She gave me the side eye. “For three weeks? Your parents would freak.”
“No they wouldn’t,” Graham said, crumpling up his napkin. “Bella’s got the whole second floor of this sick townhouse to herself since her bitch of a sister moved out.”
Rikker nudged my foot under the table. “I want to stay at Hotel Bella sometime. Where’s my invite?”
“Come. Seriously. If you visit over Christmas, we can see a Rangers game. You too, Lianne. If you don’t want to be in a hotel, stay with me. Your manager can kiss my ass.”
She stared at me, her face coloring. “Wow. I’m liking this plan. Now finish your carbs. We need to get home and see how many pictures of this got tweeted already. And I want to edit Graham’s video.”
“We can’t post it under our own names,” I said quickly.
“You think?” She rolled her eyes. “I want it for posterity. The music will be a tricky choice, though. I can’t think of any songs about stupid frat boys.”
“‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’” Graham suggested.
“Huh.” My neighbor looked thoughtful. “I’ll try it on.”
When we got up to leave, the dining hall was almost empty. The four of us deposited our trays on the conveyor belt then headed for the door.
“Wait up.”
I turned to find Rafe walking towards me. Everyone stopped, which meant there were four pairs of eyes watching him approach. And I probably wasn’t the only one who noticed how perfectly his faded jeans clung to his hips or how taut all that muscle looked underneath his Harkness T-shirt. “Hi,” I said, feeling self-conscious.
“Hey.” He hesitated, those dark eyes studying me. It was going to be awkward between us for a while. There was no getting around it. “I, uh, just wanted to suggest that you don’t go anywhere alone for the next couple of days,” he said.
I held Rafe’s gaze, but I swear I could feel my three friends nudging each other behind me. “I’m not, um, alone,” I pointed out.
“Good,” he said, wiping his hands on the towel he held. “Just be careful, okay? We don’t know how pissed off they are. I’m stuck here another half hour, but…”
“We’ll walk her all the way to her door,” Graham said.
“Which is a hundred yards from here,” I pointed out. I was done with being looked after. Really very done.
“Then it won’t take us long,” Rikker said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Come on.”
“Thanks,” Rafe said, as if he’d handed over the baton at one of his races. But then he smiled at me. “Goodnight, belleza. Congratulations.”
Christ, that smile. And when he called me beautiful in Spanish, my insides melted into a puddle. “Goodnight.”
We left, and my friends were quiet for about fifteen seconds.
“Well, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed,” Graham said.
“Me neither,” Lianne agreed.
“Quiet!” I hissed, and they all laughed.
Twenty-Nine
Rafe
After my shift at the dining hall, I took all my books to the library.
Hunkered down in a weenie bin, I tried to study. But it was impossible to concentrate. I kept picturing Bella’s victory in my mind. So I sat there refreshing the school newspaper’s website, waiting for the story.
Finally, after I’d clicked the button about a thousand times, it came up — a big picture showing the frat’s messy but legible declaration of inadequacy. And the headline? FOOTBALL TEAM AND FRAT BOTH FUMBLE DURING RAUCOUS LOSS TO TIGERS.
Damn, I liked seeing that.
I read the article written by Bella’s friend Michael Graham. It was a straightforward account of the game and about the half-time shenanigans. Graham wrote: “No one has claimed responsibility for the performance art in the Beta Rho section.”
There was a quote from an alum who was pretty pissed off. “This is libel. We will get to the bottom of this prank, and we will take legal action.”
That made me cringe. I didn’t think Bella’s prank was legally actionable. But what the hell did I know?
My eye was drawn a sidebar article. CUPS AND CUPS OF QUESTIONS.
“Several hundred plastic tumblers with the Beta Rho crest were passed out in the student section during half-time,” it read.
I’d assumed the cups were just cover for the models’ presence, but I’d been wrong. A photo of the back of a cup showed another message:
Beta Rho: 100 Years of Misogyny
First frat to incorporate at Harkness College.