The Best Four Years of Adam Becker - 12. Freshman Year - Chapter 12

Patrick ManFind did not register any emotion when he looked at me.

None. It was irritating how he could not have been more cool. Infuriating, and I couldn’t exactly tell why.

Maybe because I, on the other hand, felt my heart accelerating, my breathing get heavy. I could feel the veneer of pleasantness melting away from me, I could feel my secrets bubbling up to the surface, laid out like a yard sale, in front of everyone.

He had absolutely no business being here, at Iota Chi. This was mine. He had no right.

He stuck out his hand for me to shake. "Hey, man. Patrick. Nice to meet you.”

This Patrick was a cool customer. Eerily cool.

I've seen you naked, Patrick. The last time your hand touched me, it was jacking me off. Wrapped around my hard dick and stroking.

“Nice to meet you,” I repeated.

We shook, and I remembered his grip--not on my hand but grabbing my dick. Shit, I was suddenly aware of my dick--thankfully, it was still soft. Softest it’d ever been, it seemed--recoiled in terror from the whole situation.

Maybe it was naive to think that, with only five thousand undergrads, Patrick ManFind would never again appear in my life. Because you’d of course run into past hookups--Erik did that all the time, awkwardly avoiding eye contact across the Boot on a Saturday night.

But even running into him--which would have sent me reeling in the other direction--wouldn’t have been as terrible as suddenly facing the prospect of four years of interlocking social circles.

Because he was an Iota Chi pledge, and I was an Iota Chi pledge.

Would I leave, tell them I reconsidered accepting my bid? That I thought about it a little more, and decided it wasn’t for me?

Of course I wouldn’t do that.

The reasons I wanted Iota Chi: for Tripp and for Erik, but for myself, for Baker, and everyone, still existed. Turning down a bid would mean exile, the sort of exile that Kevin Malley warned me about, Tripp and Erik leaving me behind.

Besides, it’d invite too many questions that I didn’t think I could answer. Maybe not from Iota Chi, but from Tripp and Erik, who would wonder what happened, who would pester me about what had changed, and what could I say? I messed around with one of their closeted pledge brothers?

Closeted.

Well, there was that. That just the two of us knew, that it was mutually-assured destruction. Wasn’t it? He couldn’t say anything just like I couldn’t. He told me he was experimenting. Who even knew if he was gay--was he even gay? Didn’t he say he was curious, not sure if he was even going to enjoy guys? Did he enjoy it? Who even knew if, behind his annoyingly stoic smirk, he wasn’t even more of a wreck inside than I was?

"Ben and Patrick are roommates in Monroe," Erik explained, "and Will's on polo with me and Baker."

I had sex in your room, Ben. You went to go bang some skank on the first day of college, and thought your roommate was going to bed. But we had gay sex, five feet from where you sleep. I saw your posters. You came in later and probably were too drunk to remember you could smell my cum all over your roommate’s sheets.

"Nice," I said, trying not to sound meek, trying to sound somehow nonchalant, trying to sound as carefree as this Patrick did. “I’m Adam Becker.”

Patrick gave me this disapproving once-over that shot anxiety through my marrow. I couldn’t remember if he’d called me Peter or Adam. I wonder if he thought I’d fake-named him.

"So, Adam,” he said, flatly, lingering on my name. “You got a bid then?"

He didn’t seem excited. Of course he didn’t seem excited. I wondered what was going through his head. What twisted thoughts were going through his head. Probably the same panicked eruption of truth and consequences that were going through my head.

"Yeah,” I said. “Just accepted it.”

"I accepted mine last night," he replied, as if that somehow made him more legitimate than me, like Iota Chi was his turf, like I was invading--when I hadn’t even seen him before.

Patrick just bit his lip, nodded a few times, and added, "Should be interesting."

There was a word to downplay the magnitude of this, over the next three and a half years.

We studied each other, for a second. A game of chicken. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking--whether he was thinking of having to go through this searing shame and embarrassment or whatever it was whenever I ran into him at Iota Chi.

"I'm fucking stoked," said Erik, clapping me on the shoulder. "Is it bad that I kind of want to get the shit hazed out of us?”

Will grinned. “Iota Chi doesn’t take it too hard, I don’t think. No one does, except for Zeta.”

“Oh, that’s just what they want you to think,” Erik grinned. “It's going to be awesome, you guys.

I was happy with the way things are: casual sex on the side when I felt the urge, and talking to Tripp and Erik about how hot Michaela Birdrock was. No one needed to know. That might not have been a long term solution to my particular problem, but it was my freshman year in college. I could casually be like, well yeah, I'm just waiting to meet the right girl--not into that whole hookup thing.

Well, it sounded better in my head.

Tripp came swaggering over to us, big smile on his face. "Accepted my bid. Happy now, assholes?”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. Not that I thought Tripp would punt at the end--but what if he had? I didn’t want to do it without him--I didn’t want to be the one turning the chapter, either

"Ugh, no!" Erik said, wincing. "I was hoping you'd go Lambda Nu."

Tripp flipped him off. I clapped him on the shoulder, congratulatory, and he was beaming. "I just figured I was going to take it anyway, and I didn't want to spend four years of you being all 'Brother's Only' and shit."

"Probably the worst reason to join a fraternity ever," Erik said. "But I’ll take it. Group, this is Cuthbert."

"Tripp Callender," he corrected, shaking everyone's hands.

And then we saw Charlie come back towards us, with Brett, Winslow, and Chris trailing him.

None of them looked happy. Charlie didn’t return to the paintball field--he kept walking, out the front gate of the park, out to St. Charles Avenue, and across the street back onto campus.

"What the hell was that?" Erik asked, as the three brothers walked by.

Baker’s head snapped over. "Whatever," he told Erik. "He's a fucking asshole. I didn’t want him here anyway.”

 

Erik, Tripp, and I had an impromptu lunch the next day with Jordan and Michaela, at the University Center. We found them already there, tucked behind two big salads, at table outside the bookstore. The table was right next to the three giant columns of metal mesh again, but they had been turned off. There “wet floor” signs everywhere, though no actual water at this particular moment.

“See, the water walls were supposed to keep the building cool without using very much energy,” Tripp explained, staring up at them. First year architecture major: he was fascinated by them, even standing completely idle, even though we’d been in this building a handful of times since the start of the semester. “LEED Gold.”

“It was like we were whaling last time,” I told him.

“Still, it’s very good design,” Tripp said. “Maybe the execution.”

"I think I’m going Tri-Gamma,” Michaela interrupted, clearly not interested in pursuing a conversation about architectural design. “But I don’t know. They just seem more fun.”

Jordan cleared her throat, said nothing. She was holding her tongue, after what Michaela said last time to her, but she had that bored, resigned look, like she was getting tired of the saga that was Michaela Birdrock’s sorority decision.

"As long as you hook me up with your sisters," Erik told her. "Whether it’s Tri-Gamma, or wherever. We're all going Iota Chi. Officially. Bids given and accepted. Tripp, too."

Tripp nodded enthusiastically.

"Congratulations," Michaela said. "Chris already told me. That’s good, though. I like them."

"Us," Erik corrected. Michaela rolled her eyes.

Erik had been correcting everyone. Iota Chi was not a them. It was an us. I hadn’t made a similar semantic leap yet. It didn’t seem like it was us, at least at this point. Iota Chi was Baker and Morton and everyone. It wasn’t me and Erik and Tripp. It certainly wasn’t Patrick ManFind, who I had tried to banish to the periphery of my consciousness altogether.

"I still say Jordan should’ve rushed with me,” Michaela continued. “I could imagine her as a Tri-Gamma, couldn’t you?”

We all glanced around at each other, Jordan included. Consensus: no, we could not.

"Yeah, not for me," Jordan said. "Can you really see me in a white sundress baking cookies for the homeless?"

"Well, that's all sororities do," Erik deadpanned. "Totally. Not blow off guys in the bathroom at the Boot, that's for sure."

Jordan rolled her eyes. “Can’t say that’s me either.”

"Me neither," Michaela echoed, dismissively. "We're not all Alpha Beta Chi."

“We,” Erik said, in mocking falsetto. He grinned at her. "Speaking of blowing guys off in bar bathrooms, we have a date party tonight at Friar Tuck’s.”

“Is that an invitation?” Michaela asked. “Or a brag?”

Erik looked smug. “A brag. I’m, of course, taking Erica.”

Tripp and I exchanged knowing looks. Erik had, thankfully, given up the idea that their relationship was leading in any direction other than the bedroom door, and, regardless, she was so far removed from our consciousness anyway, because we’d only ever hung out with her on Halloween. Their relationship, as it were, toddled onwards, limited to mostly sex and apparently the occasional scrounged-up date, and he had at least seemed to accept that.

“Why?” Erik continued, eyes still locked on Michaela’s. “You interested in going or something?"

"Very," she replied, "but I'm going with Chris Baker. He locked me down on Sunday.”

Erik did not seem to appreciate that, but Michaela looked immensely proud of herself, that she was able to rebut Erik’s non-invitation. What had Jordan said, all those months ago? That Michaela liked to be desired? Erik certainly did, especially by Michaela.

"Shit," Tripp said, shaking his head. "I need to find someone. How the hell do they expect us to find dates when we've been back from break a week?"

"Maybe it's a test," Michaela suggested. "Like, see who has a bench of hos lined up to go to a frat party on short notice?"

"Well, my bench is empty," Tripp told her. “I guess I could ask someone in architecture, but they’re all…” He crinkled his face into cubism, made a claw with one of his hands. “You know?”

“Ouch,” Jordan replied, before going back to her big salad.

“Do you know Rachel Weisberg?” MIchaela asked him. “She’d go with you--she was saying she wanted to go to the Iota Chi thing anyway. And she’s cute.”

Tripp looked skeptical at this arrangement, as he stirred his yogurt.

"Rachel Weisberg, our floormate," Michaela repeated. "You guys met her last semester. Erik talked to her for like ten minutes at the, what was it, that Lambda Nu party at Quill's?"

Erik looked vacant. In his defense, he had spent most of the previous semester wasted, and he didn’t really distinguish one girl from the next, unless he slept with her, and saw her again at a bar while particularly horny and unlucky with anyone else.

"Dark hair," Jordan offered. "JAP. Really low-cut shirt, like all the time. Tits flopping all over the place. Slept with half of Sharp by the end of September?"

"Oh yeah," Erik said. He thought for a moment, smiled at whatever memory he had of Rachel Weisberg. “You should definitely take her, Tripp. She looked like she wanted a lot of conversation.”

“Fine,” Tripp said. “She’s okay-looking? You’re not sticking me with some kind of dog, are you?”

“Would I steer you wrong?” Erik asked him.

Tripp rolled his eyes. “For shits and giggles? That’s a distinct possibility.”

The smile crested on Erik’s face, but he just said: “Touche. But she’s hot. Don’t worry. And so fucking easy, so you know she’s going to have her legs spread by the end of the night.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Jordan told him, flicking a crouton at his face, which he managed to deke around.

Erik looked smug at that, too, raised his eyebrows invitingly at Jordan, as if defying a ballistic crouton was an athletic accomplishment. He leaned back in his chair, kicked the front too legs off the ground, and rocked back and forth.

“So that just leaves Becker,” Tripp said. “Any prospects?”

I shrugged, tried to look nonchalant. “No one yet.”

“I think you should take the kind of girls you’ve been hooking up with all year,” Erik told me, still rocking in his chair. “The nonexistent kind.”

I flipped him off, but I didn’t have a response, except to turn to Jordan. “Do you want to go?”

Jordan looked genuinely surprised that I’d ask her. “What, me?”

I grinned at her. “Unless you have any other trampy JAPs running around your floor.”

Jordan snickered at that, a tiny piece of chewed salad coming out of her mouth and landing back in the bowl. “We go to Jewlane. That’s all we have running around our floor.”

When I didn’t say anything, she went quiet for a few seconds.

"Call me a last resort," she added, finally. "A fraternity date party sounds awful."

"It's in eight hours," I said, "and you two are the only girls I know."

"You have such problems," Jordan replied, rolling her eyes. "Fine."

“It’ll be fun,” I told her. “Come on. We always have fun. It’s free booze for you.”

“You know the way to this girl’s heart,” she deadpanned, but I thought she looked a little happy. Just a little bit--a fraternity date party wasn’t really Jordan’s scene, but she went out with us enough, drank with us enough, spent enough time with the Iota Chi guys. We’d have fun.

And, in some ways, I was relieved. I obviously couldn’t take Kevin, and I obviously didn’t want to be with some random girl, some whore from Michaela and Jordan’s floor who was clawing at me all night, inviting questions as to why I wasn’t trying to bed what could be an extremely willing participant.

So Jordan it was. Perfect choice.

"Oh, so," Michaela said, clapping her hands together. “Is it true Charlie's going Zeta?"

What!

"What!" Erik gasped.

Tripp was equally stunned. “Where’d you hear that?”

Michaela didn’t look nearly as concerned as either of them did; she began unwrapping a Skinny Cow. “I mean, that’s what Chris said,” she replied. “He’s pissed. Like, super pissed.”

"Well, yeah, it's his brother," Erik said. "I'd be pissed too."

“I mean,” I said, “I get it. It’s his older brother’s thing. He wants something different for himself. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be in Chris’s shadow.”

“Yeah,” Michaela said, rolling her eyes, “Charlie’s never been in Chris’s shadow. Believe me.”

Jordan caught my eyes, as she opened another packet of dressing with her teeth. “How’s Philip these days?”

I flipped her off, and Jordan looked pleased with herself.

Somehow, it was a conversation full of people looking pleased with themselves, pleased they’d managed to score the little pointed conversational victories.

“I’m just saying,” I told her.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, not bothering to look at me as she squirted more ranch onto the big salad. "Who really cares though? Iota Chi, Zeta. They’re still actual brothers."

"I mean, it's not just that he's not going Iota Chi," Michaela said. "Zeta is just like total skeeze-ball."

"Girl vat, guy vat," Erik said. "I'm just floored. Charlie doesn't seem that type at all. I knew he turned down his bid to us, but I thought he just wasn't going anywhere. Dude doesn't talk."

"It's always the quiet ones," I said.

 

Kevin Malley leaned back against his headboard with a bowl, naked. He cracked his lighter; it sputtered twice before it gave him a flame. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that,” he said, lighting the bowl, “and not tell me who it is.”

He didn’t seem to mind being naked around me, even though he was soft--for my part, I’d put my underwear back on, and the pair of Tulane running shorts that I’d torn off Kevin a half hour before.

I was all set to leave. I didn’t. He implored me to stay, offered me some weed. Asked me how the end of rush week was going now that I had accepted my bid, so I told him. He listened. He nodded along, in the right places, seemed interested.

And it was strange, really, that I just didn’t necessarily want to get out of there right away. It’d been different with hookups--Brandon or, dare I say, Patrick. I wasn’t going to say Kevin and I were in anything approaching a relationship--the last time I’d seen him fully clothed, out in public, was December, that last night of finals. But I liked talking to him. And I liked messing around with him. And he didn’t seem too diametrically opposed, either.

I glared at him. “It doesn’t matter who.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyes alight with the best gossip he had ever heard, “it so matters who.” He took a long puff of pot, exhaled it in short little spurts. “Come on.”

“No,” I said. I reached towards the bowl; he snatched it away, smiled, made a victorious giggle, uncannily like the Pillsbury Dough-Boy.

“No weed until you tell me,” he replied. “So you banged a fellow pledge--”

“I didn’t bang anyone,” I clarified. I really shouldn’t have said anything. “There was sucking. Nothing more.”

Kevin didn’t seem to be especially concerned with semantics when it came to this.

He exhaled a plume of smoke. “So that makes two of you,” he said, “in one pledge class. Three overall, if you count Ryan Wyatt. And who knows who else is lurking way back in the closet with the Christmas decorations.” He paused, inhaled again. “It could be dozens of you.”

“Hardy har har,” I said. I reached for the bowl again; he snatched it away again.

“I told you--no weed until you tell me. They should be happy they don’t have me in Iota Chi. Could you imagine--four gay guys in one fraternity? That would suck. No one wants to be the gay fraternity, even if you do love your gay brothers.” He paused. “Don’t give me that look.” I was giving him no look. “Obviously I don’t have a problem with our mutual persuasion. I’m just thinking about what’s best for Iota Chi’s reputation on campus. I do hang out with those guys, you know.”

“Well, this guy said he’s straight,” I said, thinking back, trying to unravel and recall every word I remembered Patrick ManFind saying to me back in August. “Straight but curious.”

“Curious,” Kevin hissed, throwing his head back, as if that was the most outrageous word he’d ever heard in his life. “That’s just what we tell ourselves when we pretend there’s a chance.”

He cracked the lighter a few more times until he got a flame going again, then relit the bowl and inhaled.

“You know what I mean,” he continued, finally giving up the charade and handing the piece over to me. “When you’re in the closet, and you want nothing more than to be attracted to any woman.” I couldn’t get the lighter to work; he took it back, leaned over, lit it for me and I inhaled. “And so you say, well, ‘I’m curious. I just wonder.’ But you know.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Please,” he told me. “Were you at all thinking of a woman when you had your lips wrapped around this guy’s cock?”

“Damn it, Kev.”

He smiled at that. He loved being notorious.

“I’m just saying,” he said. “Not that I think you’re very curious. I think you’ve got the full-blown disease, which obviously I’m fine with.” He reached back for the piece; I pulled it away from him, and relit it; he smiled a bit at the tug-of-war I was reciprocating.

“Obviously,” I told him.

“So who was it?” he asked again. “Hot guy? Into threesomes?”

I shook my head, resolutely. “I’m not pursuing this conversation any further.”

“Fine,” he said, darting his hand over to grab the bowl out of my hand while I wasn’t paying attention. “Ha! I knew I’d get you.”

“Speedy,” I deadpanned.

“You know it,” he said. He squinted in the bowl. “Eh, it’s cashed. Do you want another one?”

“I can’t,” I told him. “I have to do some studying this week.”

“Syllabus week,” he suggested, reaching for the prescription bottle on the nightstand. He waved it from side to side. “No? What else can we do to pass the time?” He grabbed my hand with his free hand, dragged it over to his thigh, then winked theatrically at me.

“Nice try,” I said. “I just sucked you off.”

“Yeah, but you’re operating at a deficit,” he told me. “Remember? I sucked you off last time, and didn’t get any reciprocity.”

“Add it to my tab,” I said, removing my hand. “I’ll make it up to you at some point.”

“That’s the hope,” he told me. “Who are you taking to the date party tonight?”

In another universe, I’d be taking Kevin, a small fact that wasn’t lost on me. If he was out, if I was out, if he were a woman and I were straight, I’d be so proud of someone like him.

But that was an alternative universe. Jordan was a perfect alternative, a perfect compromise.

“Just Jordan,” I said.

“Ah,” he replied. “I figured as much. I knew Baker’s taking Michaela, so I figured your options were halved. I was going to loan you use of Veronica otherwise.”

“I can get my own dates,” I told him, far less pleasant than I’d initially imagined uttering those words. “I mean, I don’t need your help. I know girls.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Two of them.”

“Yeah, your three girls is so much more impressive.”

“Jeez, I was just kidding,” Kevin said. I’d thought I’d said it jokingly--apparently that hadn’t completely gone through. “You’re being strange.”

I was not being strange. I didn’t like to talk about the kind of girls I could or could not gather, and I wasn’t even sure why. I had Kevin--right? Did I have him? We’d been hooking up all week, texting all through break--but I didn’t like being dismissed so easily.

“Sorry,” I just said instead, because I figured there was no way out of the conversation without stopping it or progressively digging deeper to prove some nebulous, ridiculous point. “I was just worried. So much of it comes down to how hot the girl you bring is.”

“Unless you’re Ryan Wyatt,” Kevin said. “He brought Landon Marsh last year. And no one said anything.”

That was beside the point, and I didn’t know exactly what Kevin was proposing either of us do: he wasn’t out. I wasn’t out. There was zero chance--zero--of him coming along with me.

I told him as much.

He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to bring me. I was just relaying a story about what other gay pledges have done throughout history. Impartially. Think of me as an academic resource for all things Iota Chi.”

“Except you’re not Iota Chi.”

“Dian Fossey wasn’t an ape,” he replied, wryly. “Sometimes it takes an outsider.”

I had to crack a smile at that; he seemed relieved I did; I was relieved I did, because I didn’t want to end anything on an awkward note, especially this early into our whatever-it-was.

“I do have to go, though,” I told him. “I’ll see you later.”

He leaned over to me, grabbed my chin between his index finger and thumb, and pulled me in for a kiss--nothing dramatic, just a short kiss, some tongue, not a lot.

“I’ll see you Friday,” he told me. “Go run along. Be studious.”

“What’s Friday?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” he said, looking mock-scandalized, hand clutched to his heart. “Secret bonds of brotherhood.”

“You’re not privy to the secret bonds of brotherhood.”

He raised a smug eyebrow, clicked his tongue. “Then how come I know so much more about it than you?”

 

I got a text from Patrick ManFind later that evening, while I was in the study lounge, dragging myself through the first incomprehensible pages of Paradise Lost for Intro to English Lit.

"Hey, do you want to meet up for a sec and chat?"

No. Not at all. Would rather die.

There was no way he wanted sex, which made the prospective of a visit all the less enticing.

Still, it seemed probably necessary--hash out some ground rules, so we’d at least know what we could say or not say. The responsible thing to do, at least. I was starting to get anxious about the whole thing--what if he said something other than, “Let’s pretend this never happened,” if he wanted to do something, if he wanted someone to confide in about stuff?

I did not want to talk about things like that, ever. Especially with him.

"When?"

"Now okay? Ben went to the library."

I made it over to Monroe. He was waiting in the lobby. Sex was, still, the farthest thing from my mind, even though he looked cute, wearing the same sweatshirt from the first time we met.

He gave me a polite, quiet hello, checked me in at the front desk--that “Booty Call” button again--and then we went over to the elevator. We were oddly retracing old steps--it felt very uncomfortable, more so than last time, because this wasn’t the fun part; this was the consequences part, and I really enjoyed it a lot less than the prospect of losing my virginity.

Patrick didn't say anything until we were in his room, and he closed the door.

"Okay, look," he said, slowly. "I figured we should just get things right out in the open, because you know, when things fester, they just make everything super fucking awkward. And I already know this is going to be super fucking awkward, so I figured we could just--" He paused, rooted around for the proper words--were there proper words? “I don’t know. Just find a way to make sure nothing like this ever gets out to anyone else. Obviously, I don’t think either of us want anyone else to know about what happened, ever.”

I was pretty much expecting this sort of thing, and that was about the best case scenario, for anything he could’ve said, aside from him telling me he was turning down his bid.

I was not the kind of person who enjoyed airing things like these--I would’ve just let things, as he put it, fester. I’d have spent the next three and a half years eyeing him nervously, covertly trying to alienate him, all that. This was certainly the better way, as uncomfortable as I felt in the moment.

"Right," I said slowly. I sat awkwardly on the corner of Ben's bed; I didn't want to sit on Patrick's bed. Patrick, for his part, started pacing.

“I’m just the kind of person,” he said, “who figures it’s better to just get things out in the open and be honest about it, you know? At least between the two of us. We know what happened, and I think it’s better we’re on the same page.”

“Right,” I said again.

"So I was thinking, like, we just forget it. Never talk about it." He was still pacing, with increasing speed and furious intensity. “I was wasted, and it was one night. And I’m straight, so I don’t want to give you the impression I’m gay or even bi or anything. I was just curious, you know? And it’s not for me.”

I couldn’t tell if that was utter bullshit and he knew it, or if it was utter bullshit and he’d somehow bamboozled himself.

Straight. He wasn’t straight--he might not’ve been gay, he might just have been curious, but rebranding himself as a total, 100% straight guy was disingenuous at best, some sort of lie at worst.

Who was that sexually confused that, on your first night at college, you join ManFind and invite the first torso you meet over to christen your new dorm room? Maybe, maybe, if the opportunity was there. Lots of alcohol involved. Sow some oats. But he made a profile, he invited me over, he sucked me off. A stranger that he found on a website. What we did had premeditation all over it.

Though I didn’t really feel the need to pull at that string, when the necessary detente was such a low-hanging fruit.

Instead: “Yeah, totally,” I said anyway. “Happens. It’s college.”

I was going to say I was experimenting too. But I wasn’t, so I didn’t. I left it ambiguous--ambiguous was easier, was better. Ambiguous wasn’t incriminating and it wasn’t lying.

"Okay, good," he said. He did look relieved--he was so cool at the paintball night, he looked so frazzled and frantic tonight, which gave me a little more satisfaction. He was just better at hiding it. "So let's just, like, I don't know. Keep quiet and forget the whole thing? And just, like, start over? Two people who met last night?"

"Yeah, man," I told him--we were both relieved at that. "Yeah, that sounds fine."

 

Patrick ManFind, Patrick Sullivan, was sucking some girl’s face off on the dance floor to Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable,” a few drinks in at the Iota Chi date party.

And I knew he was sticking to this whole straight conceit, and maybe he was more straight than anything, but it just seemed too bizarre to think that the guy who sucked me off was making out with some girl. Same lips, same tongue, completely different venue.

Was he curious? Was it all some sort of gleaming mistake? I hadn’t seen him on ManFind ever since that first night--found that the opportunity was lacking?

I thought I’d done a pretty good job, all things considered.

"God, PDA," Jordan said, when she saw me staring at Patrick and his date. "It's just so awkward, isn't it? Like, who thinks making out with someone in the middle of an empty dance floor seems like a great idea?"

Jordan cleaned up very well--she had a smile on her face that told me she’d noticed it too. She had lost a little weight since I met her, largely because she didn’t eat anything at our cafeteria, and she was wearing one of Michaela's cocktail dresses which was a little tight around the waist and a little long, but her hair was curled and she was wearing far more makeup than she usually did.

It only dawned on me after I saw how great she looked that I might’ve been bringing a girl who wouldn’t look so great. And I didn't really care about that because I wasn't looking to get my dick wet, but I just didn't want that to be the first impression I left on Iota Chi. She did look great. The kind of girl a guy would be happy bringing around.

"You need to chill," Erik told her, exhaling cigarette smoke in the general direction of her face, which she theatrically swatted away. "Don't be so uptight."

"I'm not uptight," she said, continuing to swat, even though the smoke had dissipated. "I'm just private."

"You're uptight," Michaela said. "You're tighter than Erik's asshole." She giggled. She was the only one that giggled. Michaela thought she was funnier than she was once you got a few glasses in her, because that didn’t really make any sense.

Erik ignored her, but he went slightly red; he glanced over at Erica Strout, who looked stunning in a gold cocktail dress, but didn’t seem to acknowledge Michaela had said anything: she was blithely flipping through something on her BlackBerry.

"Look at the abuse I take," Erik told Erica, who still wasn’t listening. He slapped the back of his left hand against the palm of his right hand a few times. "Baker, control your woman."

Erica snapped him an irritated look at that one--maybe she was listening--but then went boredly back to her BlackBerry.

"The mouth on this one," I echoed.

"Oh, shut up," Michaela said. Drunkenly wagging a finger at me, she added, "Or no Tri-Gamma parties for any of you."

"So, Tri-Gamma for sure, huh?" Chris asked. He was far more sober than Michaela--he had been drinking beer--but he seemed far more entertained by her than we were. Benefit of the doubt was par for the course for having someone so beautiful on your arm. "I figured that was most your style."

"I mean," she said, dramatically splaying her hands out on either side of her, nearly smacking Chris Baker and Erik, on either side of her, in the chest. "I preffed them and Chi Kappa. We'll see which one I get a bid to on Saturday."

"Sorority shit is so formal," Tripp said, shaking his head, picking up his whiskey. “‘Preffing.’ What the hell is ‘preffing’?”

“I know,” Baker added. "We just, like, vote drunk and then haul a guy upstairs to get his bid and he says yes or no. None of this preffing bullshit."

"Smoke and mirrors, Baker," scolded Morton, snapping over from the next table. “You’re around pledges.”

"Yeah, yeah," he said, taking a sip of his drink. "Future pledges.” He paused. The conversation seemed to drop for a second; Baker’s smile was unwavering. He seemed acutely aware that he was the only brother at the table and, as such, had to keep the conversation afloat. “So, who do we think’s getting laid tonight?"

Erik looked uncomfortably at Erica, who had was now stirring her drink with a thin little black straw, and then back at Chris; Tripp did the same thing with Rachel Weisberg, who was a decent-looking girl with a tremendous rack that was barely constrained by a tortured red dress.

"Thanks for creating the world's most awkward situation, dude,” Erik told him.

"I didn't mean out of us," he stammered, slowly, but he really couldn’t say anything to make the situation less awkward and he seemed to know that, resigned himself to it. I remembered what Kevin Malley meant when he said Chris Baker was terrible when he was uncomfortable, because he was. He didn’t like playing roles: Baker kept thinking of himself as the date of a beautiful woman, the only sophomore at the table--instead of just someone who was sitting at a table with people he knew well--and that had thrown him.

Erica abruptly stood up. “I’m going to use the ladies’ room,” she told us, and skulked back through the crowd. She didn’t go all the way into the restroom; she hovered near the door, checking her BlackBerry.

“She’s nice,” Baker said, and his voice was flat enough that I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be nice or trying to be sarcastic--Jordan seemed to think the latter, because she snorted laughter--but it cast another uncomfortable pall over the table.

“Yeah, she’s tired,” Erik justified, glancing over at her. “You guys have to get to know her.”

It was an empty hope, considering he’d only trotted her out to two social gatherings before: Halloween and this, and neither had been strong marks in the pro-Erica column.

“There must be a line,” Erik muttered, to himself or to us or to no one, and exhaled another beautiful plume of smoke across the table; Jordan swatted again.

At this point, Patrick ManFind and his sexually aggressive date came over to our table, having pried each other off their respective lips when Beyonce ended and Akon started up with “I Wanna Fuck You.”

"Michaela!" the girl said, breathlessly. "Christy told me you're preffing Tri-Gamma too."

I didn’t know who Christy was; Michaela didn’t seem especially interested in chatting with this girl anyway, giving her only a very narrow, intentional smile.

"Yeah," she said. "We'll see. You look gorgeous, by the way. I love that color on you!"

This girl was wearing gray, but smiled and thanked her for the compliment and rattled off its purchase history. Michaela turned to us, smile growing politely. “Do you guys know Annie Rue?”

It was amazing how quickly Michaela could rein in her drunkenness when the situation called for proper hostess chores.

We introduced ourselves, and then Annie--seemingly accepting that as an invitation to stay--sat down in Erica’s vacated chair; Erik folded his arms in annoyance, as she leaned over him to dish with Michaela. Patrick stood behind her, holding the back of her chair, trying his best to look extremely interested in the crowd at the bar, rather than risk eye contact with me.

Patrick cleaned up well--hair neatly combed, wearing a gray suit, a little tight at the waist. And Annie was quite a talker, taxing drunk Michaela, but she was attractive. Undeniably attractive. She had too gummy of a smile, but otherwise she was a good-looking girl. She had big dark hair, and pale skin, and freckles dusting her cheeks, a bit of a Texas accent.

"I'm so nervous," Annie was saying. "I hear bid night is wild."

"Unless you don't get in anywhere," Michaela said. "Then you're just having the most pathetic night ever." She looked at Jordan dismissively. "No offense."

Jordan flashed me a self-pitying look that said volumes about her relationship with Michaela.

"Do you need a drink?” she asked me. We both had half-full ones. She lowered her voice. “Or anything else that might get us out of this conversation?”

Detente with Patrick, sure. It was going to happen, had happened. Certainly, our chat earlier this evening had given us some sort of piece of mind--had at least moved the uncertainty off the table, but the whole situation was just massively uncomfortable. And I wondered what would happen if we got drunk. Test out the whole “experimenting” excuse. He'd bring Annie back to her dorm, text me, we'd go tumble in his sheets for another go.

I had little desire to jump back into bed with him, except maybe to prove my point. The only thing worse than sleeping together in September would be sleeping together still. Pledge brothers. Off the table. Had to be off the table.

"Do you need another drink, babe?" Patrick asked. To Annie, not to me. Maybe as comfortable as I was. "I'm going to get another drink."

Annie looked at her nearly-empty cup, then turned around. "Yeah," she said. "Let's go."

 

Jordan had a no dance policy. We stayed at the table, but the rest of our group had gone out to the dance floor when “Money Maker” poured on the speakers--Erik and Erica were both sufficiently drunk that they were again interested in each other; he seemed to be using her legs as some sort of fleshy hula hoop as they grinded together on the dance floor. Michaela, Chris, Tripp, and Rachel were all dancing in one small circle of people who were all uncomfortable with each other. Patrick and Annie had resumed their making out.

"One song," I said to Jordan. "I'll let you pick which song."

She swilled her fresh drink. Her third; the rest of us had to be nearing double digits by now, but she was already turning rosy. "Maybe one,” she said, her voice measured and intentional. She was very much in control, very. “I'm a terrible dancer, really. It's not like I'm a stick in the mud." She grinned. "Well, I'm kind of a stick in the mud."

"You just need to let loose," I said. "Go make some mistakes."

She took a long sip of her drink, slammed it down on the table. “I don't make mistakes."

"You're making one now," I suggested.

In her inebriated mind, I had stumped her. But I hadn’t reconditioned her; after a brief pause, she pivoted subjects. “Do you think it’s weird that I didn’t rush?”

“Weird? No. It’s not you.”

“I’m not a girls’ girl,” she told me. She took another sip of her drink. “A whole room full of girls sounds like I’d off myself. I had three brothers.”

Nelly Furtado came on, “Promiscuous Girl.”

I caught Jordan singing it under her breath, terribly; she caught me catching her; she smiled.

“I can’t sing.”

I giggled. “No, you can’t.”

She giggled. We both continued to giggle. Intoxication.

“Fine,” she said. “You get one dance. But only if it’s--” She thought for a moment, snapped her fingers. “‘Sexy Back.’”

“Because that’s what we’re doing. Bringing sexy back.”

She grinned. “Obviously.”

"No,” I said. “Let’s dance now. They already played ‘Sexy Back.’”

Jordan thought for a moment, as if trying to decipher whether or not they had in fact played “Sexy Back”--they had, right when we walked in--and finally she just gave up. I’d never seen Jordan give up before, sighed and said, “Fine.”

So I stood up, grabbed her hand, and pulled her out to the dance floor. I didn’t catch a smile--I could unravel her mind: this was something she wanted to do, maybe, but not anything she felt remotely comfortable doing, even in her drunken state. But she went along. Good sport.

We started dancing. She was rickety. I was drunk. I crept my hand around her waist, pulled her close, rocked her slowly.

“You’re not bad,” I told her, even though she was, even though we both were.

She grinned at me. “I mean, compared to you I’m...” Her voice trailed off; I couldn’t name a dancer either.

“I didn’t say I was a dancer,” I said. I gave her a spin for good measure, like I’d done when my mom used to make me dance with her. My mom was a big dancer; I had vivid childhood memories of her making me and/or Philip dance with her whenever “I Say a Little Prayer for You” came on the radio. “Everyone’s drunk. No one’s watching.”

“I’m not a fan of standing out in public.”

“I’m not either,” I told her. “It’s nice to just blend sometimes, isn’t it?

“I think we blend more when we dance,” she told me, “comparatively.”

“Of course we do,” I said. “Even if you hate dancing, you have to do it, because everyone knows when you don’t.” I spun her again, she smiled. “I do get dancey whenever I’m drunk.”

“Putting that cotillion training to good use, I’m sure,” she told me.

By this point, we’d danced close enough to Baker, Michaela, Tripp, and Rachel where their circle expanded to annex us; six people was far less awkward than two awkward couples.

We were all terrible, except Michaela, who had a delicate grace even when dancing to “London Bridge.” We were all drunk. We didn’t care that we were terrible.

I felt so much less self-conscious, so much less aware of my idiocy when I was drunk. It was nice. I liked it.

Patrick and Annie were dancing nearby, but not making out anymore. Not even touching anymore, really. I wondered if he could get it up with a girl. I didn’t think I could.

I wondered if, the whole time she was sucking him off, inevitably later that night, he’d be thinking about me. Thinking about how I did it better. Or how I did it worse. Or how it was weird being with a woman after everything. No, he wouldn’t think about me in any capacity other than fear.

And regardless, it was too uncomfortable to think about in any capacity, so I just turned around so I couldn’t see him, and went back to dancing with my friends.