by Rachel Shane
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Other titles by Rachel Shane
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Bone To Pick
Copyright © 2016 Rachel Shane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electrical or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Rachel Shane
Interior design and layout by Rachel Shane
Image elements from Freepik.com and Depositphotos.com
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A Bone To Pick. (n)
Definition: When there are two optimal choices presented to you and you must decide between them. Choices include: whether or not to turn your disgraced sorority into a secret society or join an established secret society, what you planned to do with your life vs an opportunity that takes it in a new direction, which guy you want to, well, bone.
See also: Erin Behr’s junior year at Throckmorton University.
LAST SEMESTER I HAD a sorority—albeit an underground one—a room to myself, and a secret none of my friends even suspected. But now the sorority was gone, my four person apartment housed eight very squished people, and my secret? Well, that was in jeopardy.
“Come on.” I leaned forward and infused my voice with the kind of pep I reserved for my night hosting gig at the campus TV station. Around me, four of my best friends—and two boyfriends of said best friends—lounged within my cramped living room since our basement was still trashed from our last party. “We’ve got to come up with something.”
“Animation club? Not to be confused with the already existing Anime club,” Mackenzie Shaffer suggested from her perch across her boyfriend Corey Taft’s lap. Her long auburn hair cascaded forward, brushing my shoulder. Corey shifted and his leg smashed against my thigh. I elbowed him in the ribs, and he nudged me right back, forcing me to crash into poor Holly McKenna, who seemed to be half sitting on the couch and half sinking into the crack between the cushion and the arm rest.
“Not a big enough audience. There are what, fifteen people in your entire major?” Harrison Wagner shook his head from across the room where he and Bianca Cruz shared a love seat, fitting their bodies into some sort of complicated tangle of limbs. Ever since they sublet an apartment together in NYC for winter break, they were inseparable. Though I guessed the inseparable part started a little before that, when they realized the hot buzz throbbing in their veins was lust not hate.
I take all the credit for that.
“Besides—” Fallon Horowitz twisted her torso to stretch her back from her uncomfortable perch on the floor. Her blond hair was pulled back in a French braid, making her look like a little kid—and her five foot tall stature didn’t exactly help matters. “There’s already a ton of graphics labs in the art building.”
I sighed heavily, sinking back into the couch with a sort of finality. “This is useless. All the clubs on campus already have a headquarters.”
Holly patted my shoulder. “That’s why we need to come up with something new.”
“Something epic,” Bianca added in that dramatic way of hers.
I shook my head, my long brown hair whipping into Corey’s face. I’d been growing it out since sophomore year and it finally reached the tops of my breasts. “Something realistic. If we’re going to pull this off, we have to make it believable. Something the campus needs and won’t refuse.”
We all mulled that for a moment, each one of our expressions more grim than the next. I could practically see Harrison writing the official Greek System obituary in his mind, ready to print it in tomorrow’s edition of The Daily Snowflake.
Last year my sorority, Rho Sigma, crashed and burned in a fiery death fueled by underage drinking and shady presidents whose shady politics were only aiming to kick out my best friend but ended up stabbing the entire house in the back. We’d tried to resurrect the house the old fashioned way: by going underground, biding our time, and then petitioning to be reinstated. Oh, and taking the entire Greek System down with us so the school would have to reinstate all of us.
Instead Throckmorton University opted to reinstate no one, choosing to abolish the entire Greek system. Our precious sorority and fraternity houses were now on track to become gravel and dust instead of ornate mansions that held as much history as they did asbestos. The members that occupied them were forced to move out, and with the lack of open housing second semester in bumblefuck Throckmorton, NY, most of the exiles crowded in with their friends. Since we got back to campus from winter break, rumors flew that the Office of Residential Life was hearing pitches to repurpose one of the houses that wasn’t set to become a pile of concrete during the first wave of destruction. The whole thing reminded me of when my dad got laid off last month after sliding by unharmed through the first batch of cuts a year ago, only to fall on an ax a few months later. His crime? Gray hair. And a salary far higher than the newbies wandering in straight from college practically still in diapers, eager to accept a wage that barely covered their rent.
I could barely cover my rent now, or my tuition. And my brother would start college next year with no chance at an academic scholarship thanks to his mid-B grades or an athletic scholarship thanks to his aversion to sports. Anything I could do to help my parents financially would help my little brother go to college next year as planned rather than take a year off for financial reasons.
If there were houses that might stay standing, we had to snag one. And the only way to do that would be to put up a front. Create an on campus club that needed a headquarters, and then secretly run Rho Sigma behind its closed doors, Mafia style. Or I guess technically we’d be running Omega Upsilon Rho, aka Our House, since at the end of last semester the remains of Rho Sigma and Harrison’s f
raternity, Out House—Omega Upsilon Tau—merged and installed me as president. If we had a physical house, we could use the upstairs rooms as living spaces. And I could get my own damn bedroom back rent-free.
Harrison and Bianca were currently extending their lease on their winter break shacking up by squeezing themselves into her tiny single. Corey stole a page from the same playbook and moved in with Mackenzie to let some of his former Beta Chi brothers squat in his room down the street instead. Fallon’s boyfriend Liam had given up his apartment to a friend and now practiced his acting monologues into her room. And the living room. And basement. And don’t even get me started on his singing show tunes in the shower.
Lastly, Holly, my good friend from my classes, had been upgraded to roommate. Two uncomfortable twin beds now rested in the place my glorious queen. There was less space than even the dorms. Plus only one shower for eight people.
And that didn’t include all the times the couples showered together. Cringe. A bottle of disinfectant now accompanied me to the bathroom along with my towel.
It was too much. Way too much. The cups overflowing in the sink. The muddy shoe tracks marring the carpet and linoleum. The yogurt with my name on it that had been plucked from the fridge and downed by an unknown culprit. The sex noises that seeped from not one, not two, but three rooms at once and the earplugs that did nothing to quell the noise or stave off Holly’s snoring.
And the worst part of all: all the excess people made sneaking out each night incredibly difficult. Someone always caught me. I was running out of excuses. There was only so much “studying” I could pretend to do at the library for my Broadcast Journalism major that didn’t even give written tests.
I needed this other house just as much as I needed air to breathe. Otherwise I might actually suffocate in here by the end of the semester.
“What about a philanthropy organization? Like some do-gooder thing?” Fallon suggested. “Since sororities and frats used to do that stuff?”
“Barely,” Corey mumbled and earned a few chuckles from the room, even one from his former—current?—enemy Harrison.
“What if we just make up something like stupid Key and Lock did?” Harrison said.
My body went rigid.
“Key and Lock?” Fallon squinted around the room but I swore her eyes locked on mine. I looked away, my heart racing. “What’s that?”
I studied my nails, pretending to find them fascinating. Pretending I was just as clueless as Fallon.
“Secret society.” Harrison brushed his fingers through Bianca’s caramel tinted hair and I fought back a gag. I liked them much better when they were denying their sexual attraction instead of flaunting it. At breakfast. And dinner. And coming out of the bathroom together, both wrapped in matching turquoise towels.
“Their motto is some bullshit about being a safe space where students can go and confess shit and other students are there to help,” Corey said.
Fallon’s entire face lit up as if she thought this was great.
“No!” I immediately shouted, leaping to my feet before I could stop myself. All eyes flew to me, and I felt my face flush. “I have a better idea,” I said fast to drown out the blood whooshing in my ears.
They blinked, waiting.
Shit. I needed a brilliant idea, stat. My eyes darted around the room before landing on my cell phone, cued up to a news podcast I’d been listening to for inflection tips at the suggestion of Fallon’s boyfriend. “A podcast,” I finished, beaming as if to convey it was the best idea ever and not my absolute last resort. That was the thing about Broadcast Journalism. You had to keep your face calm as you read horrible facts about murders or crimes, your emotions in check, and make every viewer believe you knew exactly what you were talking about.
Harrison pursed his lips. “Could work. But let’s go broader. How about a network of podcasts?”
Mackenzie shrugged. “I could host one about animation that reveals how certain movie effects were created.”
Corey strung his arm around her. “We could do a joint movie one, babe. You talk about the special effects and I’ll talk about the marketing strategies of the studios.”
Harrison nodded, then immediately stopped when he realized he’d agreed with his enemy.
Bianca hopped off Harrison’s lap and started pacing. “If we’re going to do it, we have to do it right. We need a demo reel. We need a few interesting podcast show ideas besides the movie one that can sustain a season’s worth of topics. We need hosts that will attract an audience.” She glanced at Mackenzie and Corey. “No offense. Maybe a celebrity guest star that would impress the school and show how serious we are.”
“And we need to do it like”—Harrison glanced at his cell phone, some weird burner kind—”yesterday. Every day we wait gives the school a chance to demolish the remaining houses.”
Already poor Alpha Omega Chi, Epsilon Phi Phi, Deke, Delt, and Beta Chi had taken a wrecking ball to the gut.
“I’ll make some calls for Z-list celebrity guests,” Bianca said, perfecting her PR dynamo skills.
I pulled out my phone and started making a list in the notepad app. “Great, I’ll interview them for the demo reel.” I turned to Harrison. “You think we can borrow the equipment from The Daily Snowflake?”
He shrugged. “Genevieve does whatever I want.”
Bianca cringed at that. He buried his face in her neck and whispered something none of us could hear.
At least their PDA had one benefit: they’d thoroughly distracted everyone, including me, from all thoughts of Key and Lock.
Soon everyone had a job. Harrison would gather the equipment. Mackenzie would use her computer skills to figure out online distribution. I’d record the demo, with or without a guest star. Fallon was on graphic logo creation duty. Corey started working on a marketing campaign. Holly agreed to take on the producer role even though she was a nursing major and had zero experience or knowledge on anything other than producing a catheter. And since my role was contingent on the other jobs, they doled out a second one to me…cleaning the damn basement.
A few hours later, fancy microphones and a digital sound board covered our beer pong table in the basement. The clanking pipes provided my background music. Dank mildewy air clogged my lungs, something I usually never noticed when the room was packed with either sorority members or party goers. Even the gray concrete walls seemed to be closing in on me.
I sat behind one of the chairs and tested the headphones while Harrison adjusted the audio functions. On the purple sofa, Mackenzie and Corey curled together, writing out a script for their movie podcast. The headphones pressed down my ears and matted my hair. “Testing one, two…” I said into the mic and Harrison gave me a thumbs up after watching the progress on the borrowed laptop.
Bianca stormed down the stairs, her hair flying behind her from the velocity. The largest smile I’d ever seen her wear beamed from her face. “I am the best publicist ever. You should all bow down to me.”
Harrison wore a look that indicated he planned to do more than bow down to her later.
I perked up. “You got a guest star?”
“Even better. The ultimate guest star. The crème de la crème. With an exclusive interview.” She curtsied, then met Harrison’s eye and widened hers at him. “He’s on his way now so you’re up first, Erin.”
Harrison lifted his hands from the laptop and backed away as if it was on fire. “I’m just going to go…away.” His feet pounded as they carried him upstairs so fast, it almost seemed like he was…fleeing.
A door slammed on the floor above and my mouth went dry. “Wait, he’s on his way right now?” I wasn’t prepared to interview someone! Someone I knew nothing about! I’d been preparing to interview the other hosts, aka Corey and Mackenzie, for the demo. But a small voice told me I wouldn’t always have time to prepare in a real life scenario. This might be good practice. Still…
“Where did Harrison go?” I pointed at the laptop. “Someone needs to wor
k that thing.” Bianca’s goofy smile snagged in my vision. “And how did you get a crème de la crème guest star on short notice in upstate New York?” In the snow, no less. Two feet of it had covered all the side streets as of this morning, though snow plows around here were very gung ho about their jobs and usually paved driving paths within minutes. I swear, this town probably used up more salt than the entire ocean.
“You’ll see.” Bianca practically skipped as she flitted around, readjusting side tables and folding chairs to tidy up. She slid the laundry detergent behind an unsightly column. “And Mackenzie’s going to handle the recording. She’s done similar ones before for her animation projects.”
Mackenzie groaned and trudged off Corey’s lap over to the audio table, squinting at it as if she’d never seen anything like it before. Not exactly encouraging. We were half-assing this when we needed to give it our A+ effort.
“Don’t worry, you’ll do great. Trust me.” And with that Bianca fluttered upstairs as if her work here was done.
Dread welled in my stomach. Somehow it already seemed like everything was falling apart and nothing had even started yet.
With a heavy sigh, I shuffled my index cards, perusing the pre-destined topics I’d hastily scrawled when I thought I was interviewing my roommates. I needed something interesting that would get Throckmorton students to download and consume like a cocaine habit but that was also universal enough to intrigue the outside world and pull in hits the radio station couldn’t reach. Not exactly easy, but thanks to the numerous national media articles on the Greek System demolition, I figured I’d start with that and work my way down to topical issues like allowing transgender students into the dorm rooms they identified in. Whoever this celebrity was, he might have nothing interesting to say on these topics and then we’d be really screwed.
The doorbell rang and I let out a yelp. My pulse instantly amped. Mackenzie flipped on the recording devices before I even had a chance to catch my breath. “And you’re on!” she announced. Upstairs, footsteps signaled the guest crossing the living room.
