors bathed the scene in beauty and who didn’t want to be with the one they loved when the world was mesmerizing them?
I told Sofia as much.
“You should have been a creative writing major,” she mumbled.
I winced. Why in the hell am I going on about snuggling with the person you love? She and Zane just broke up.
“Sorry,” I said.
Sofia squeezed my arm. We didn’t say more about it.
Of course we had talked about her and Zane, and I offered my shoulder and copious amounts of chocolate as she cried over him. Since then, we hadn’t gotten into it. Zane and Kai were still my friends on Facebook. Zane certainly looked happy at Princeton in his photos. And Kai and Paisley were the cutest couple NYU had ever seen. I wanted my best friend to find the same happiness here. She deserved it.
Ezra is rushing to become a Sam. I should have him check out the other guys for Sofia. If they’re the brother fraternity, we’ll hang out a lot. A great guy will be waiting in the wings for when she's ready to date.
“I think it’s this street.” Sofia pointed ahead of us. “The campus map puts the Zeta Rho Sigma house on the end.”
We rounded the street corner and stopped dead.
“Wow,” I breathed.
What I knew about Greeks and fraternities could fill a bottle cap, so the string of colonial-style houses up and down both sides of the street threw me. Somerset University was a top school that could afford the best and they gave it to their Greek students.
Sofia tugged my arm. “Come on.”
“I thought we were waiting for the girls.”
“We can take a quick peek before they get here. The Sally house is on the end. I think I see it.”
I let Sofia pull me down the sidewalk.
The street wasn’t quiet—far from it. Greeks spilled out of their houses and chilled on lawn chairs, tossed the ball around, or drank from red Solo cups in full display. A car passed us blasting music.
“It’s pretty loud,” I remarked. “Can’t imagine it’s any better at night when they throw parties. Do you have to live here if you get in?”
“I don’t have to, but it won’t be the same if I’m across campus.”
&nbs
p; “Parties aren’t your thing.”
“Maybe I need a new thing.”
“You don’t. You’re perfect.”
The corner of her mouth curved into a smile. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”
I sniffed. “No, and it really started to hurt.”
We burst into giggles.
Houses adorned in all the letters of the Greek alphabet passed us by. We continued past the all-day parties to the last two houses in the cul-de-sac. Zeta Rho Sigma and Nu Alpha Theta were immaculate.
“Wow,” I said for the second time in ten minutes.
There were no half-drunk students littering the lawn or forgotten Frisbees covering the roof. The Sally and Sam houses looked good enough to show.
Flower pots lined Zeta Rho Sigma’s porch banister. A fresh coat of paint added to the home’s charm and the mailbox had little blue birds painted on the side.
“I actually could live here,” Sofia said. “Look at this place.”
“Where is everyone?”
“Inside. In class. Come on. Let’s get a closer look.”
We walked up the path and onto the front porch. Sofia peered through the window on the left while I took the right. I squinted through the gossamer curtains.
“See anyone?” she asked.
My gaze was met with a living room. It looked cozy. There were two couches, an armchair, beanbag chairs, and popcorn machine in a corner. They all sat in front of an impressive entertainment system.
I saw all of that, but I didn’t see a person.
“No one in the living room,” I said.
“No one in the kitchen. Do you think they all went out together?”
“...okay...”
“Hold on.” I straightened. “I think I heard something out back.”
“Of course. They must be in the backyard. Let’s go and say hi.”
We stepped off the porch and veered around the bushes. I turned the corner.
Someone streaked across my vision. I lurched back and smacked into Sofia. We went down hard.
Teagan stood over us, panting hard. At least, I thought it was Teagan. She looked nothing like the girl I'd seen the day before. Wisps of blonde hair whipped around her face, free from their ponytail. Sweat covered her forehead and soaked her collar.
