Hello, Handsome

by H, Caity

  The door swung open and a guy I didn’t know opened the door. He raised an eyebrow at the group of us. “Did I miss something?” he asked, glancing back into his room. “Is there a party in our dorm tonight?”

  “They’re not here for you, Isaiah,” Desmond said, appearing behind his roommate. “Guys, this is my roommate Isaiah. Isaiah, this is Lex, Olivia, Ryan and Bethany.” He pointed a finger at each of us as he spoke.

  “Nice you meet you all,” he said, promptly disappearing inside hi room.

  Desmond rolled his eyes and walked out, shutting the door behind him. “He’s a pretty cool guy. Super studious though.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Bethany noted, hooking her arm through Ryan’s.

  “It’s the second day of school, how much homework can he have?” Desmond wondered, wandering down the halls. “How’s the face, Lex?” he asked, and suddenly every eye turned toward me. Honeybee’s eyes widened when she saw the bandage.

  “Thanks, Des.” I deadpanned.

  Honeybee reached up and touched my face, turning it so she could see the bandage better.

  “It’s fine. “

  “What happened?”

  “He got cleated in the face during a scrimmage,” Desmond filled in before I could say anything. “Kid popped up like a daisy.”

  “A slightly beaten up daisy,” Bethany added with a worried look of her own.

  “Enough about my face,” I muttered. “What are we doing tonight?”

  “Something cheap, I don’t have a lot of extra cash to shell out on movies or dinner,” Desmond replied. “I had to get new cleats and those put me out a hundred bucks. Plus books, which are crazy over priced for things we barely use during the semester.”

  I was in the same financial situation. Cleats and books had me low on cash.

  “Well we could just hangout on campus somewhere. You could show us around,” Honeybee said, looking at Desmond and then me. I felt like an afterthought. “Want to?”

  Shrugging, I nodded. “Sure. Tour of Bartlow it is. But that sounds pretty boring to me.”

  Honeybee sidled up to me and bumped her hip into mine. “Don’t be Johnny Raincloud.”

  “Come on, I’ll show you all the good make out spots,” Desmond said, glancing at Bethany and Ryan with a sly grin. Then he not-so-nonchalantly glanced at Honeybee and me in a similar manner. I was going to kill him slowly if he said anything aloud. It was bad enough he implied it with the looks he shot us. Worse was the knowing laugh from Ryan.

  We started walking.

  Desmond talked about Bartlow, making up ninety-nine percent of the facts he told the three visitors. I liked his version better, but I wouldn’t tell him that. He didn’t need to be praised after all the suggestive looks he kept sending my way.

  “So, how was your day?” Honeybee asked, walking along side of me. The dress she wore had pockets and her hands slid into them. “Aside from being kicked in the face.”

  I rubbed my jaw with a sigh. “It was fine, I guess. Classes are fine. Some of the teachers are cool. Most of the people in my class take notes, which is weird since hardly anyone in class took notes during senior year. I’m remembering that I have to try to do well. It’s weird. How was your day? Uncover any dark secrets at Westview yet? If you’re gonna be a journalist you need to learn how to dig up dirt.”

  “I go to a perfect school,” she said, gasping like I’d offended her with my implications. “Maybe I should uncover dirt here at your school.”

  “Good luck,” I chuckled, pausing when Desmond decided to point out a tree that had earned some kind of significance.

  “That is the tree I wept under when the girl from my class said she would not date me,” he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. At least I assumed it to be fake, he probably wouldn’t really be upset that if a girl said no. There were plenty of other girls that would say yes to him.

  “When was this?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Like two hours ago,” Desmond said and shrugged. “Moving on.” I held back a laugh when he just started off toward the next location. Probably some campus food place where he’d gone to drown his supposed sorrows.

  We stopped walking after a little while, Ryan and Desmond wanting coffee. Apparently they had earlier starts than the rest of us, or they were just hooked on the stuff. Regardless, it left the rest of us with an awkward silence.

  “So, Bethany, how are things with you and Ryan?” I asked, mostly out of curiosity.

  Bethany turned to me with a start, eyebrows furrowed. “We’re … fine,” she answered slowly.

  Yeah, it was unusual for us to interact, and when we did it was just to throw snotty comments back and forth, but after three years of being in and out of each other’s lives because of our mutual best friend, she shouldn’t have been surprised that I was talking to her.

  Right?

  “Gonna get married soon, pop out some kids for Honeybee to babysit?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sure she would be more than happy to.” I glanced at the blond beside me expectantly. She, too, had a look of confusion written over her face.

  She looked away when Desmond and Ryan walked back out. “Lex is acting weird.”

  “I’m making conversation,” I mumbled with a roll of my eyes.

  “With me,” Bethany added in for the other two. “He never does that.”

  Desmond patted my shoulder. “He got a cleat to the face today, guys. We’re lucky he still looks so pretty.” I smirked and shoved him as he walked away laughing.

  I was pretty sure it was then that Honeybee remembered our bet. At first she just stared at me, then her eyes grew wide and she covered her mouth with her hands. Then came the dancing in place. I groaned and put a hand against my face.

  “You lost the bet!” she chimed, coming closer to me. “You know what that means, right?”

  “Unfortunately,” I mumbled, sighing when she grabbed my hand and pulled me along with her.

  “Guys!” she called as we caught up. “We have a new mission for the night. Lex made a bet with me that I would get hurt at school before he did, and he lost so now I get to dye his hair.”

  “Who makes a bet like that?” Bethany asked.

  “It wasn’t a stupid way though,” I interjected. Desmond gave me a look that said he believed otherwise, but stayed quiet. “Just one color.”

  “I can live with that,” she replied, letting go of my hand.

  She and Bethany started to talk about what colors would look good. I prayed that they didn’t do anything like hot pink. I could handle blue but I would shave my head if they put pink in it.

  Desmond walked over. “You guys are so cute together.”

  I hit him in the stomach harder than I should’ve, and he doubled over, coughing.

  After a few seconds he said, “Ryan told me you guys talked.”

  I glared at Ryan, who was preoccupied by his girlfriend and my friend talking in front of him. He sure enjoyed gossiping.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m with him. Team Oliviex all the way.”

  Before I could say anything he walked away. I groaned and followed after him.

  Honeybee turned to me with a big grin on her face. “We’re going to the store, and you my dear friend are going to find yourself a new hair color.” She tucked her arm through mine and we all started toward the parking lot.

  I knew that when I went to bed that night Alastair would raise an eyebrow and I would have to face my soccer team the next day with a brand new hair color.

  Ty suddenly had a lot more to answer for than I originally thought.

  Twelve: Dazed and Hazed

  I jerked awake, someone grabbing me by my shirt and throwing a flashlight beam in my face. I tried to shove the person away, but there was more than one pair of arms holding onto me.

  “Get up, Diamond. Time to become a real Leopard.”

  Because I needed hazing after being cleated in the face and having my hair dyed.

 
Alastair groaned from his bed, cussing at the interruption of his sleep. Not that I could blame him. I would’ve cussed if I’d been given the opportunity. Before I could, though, I was being hauled from my room and into the cold hallway. There was a few other people being dragged from their rooms, I recognized Pete as he was pulled along half awake.

  We ended up outside on the lawn, stuck in the cold night air. I glanced around and saw Desmond, along with the rest of the newbies on the soccer team.

  Ty was in the middle of the group. They all wore their jerseys. “Well, boys, it’s time to prove you’re one of us. The Leopards are a team, and as a team we haze the newbies. But, don’t think of this as hazing from the older team members. Think of it as us bringing you further into the club,” Ty said with a dark grin. “While some people will make you shave your heads, or run around in dresses, we prefer something a little different. This is the initiation we all went through, and the tradition continues with you guys.”

  I sighed, running a hand over my face. This was going to be a long night.

  “Tonight, we steal the Westview mascot!” Ty yelled as loud as he dared for such a late hour. The rest of the elites cheered, while the red shirts looked on in confusion.

  Really? We were stealing a mascot? That was our hazing? Felony? What a perfect way to start college.

  We all piled into a van and headed to Westview. We weren’t allowed to get changed, or put shoes on. We were just shoved into a van like a bunch of kidnapping victims. In a sense that’s what we were, but we all acted like it was normal. This was hazing. We had to go through it. No matter how ridiculous that sounded.

  Desmond was a few seats in front of me, head lulled back like he was falling back to sleep. I sighed and leaned my head against the window. Tomorrow was gonna be a long day after getting so little sleep.

  We pulled up to the school and parked in a darker area of the parking lot. We all filed out of the car, Ty quieting our grumblings with a stern glare. He acted like the father of the group, but he was only a few years older than the rest of us.

  When we were quiet, he started to talk again, his voice barely above a whisper. “Alright, the gym should be closed up for the night, so we don’t have to worry about being caught by other students.”

  “How are we getting it if it’s locked up?” Pete asked, rubbing his eyes.

  Ty showed us a set of keys, jangling them with a grin. “The guard on duty tonight went to high school with my sister. Let’s just say he’s not completely over his crush on her and is hopeful his acts of kindness to me will help him in the long run” There was general laughter, and then he got down to business.

  For the next few minutes he handed out jobs to everyone. There would be people to stand watch, and a get-away driver, but the majority of us would head into the gym to take the mascot. From what I remembered it was a bear. That was gonna be a pain to drag out of the building and across the field back to the car.

  “What if there are other guards around?” I asked, bringing the attention to myself.

  Ty stopped short, mouth dropping open. It probably hadn’t come to his attention yet that my hair had changed from a light blond to a dark red. Honeybee had gone overboard. Instead of accidentally dying my entire head with color, she’d done it on purpose this time.

  “Did hazing start early for you?” Ty asked, pointing a hand at my hair.

  “I lost a bet,” I replied. The group erupted into quieted laughter, some slapping me on the back like that would help the situation any.

  “Dang, that sucks,” Ty chuckled, shaking his head. “But enough about Lex being a red-head, let’s move out and get that bear.”

  Everyone broke and took off to their places. Some had toilet paper and headed toward the soccer field.

  Desmond and I were part of the group that was charged with retrieving the mascot. Ty was the head of it, and there were several other guys, too. It was supposed to be this fun outing that we all experienced together, but it felt like a bad idea. Maybe I’d been spending too much time with Honeybee, the girl with a good head on her shoulders. She was true north, and I was usually south of the equator.

  Shaking off my reservations, I decided to live the night like I didn’t have a best friend to answer to.

  We crept into the empty darkened gym, and Ty led the way to the room where the mascot was held. He jimmied the lock and popped open the door to an office room. He flicked on the lights and strode inside, the rest of us following behind him.

  “Keep conversation to a minimum,” he said as he started toward the mascot in the corner of the room.

  There were two parts, the head and the body. Ty got the head and walked out, telling the rest of us we were to take the body back to the car. The rest of the bear suit would be harder to move.

  We all grouped together and grabbed the mascot, carrying it by its limbs. It was awkward to carry, and we nearly dropped it several times on the way to the van, but Ty was right. It did bring us closer together.

  “I wonder how many people have been inside this bear,” someone said, every one of us thinking the same, immature thing. I chuckled, catching a smirk from Desmond as we headed out of the gym.

  “Thing probably gets more tail than Ty,” someone else said, and another round of laughter ensued. More conversation that Honeybee would disapprove of happened, all of us trying hard not to laugh too loud.

  But of course Desmond couldn’t help it, and when he burst out laughing at something that would only be funny at three in the morning, the rest of us followed suit, dropping the bear to the ground as we tried to catch our breath.

  “This thing weighs a ton,” I muttered, breath ragged. “No one is inside, right?”

  Desmond slapped my shoulder before picking up his side of the bear again. “I don’t think so, but anything is possible.”

  Ty came running over. “What is wrong with you? We could hear you from the car!” He was angry, but we were too high off sleep deprivation to care. Besides, Ty had suggested the outing. It was his fault if we got caught.

  “Sorry, bro,” Desmond said, nodding at each of us to pick up our ends.

  We half carried, half dragged the bear back to the car. Then came the issue of fitting everyone into the van. The guys in charge of tee-peeing the field still weren’t back yet, and the guards would be coming around at any time.

  Ty looked like he was pissed, but said nothing. Maybe this was how it went every time, or maybe the team he had this year just sucked at keeping it together. I didn’t really care, though, because it felt like it did with my high school soccer team. We did stupid stuff and acted like idiots, but we all did it together.

  “Chill, dude,” I said, shaking my head at him.

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re just high from the toxins someone soaked your hair in. Get in the car.”

  “Honeybee would never soak my hair in toxins,” I said as I headed toward the car. “She loves me too much.” Desmond grinned but said nothing, sliding into the seat next to me.

  We didn’t have to wait long for the rest of the team to come piling in. Since we had less seating due to the gigantic bear in the backseat, we had to squish and share seats.

  “I’m hungry,” Pete called from in front of me. Other voices joined in.

  “We did wake up super early to go commit a felony,” I added. “I think we deserve some food.”

  “Tacos!” Desmond suggested.

  “Tacos!” Pete chuckled, bumping fists with Desmond. “That’s where it’s at!”

  Ty smirked and told the driver to head to nearest open taco place. “Two bucks a person, okay? My bank account isn’t bottomless.”

  Everyone cheered and I felt my negative attitude toward Ty lessening. He might’ve been an elite, he might’ve dented my face and been responsible for my hair being dyed red, he might’ve been the reason we could all be charged with a felony. But he was buying us food at three in the morning.

  He was cool.

  We pulled through the drive-thru
and it took about ten minutes for everyone to decide what they wanted and another ten minutes for Ty to give our order. Desmond, Pete, and I agreed to split what we got, chips, desert, and some drinks.

  “I thought hazing was gonna suck,” I mumbled around some chips. We were sitting in the car, parked outside of the taco place eating our food before we headed back to school.

  “Agreed,” Desmond said, slurping his drink. “This rocked.” I nodded my agreement.

  “To the elites!” Pete yelled, raising his drink in salute. We all cheered and clashed our cups together, several of which spilled and splashed over the car and us.

  “To the red shirts!” one of the elites yelled, his voice even louder than Pete’s.

  “To the Leopards!” Ty yelled and we cheered loud enough to leave the van ringing from the sound.

  After we finished our food and drove back to the college, the mascot was dumped in the shed that the team apparently always used for that kind of storage, and headed back to our different dorm rooms. The second phase of kidnapping the mascot would take place before the first game.

  When my head hit the pillow I had a smile on my face. It was going to be a good year.

  Thirteen: Cousins, of Course

  Soccer was rough the next few days. It felt like I had a hangover. The lights were too bright, I wobbled more than I walked, and I felt queasy. But, having a killer headache gave me more reason to go see that cute nurse again.

  I walked in and it was again empty. I resisted hitting the bell, as that would only make the headache worse. Hopefully she’d be there.

  “You should consider putting a sign up,” I said aloud, dropping into one of the chairs. “Nurse on duty: Sort of.”

  The door to the small office area opened. Nina stood in front of me, and I smiled at her. She just rolled her eyes and shut the door again. The smile fell from my face. Usually girls liked when I smiled at them. What’d I do wrong?

  A few seconds later the door opened again and this time a big guy walked out. He had tissues shoved up his nose, and his face looked like it was starting to swell. It seemed crazy that someone could get into a fight so early in the morning. Then again, maybe it was with a slippery shower floor.