by Claire Adams
“Stay back!” the officer says, pulling out his pepper spray with the hand he’s not using to hold the chain between Chris’s cuffs.
“What happened?” Mason shouts again.
Chris turns his head and there’s a big smile on his face. “Just counting change, bro!” Chris yells back. “I’ll see you in a year or so!”
“Counting change?” I ask. “What does that mean?”
“You give a cashier a hundred and then keep feeding them small amounts of cash while they’re trying to make change. If you do it right and you can end up with a lot more than you walked in with,” Mason says with an inscrutable look on his face that slowly dissolves into an awkward smile. “Did that really just happen?”
The man with the badge gets Chris in the back of the undercover police car and then gets in himself, turning on his lights before he’s even got the engine going.
“Whatever happened, I think he pissed that cop right off,” I say as the car peels out in reverse and then screams out of the parking lot with the siren now blaring. “You don’t think he just—” I start.
“I think he did,” Mason says. “No way was that a real cop.”
With that, we’re left standing here in this parking lot, staring at the last spot either of us could see the car speeding away.
“But why would he—” I start again.
“I have no idea,” Mason says. “You wanna get out of here and grab something to eat?”
“Yeah,” I tell him and we get back in the car.
The more settled this life becomes, the less frequently I have any idea what to expect. Mason and I have our problems, but when it really matters, we’re there for each other.
We drive back into town, and Mason’s telling me about his physics class again. I don’t know what it is about the subject he finds so fascinating, but the way he’s been prattling on about it lately, I’m starting to miss the days when he wouldn’t shut up about MMA.
As we get back into town, I notice a strangely familiar car parked at the cross street of the first intersection. Mason’s going on about quarks or something, and I can’t help noticing that the man behind the driver’s seat of that car is Chris, though he’s now wearing a red baseball cap while his “cop” buddy sits in the passenger’s seat, drinking from a brown beer bottle.
It’s not the simple life. Even with the wildcard that is Mason’s brother maybe out of the way for a little while longer, there’s still a lot to contend with. What’s helped us get this far is that we’ve learned how to let things go when there’s nothing we can do to change them.
I can see Chris following us a few cars back, but I don’t know if Mason’s spotted him yet. It’s obviously a joke, otherwise I’d feel a little better about not telling him that Chris is 100% not in any trouble (yet—I mean, let’s be realistic here.)
The joke finally makes sense as we’re almost to Mason’s house and I hear the police siren starting up behind me.
“What the hell?” Mason asks.
“You really need to pay more attention to who’s behind you,” I tell him.
“Oh jeez,” Mason says, reaching into his wallet and trying too hard to act casual. He rolls down his window, saying, “Is there a problem—oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Wasn’t one of the charges that sent you to jail—which you just got out of by the way—pretending to be a cop?”
“I didn’t hit the siren, my buddy did,” Chris says. “By the way, we’re going to have an extra guest for a little while. I kind of owe Manny back there a favor.”
“Leave it to you to make friends with cops while you’re in jail,” Mason mutters.
“Yeah,” Chris chuckles. “‘Cops.’”
This time, there’s no way I can get between the two of them, so I just sit back and watch Mason get into his first fight in a year.
The End
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Slammed Box Set
The Complete Slammed Romance Series
BAD BOY FRAT
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams
SLAMMED #1
CHAPTER ONE
“Evie, I swear to God, you never have any fun.” I rolled my eyes at Jess as she watched me getting dressed from the door of my room. “You could at least pretend like you’re looking forward to this party instead of dragging your feet and picking out the ugliest thing in your closet.”
I looked down at the jumper and tee shirt I had picked out and made a face in the mirror, turning to look at Jess. “What’s wrong with this?” Jess looked me over from head to toe.
“Nothing, if you want everyone to think you’re a nun.”
I sighed. Glancing at my reflection, I could kind of see her point.
“Well, it’s not even like I wanted to go to the party in the first place,” I said, hearing the whining note in my own voice and not caring. “The only reason I am going is because you want to go and you’re smart enough not to go by yourself.”
Jess shook her head, sighing in exasperation.
“You’ve been here almost half a semester and you haven’t been to a single party! Come on, Evelyn, even bookworms like you deserve some fun every now and then.”
I cringed, giving Jess an unhappy look for the ‘bookworm’ remark. It wasn’t that I loved studying more than I liked socializing; I was paying my own way through college, cobbling together academic scholarships, and applying for all the grant money I could get my hands on. All of that money would disappear in a heartbeat if I didn’t pay attention to my grades. On top of that, working out my own way through college made it important to me to not have to repeat any classes; those extra courses would come straight out of my own savings.
Jess smiled playfully at me, coming into the room and opening up my closet door. “Evie, you know you are capable of being drop dead gorgeous. I can’t be seen with some frumpy librarian!” I shook my head as Jess pulled out the skimpiest skirt I owned—it barely covered my ass—and a low-cut top to go with it.
When I had been a senior in high school, my spot at the college a sure thing, I had sort of dipped my toe into going to parties; I’d gone to a few, when I didn’t have to work at the movie theater and my friends and I had a good enough time, but it always seemed like everyone just got bombed out of their minds and passed out or threw up. I had seen enough people staggering into the dining hall on weekend mornings since I’d started at college to know that campus parties weren’t that different.
But I had agreed to go with Jess, and I told myself as I slithered into the skirt and top that I was going to make the best of it. I’d have a couple of drinks—not enough to get blasted, but enough to enjoy myself—and keep an eye out for Jess. At least it would be a break from constant studying or binge-watching TV shows on my computer.
The party that Jess was taking me to was at a frat house; the Phi Alpha Kappa fraternity had a bad reputation on campus, going by the nickname “bad boy frat.” I knew from what I’d heard that they had nearly gotten their credentials taken away several times in the last ten years, mostly for their over-the-top pranks and the intensity of their parties—and the property damage that came along with them. If I was going to go to my first party as a college student, it was both a good introduction and a scary prospect.
Jess left me to finish getting ready herself and I pulled my long, dark brown hair back and braided it to keep it out of my face. I put on some makeup and stepped into a pair of pumps, making a face at my feet. They’d be killing me by the end of the night, but Jess couldn’t possibly have anything bad to say about them—they were certainly sexy. I grabbed my purse and looked around for my keys.
“Evie, aren’t you ready yet?” Jess
called from the common area of our dorm room.
I sighed and spotted a pair of ballet flats I’d thrown across my floor when I came in arguing with Jess about whether or not I would go with her to the party. I slipped the shoes into my big purse, grabbed my keys, and took a deep breath. I told myself that the night couldn’t possibly be as bad as I was thinking it would be. It would just be a few drinks, and a few laughs, and then I would be back in my room. How bad could it possibly be?
We walked across campus to where the party was going on; Jess told me she’d slipped a pair of flats into her own purse as well—and as a ‘just in case,’ she had a spare dress stuffed into her bag. “I am well-versed in avoiding a real walk of shame,” she said to me with a grin. “Change into another dress and a pair of flats and no one really knows you spent the night somewhere.”
I had to admit that she wasn’t entirely wrong; however, people would still see you leaving the frat house the next day. I pointed that out to her.
“Well, you kinda lie low until you get to a more common part of campus and then you walk tall. People think you’re coming from the library or one of the labs.”
She shrugged. “You’re putting way too much thought into something that shouldn’t be that common a situation,” I told Jess with a grin.
“Yeah, well, some of us go to parties more often than once a semester.”
I rolled my eyes. “Some of us are serious about getting a good job after graduation.”
Jess twisted her face into a wry grin. “Evie, you need to lighten up a bit! Jeez, you could still make A’s without using your weekends to study, too. These are supposed to be the best years of your life, and what are you doing with them?”
I shrugged. “Learning. Putting them to good use so that when I’m 50 I’m not still scraping by on the same job I got when I was 30.”
Jess shrugged. “All work and no play makes Evelyn a dull girl. I know you have it in you!”
We got to the enormous building that served as the frat house, and before we’d even gotten to the door, I could already hear the pounding bass of the music. The front lawn was empty of all but a few people, but I knew from what I’d heard that the back yard, with its swimming pool, would be thronged—as would the frat house itself. Jess didn’t bother knocking—it was too loud to hear it anyway. She just opened the door and I caught a whiff of beer, pot, sweat, and a little vomit; the tell-tale signs of a raging party.
There was a guy in a toga hanging out by the door, and he grinned at us as soon as we walked in. “Hey, welcome to Phi Alpha Kappa! You Greek?”
“Nah, we’re just here to use you for free alcohol,” Jess said with a grin. The guy shrugged.
“Hey, no problem there. As a token of our hospitality, allow me to offer you beautiful ladies some initial refreshments.”
The guy produced two red Solo cups of beer and held them out to us. I had never been a big fan of beer—and the kind of beer that showed up at parties like this was even worse than my dad’s treasured Sam Adams. I started to say I’d rather not.
“Evie, take the cup!” Jess grabbed the other one, shooting me a grin. “Come on, you’re here to have fun. Lighten up, will you?”
Jess grabbed the other cup, put it in my hand, and pulled me away from the doorway. I sipped at the beer and made a face as I swallowed. It was watery and bitter—no good flavor at all. Jess took a long drink of her own cup and I wondered how she could gulp down such swill. Maybe if I was lucky the liquor would still be out; I could handle some punch or some vodka and soda.
We turned a corner and all at once I spotted him. He was leaning against a wall, a couple of girls around him, looking just as hot as I could have ever remembered. Zack was tall and lean, not skinny, and he had plenty of muscle to show for years of playing football and training. He was wearing a toga, like all of the members of the frat, but draped around his waist and shoulders the sheet didn’t look ridiculous—it looked, inexplicably, incredibly hot. For a moment I was frozen in my tracks; it had been over a year since I had even seen Zack, and even though I had known he’d gone to the same college, I didn’t really think I’d ever see him. With thousands of students, what were the odds?
I couldn’t help but stare—I knew it was stupid and I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help the rush of feelings that just seeing him gave me. Zack and I had dated in high school; he had been a junior when I was a freshman and my mom had started getting sick about the time that he and I began seeing each other. We were together for two years, until the beginning of my junior year—when Zack had graduated and was planning on going off to college. It had taken me a year and a half to get over him; I mean, it was a good experience all told, and I knew I was stronger for having gotten over it at my own speed, but the sight of him, out of the blue, brought me back to all the feelings I’d had for him. He was my first.
“Hey, Evie, you okay?” Jess’s voice snapped me out of my trance and I smiled, taking a deep breath and looking away from Zack.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Go on and find whoever you were looking to hook up with. I’ll just hang out.”
Jess looked at me for a second longer like she might not quite believe me, but Jess has never been the kind to worry for too long; she downed the rest of her beer and started off through the crowds, looking around her and greeting everyone she ran into that she might actually know.
I tried to move away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was to see Zack again. I sort of stuck around in the middle of the room, not exactly looking at him, but pretending to be part of the group around me, like I was listening to whatever story the guy in the middle of the group was telling; but the whole time I was thinking about how things had been with Zack: how much I had loved him, and how important he’d been to me when my mom had first gotten sick. He had been a really great guy—funny, charming, smart. I couldn’t pretend like we’d had some deep relationship that was more mature than our years, but he’d been around for me when I was more stressed out than I had thought I could ever be in my life. He had hung out with me in the middle of the night, sneaking into my room while my parents slept to comfort me.
In retrospect, he hadn’t been the greatest guy in the world, but I knew well enough by then that no guy really was. He’d been immature and had broken things off with me mostly because he had wanted to be free to date whoever he wanted in college—right when things with my mom were starting to get worse. I couldn’t hold it against him specifically for that reason; it wasn’t his fault that my mom’s cancer treatment was starting to become a steep, uphill climb instead of the easy walk through the woods they had told us it would be. I’d gone out on dates and had a few short relationships after Zack had gone off to college, and I had gotten over him. But part of me had always wondered how different it would be if he had at least given us a chance when he started college.
Of course, I thought to myself wryly, I now knew well enough that even if Zack hadn’t been the partying type, college was a lot more demanding than high school. He would have had a lot less time for me, and the college wasn’t exactly close to our home town. He would have only been able to see me, at most, a couple of times a month and during breaks. Would that have been enough for me, anyway? Would I have just broken up with him eventually as my life became more and more dominated with the need to study to make good grades and spend every moment I could with my mom? It still stung. It had been hard to get over him.
I decided that I wouldn’t even say hello. I wasn’t angry or anything; I just told myself I didn’t need that kind of awkwardness on the one night I’d given myself to have fun. I’d check out what was going on around the frat house, maybe find some people worth talking to, and I’d catch up with Jess later when it was time to go. It didn’t exactly bother me that Zack was there—he clearly belonged to the frat and it wasn’t as though he needed my permission to be at a party I was attending. He had probably gone to Phi Alpha Kappa’s events since he had first started; he had joined up, and he’d be at al
most any of the parties the frat threw. I just didn’t particularly want to be seen staring at him, and I knew that if I stuck around I’d do just that.
I glanced in Zack’s direction one last time, telling myself that I was just making sure of where he was so I could avoid him. But luck was not on my side; he happened to look at me the very instant I looked at him. My face burned and I knew I was blushing bright red under my makeup—obviously embarrassed. I took a deep breath, plastered a quick smile on my face. Zack’s eyes widened and I fought back the urge to run away as he said something to the girls who were gathered around him and then moved away from the wall.
He cut through the crowd, dodging the lurching, drunken people and then, as the crowd began to clear, I swear he strutted—there was a definite swagger in his steps—as he came towards me, the last few feet from where he had been standing. “Evie!” he said, smiling down at me. His teeth flashed white in the weirdly dim light of the frat house, and I returned his smile nervously.
“Hey, Zack,” I said, not trusting myself to say anything more. I realized I was staring like an idiot and shook my head. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Zack laughed, pulling me aside to a slightly quieter part of the main room.
“I definitely didn’t expect to see you either—I didn’t even know you were going here.” His dark eyes glinted and he grinned again. “You looked like you’ve seen one of the professors downing a shot just now!”
I laughed, feeling the tension in my stomach starting to ease.
“That would really be something,” I agreed.
Zack reached out and pushed a strand of my hair out of my face and I wondered just how messy it was—if I looked like a total wreck in spite of Jess’s approval when we left the dorms.
“Oh, well, you know, Carmine comes by sometimes and gets into the whiskey, so maybe you’ll see that sight sometime.”
Professor Carmine, one of the math professors, was almost a joke among the students; he had made at least one final in the last year a take-home test at the last moment because he had shown up for the exam with only twenty minutes left, hung over from a night of partying. More than one of the students in my classes had stories about running into Carmine at one bar or another in the area; he lived right across the street from the college, and there were plenty of places to drink within relatively easy walking distance of the campus.