Hard Knox Read online

  After paying the admission fee, I collected my classy red Solo cup and bee-lined it to the keg crammed into the corner of the living room. Unlike the others headed in the same direction, I wasn’t looking for a buzz; I was looking for a scoop. Overconsumption and underage drinking were illegal on campus, but it was kind of like jay-walking . . . it ran rampant, and no one ever got into any trouble for it until they paid for it with their lives. Last year, a sophomore had drunk himself to death, and the year before that, a student had been so intoxicated, he’d walked into the middle of the road to play a game of chicken with a car. He didn’t come out the victor.

  I wasn’t naive enough to believe I had a chance of ending binge drinking on college campuses, or to even put a dent in it, with my article. I was, however, hoping to open people’s eyes. To get them to think twice about tossing back that fifth drink when the fourth had left them fuzzy enough. To put a face to the name, a story behind the life that had been lost. Instead of being known as the drunk kid who got wasted by a Hummer going forty miles an hour, hopefully he’d become Jake Messenger, a kinesiology major who grew up on a farm and used to coach Little League. People were too anesthetized to the world around them, and it was my goal to crack their numb shells so they’d wake up and smell the reality.

  Enough of that soapbox . . . It was time to fill my cup with the cheapest beer money could buy and find a place to camp out and watch the binging show.

  All of the furniture in the Alpha Phis living room had been moved out, but bodies were still packed in to capacity. Crossing one room that couldn’t have been longer than twenty feet, I was assaulted by B.O. from at least a dozen different guys, the sickeningly sweet perfume of twice that many girls, and I had my boobs or ass not-so-unintentionally grazed, groped, or fondled by a football team’s worth of grubby hands.

  “Hey, Charlie!” a voice hollered behind me.

  The music wasn’t quite blasting, but it was close, so whoever was screaming at me had a serious set of pipes. I didn’t stop or slow down though, mainly because I knew if I stopped my momentum in a crowd this size, I’d never find my way out of it. When the second shout came, I glanced over my shoulder.

  I wasn’t sure whether to sigh or smile. That was pretty much the conflict I’d always felt around Beckett Farrell, aka Beck, aka could have been plucked straight out of the fifties. He was an All-American guy who liked sports, cars, and girls. He came from an upper-crust family and still called his mom every week. He was one of those college guys who actually combed their hair, and he had a smile so bright and easy, even at the first class of the morning, that I wondered if he poured sunshine into his coffee.

  Beck and I’d been a thing last year, but that thing had ended right before summer break—thanks to me. I hadn’t caught him screwing some other girl or selling drugs to pay for his car or anything like that, but in the end, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to smile or sigh when I saw him. If, after six months with a person, I still couldn’t decide if I wanted to go toward him or away from him, it was time to cut my losses.

  I didn’t have anything against good guys, but I needed someone with a little more grit to him. Someone who had some dirt under his fingernails and didn’t mind if I had some under mine as well. I wasn’t in the market for bad boys—that was a heap of heartache and venereal disease I didn’t want—but I wasn’t exactly shopping for Time magazine’s Man of the Year either.

  Which led me to the conclusion that maybe I was just screwed when it came to the future flames department.

  Beck caught up to me at the kegs. The air back in that corner was so stale with the scent of beer that I wondered if inhaling it long enough would affect my blood alcohol level.

  “Was that a case of the cold shoulder or what?” Beck slid up beside me, nudging another guy out of the way.

  “Sorry, it was more a case of ‘I didn’t want to get swallowed by the crowd or get idly threatened by your girlfriend again.’” There was a line for the kegs, so I waited my turn. Part of getting the story was fitting in. If all I sucked down was a bottle of water, people would get suspicious, and suspicion was a surefire way to kill an article.

  “Sydney?” Beck hitched his thumb over his shoulder, his brows pulling together. “She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”

  “You mean to tell me Sydney Barrister isn’t the love of your life?” I did my best surprised face. “Shocker.”

  “Sydney’s got her merits—”

  “Like her talent for dropping her panties in two-point-three seconds?”

  Beck smirked, shaking his head.

  “Her reputation for having given the entire football team a ‘pep’ talk at this year’s homecoming game?” I suggested.

  He was still shaking his head.

  “That she can’t come out in the sunlight for fear of being reduced to a pile of ash?” I could have gone on and on. The possibilities were truly endless.

  “How about we move on from the Sydney subject?” Beck suggested, moving up in line with me.

  “I’d be good if I moved on from that subject for my next five lifetimes.” I tapped my cup against my leg, trying to flush Sydney Barrister from my mind.

  Sydney and I couldn’t even be described as polar opposites, because that would imply we were playing the same game. She played the “I am God, and you will obey, honor, and praise me, or else you’ll be thwarted to Sinclair’s equivalent of hell” game. I was playing the game that didn’t involve playing games, which seemed like a bit of an oxymoron now that I thought about it . . .

  “So why haven’t I seen you around this year?” Beck asked above the chanting of Chug, chug, chug!

  I glanced at him. He was wearing a white linen shirt tucked into a pair of freshly pressed khaki shorts. His leather belt had probably cost more than my entire outfit. Everyone who passed him either patted his back, waited for the reciprocation of a high-five, or fluttered their fake eyelashes at him. Other than Sydney’s super-friendly greeting, no one other than Beck had noticed me. Unless I counted the ass grabbers.

  “We don’t exactly swim in the same circles.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t seen you on campus,” he said. “How can you not run into a person after a month at Sinclair?”

  I knew what he meant. For being a decent-sized university, it seemed small. Suffocatingly small. “Maybe because you’re majoring in business and I’m majoring in journalism.” I pointed my index finger in one direction and my other index finger the other direction. “Kind of opposite sides of the campus.”

  “But what about all of the start-of-the-year parties and mixers? I didn’t see you at any of them.”

  “Yeah, usually I’m such a first-in-liner at college parties and shindigs. I don’t know what came over me.” I nudged him. Either he’d forgotten how he’d practically had to drag me to the few parties I attended last year, or he thought I’d done a one-eighty over the summer.

  “But you’re at this one.”

  “This one’s a special party.”

  A guy manning one of the kegs waved Beck over—apparently having connections meant getting fast-tracked to the front of the beer line.

  Beck surveyed the room, obviously trying to figure out what about this party made it the exception to my sophomore-year party ban. “Why’s this one special?”

  When he reached for my cup to walk it over to the keg operator, I held on to it and followed Beck instead. “Never let your cup out of your hands” was like one of the ten commandments of college life. Even though I trusted Beck, that was a commandment I wouldn’t break for anyone.

  “Because of the high-class beer,” I said, not taking my eyes off of my cup when I handed it to the keg master.

  Beck took a sip of his beer. His was from a fancy bottle, so he didn’t pucker up after each sip like the rest of us. “Try again.”

  “The kick-ass music.”

  Beck’s brow rose. The only music played at these things was the kind that had a beat that gave an excuse for a room full of inebriat
ed students the excuse to dry hump complete strangers.

  “The unparalleled atmosphere.” After I’d been handed back my cup, I double-checked to make sure a pill wasn’t fizzling inside. Some might call me paranoid, but I called it survival of the college girl.

  “I heard so much of your sarcasm in six months, I could never forget that clipped tone. Or the way your head tilts just a bit.” Beck tilted his head to match mine.

  “For the sparkling conversation.”

  Beck sighed and shook his head. “Charlie Chase. A woman of so many secrets she might just forget who she is one day.”

  I blinked at him. If he thought that statement could reduce me to a puddle of self-evaluation, he hadn’t a clue who the woman was he’d dated for half a year. “Beck Farrell. A man of so few secrets he just might forget who he’s not one day.”

  He chuckled for a moment then tapped his cup against mine. “Enough with the deep and meaningful. It’s a Friday night. We’re at a party. Let’s try to act the part.”

  “The part of a drunken, horny future cashier thanks to the brain cells killed during the best four years of our lives?” I surveyed the living room and tried not to shake my head. Just because those women had skirts on and the men had on jeans didn’t mean what they were doing out there wasn’t sex. “Party on.” After flashing a rock on sign, I took the first drink of my beer. About the only thing I could say for it was that it was somewhat cold. After making a face and shaking my head, I decided I’d be taking no more drinks. Only sips.

  Beck stepped closer until our arms grazed each other’s, and he inspected the party scene with me. If I hadn’t had a wall behind me and a pair of couples rounding third base on the other side of me, I would have scooted aside a foot. I hadn’t heard a word from Beck all summer, nor had I seen him once on campus this year. Not that I’d expected to—I’d broken up with one of the most liked guys on campus because I’d been bored with him. Why he seemed so eager to see me was beyond me.

  After a couple minutes of awkward silence, I decided to try to be civil. “Where are you living this year?” I shouted above the music.

  “I’m still in the Sigma Nu house,” he replied.

  “Whoa. Three years in a fraternity? A frat like the Sigma Nus? You get the award for enduring the longest stint in hell for your graduating class.” I cringed, imagining being stuck inside one of those things for three years, especially in one like the PBKs. Those guys were convinced they were the muse for Animal House, and they had a reputation for being known as the frat that got laid the most. How they could make that claim or what kind of number-crunching went into it, I didn’t want to think about, but from the number of leggy blondes and busty brunettes tip-toeing out with half of their clothes on last year, I guessed the rumor was more true than not.

  “The first year was rough, last year was better, and this year’s better still. You work your way up, year after year, challenge after challenge. It’s not so bad.” He nodded in acknowledgement at a petite redhead who waved at him from the dance floor.

  “Challenges? What kinds of challenges?” My ears perked up. I was always looking for that next morsel of information I could feature in the Sinclair Sentinel, and all things of a clandestine frat nature were like journalism gold. Especially when one talked about challenges with that gleam in his eyes . . .

  “I wouldn’t be a very good Sigma Nu presidential hopeful if I spilled all of our secrets to the equally most loved and loathed journalist on campus, now would I?” He winked at me before taking another drink of his beer.

  “If by ‘loved’ you mean ‘despised to the point of students demanding I be burned at the stake,’ then yes, I’ll agree with you . . . but what’s this about you being president next year?” It shouldn’t have surprised me, but the knowledge I might have to list President of the Jackasses on my dating resume didn’t leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

  “I put in my nomination at the beginning of the year. There’ll be an election at the end of the year.”

  “And what occasion must you rise to before you can wear the distinguished title of president?” My guess was it had to do with beer, plastic wrap, and girls since pretty much everything frat-related could be traced back to those few things.

  Beck glanced at me from the corner of his eyes. Before I could read what was in them, they returned to the dance floor. “It’s not so much about rising to the occasion as it is completing a challenge.”

  That got an eye-roll out of me. “Why must all of you frat guys talk like you’re James Bond and you’ve got five seconds to diffuse a bomb before it obliterates the entire world?”

  After finishing what was left of his beer, he tossed the bottle to one of the keg guys. The dude caught it as though he’d been waiting for it and was already pulling a fresh one from one of the coolers. Someone was well on their way up the ladder to Sinclair frat greatness . . .

  Beck turned toward me, leaning his shoulder into the wall. “I liked your article in the Sentinel. Along with just about every other guy on campus.”

  “Which one?” I’d published two this year, but I was pretty sure I knew which one he was talking about.

  His reply was a lifting of a brow.

  “Ah, that one. Of course.” I had to take another sip of my beer. “Nothing like admitting you’re a proud member of the V club to get the boys’ attention. Boy, was Cosmo way off in their articles about how to attract the opposite sex.”

  Beck licked his lips, staring at me in a way that would have made a lesser girl squirm. “So? Is it true then? All those months we were together, we never did it, but I guess I just assumed that . . . I mean, I know we never talked about our pasts but . . .”

  “But you thought I’d let half the high school screw me before moving on to college?” Another sip of my beer was in order.

  Beck made a face. “What? No, of course not. I just assumed that you’d . . . you know . . .”

  “Had sex before?” I filled in, unsure why I felt a nudge of discomfort.

  When I’d written the article and it had been approved for publication, I hadn’t thought twice about the whole campus knowing I was a member of the nearly extinct breed of college-aged virgins. The article had had less to do with my own “sexual innocence” and more to do with how instead being a badge of honor, virginity was more a dirty little secret. It was a secret we kept—or at least until I’d blasted it out to thousands of students—like it was something to be ashamed of. The article hadn’t been about abstinence being good and promiscuity being bad; it had been about opening the discussion about why anyone’s sexual tendencies and preferences—especially when it came to women—was a topic of taboo.

  I just didn’t get it. What was the big deal about sex? Who was getting it, who wasn’t, how much, how often, how earth-shattering, etc. Yeah, I knew it was supposed to be amazing and all that, but it seemed more like a fact of life: be born, learn to walk, ride a bike, go to school, have sex, work, die—not necessarily in that order. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get through a class without hearing someone whisper about who they were hoping to get lucky with that weekend, or walk through the courtyard without some guy whistling at some girl in a skirt, or make it out of the shower room in my residence hall without hearing someone recap their escapade with a football player and his inability to get it up, keep it up, or make her come. I. Didn’t. Get. It. And yeah, I accepted that as one of the few, the proud, the virgins, I might not understand until I shredded my perky little V card, but until that day, I was keeping my skepticism on high.

  “Sorry if me bringing it up makes you uncomfortable,” Beck said after a moment, a fresh beer in his hands, compliments of one of the keg boys.

  “It doesn’t. Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  In terms of awkward, Beck looked more the part than me—from his rigid stance to his shifty eyes to the way he’d just drained half of his beer in one long gulp.

  “You want to get out of here? Go somewhere quieter and ca
tch up?” He winced with me when the DJ dialed up the volume of the next song. “I might like a party, but I know the difference between a good one and a bad one.”

  My brows came together. Usually Do you want to go somewhere quiet? from the mouth of a guy translated into Do you want to fuck up against any available flat surface nearby? I didn’t have to have had my cherry popped to be aware of that, but Beck might have been the first and the last guy to say those words and mean them.

  “Actually, there’s nothing I’d rather do than get the hell out of here,” I said, shuffling through my bag to find my small notepad. I’d already wasted enough precious research time. The kegs would be drained before I tallied my first mark. “But I’m not really here for personal reasons.”

  “You? Never,” Beck said with a fair dose of sarcasm. “What article are you working on now? The correlation between how the skimpier the underwear is, the more likely a girl is looking to get laid?”

  “If I wanted to write for Obvious, my job would be a hell of a lot easier.”

  Beck tipped back what was left in his bottle then smiled. “Rain check then?”

  I smiled back. “Sure.”

  “Nice catching up, Charlie. I’ve missed you.”

  “Yeah, it was nice catching up.” I couldn’t reciprocate the “I miss you” part. The past summer and school year, I’d been too busy to miss anything.

  “Be good.” He nudged me and gave me a purposeful look before backing into the crowd.

  “You too,” I called after him.

  “And tarnish the notorious ‘bad boy’ reputation I’ve worked so hard to earn?” Beck held his arms out, making it clear how much of a bad boy he wasn’t. “Not likely.”

  I waved as he disappeared into the mass of swaying and sweating bodies, then I scanned the area for a free seat. If I was going to camp out by the keg area for the next few hours, I wanted to be comfortable. Or at least somewhat. My inspection hadn’t gotten far before I locked onto a real bad boy. The icon, the man, the legend . . . the guy who was earning a memorial statue in the bad boy hall of fame—Knox Jagger.