A Wild Wonderland

by Weston Parker

  So, I decided to try a different tactic. “I know they aren’t always the best behaved. Some of their bad decisions are why we’re even in this mess after all. But you have to admit all of them are well above the academic standards of this college, and our house has never specifically been in trouble before. They’re young, and they’re brash, but they’re good men. It’s not like we don’t do good work ourselves. Last year’s kissing booth at the spring festival netted five hundred dollars for cancer awareness.”

  Surprisingly, the woman reached out to pat my shoulder as if she was an aunt or some other form of feminine relative. It wasn’t quite condescending, but it sure as hell wasn’t comforting either. I would have shrugged her off if I didn’t think it would sour her toward me more than she already was. Man, I wished I could go back in time and knock some sense into the stupid trio who got us into this mess.

  “Ms. Martin doesn’t hate all men.” The woman answered with only the slightest hint of warmth in her voice. Oh, was that supposed to make me feel better?

  “Is it something I did?” I asked incredulously.

  Dean Kline shook her head, her smile growing ever so imperceptibly. “No, not at all. She just happens to hold a grudge against fraternities in general.” I groaned, and that seemed to amuse her even more. How was I supposed to work with someone who hated my guts for such an arbitrary reason?

  “Don’t worry. It’s only two weeks,” the dean continued. “What’s the worst that can happen? Concerned the big, strong, dangerous girl who runs the toy drive is gonna beat you up?”

  I didn’t appreciate her teasing, and I found myself gritting my teeth once more. I normally had such an easy time with the ladies. Why was I suddenly struggling so much with both of these women?

  “I wish you the best, Mr. Keller, but I must be going. I’m sure you’ll do your best and absolutely blow Ms. Martin away. I look forward to hearing how you’ve changed her mind.”

  With that, the woman turned around and continued on the path she had originally been heading down. I could only stare at her in utter dismay and frustration, watching until she disappeared through a set of doors.

  Sighing, I turned back to my men who were waiting patiently at a distance. That was one thing I loved about my guys. They seemed to be able to tell when I needed privacy and when I needed a posse for back up.

  A flash of red caught my eye, and I spotted none other than Hailey Martin herself, watching me from across the quad at our agreed meeting place. I braced myself as best I could and then walked over to her.

  I took my time, letting her tiny frame lose all its heat in the biting cold. I screwed my nicest smile into place, but when I finally did reach her, she was pretty much vibrating with unchecked anger. Who knew so much vehemence could be packed into such a small body?

  Withholding a sigh, I wondered what the hell I could have possibly done wrong now.

  Chapter 6

  Hailey

  Words danced on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them repeatedly. I wanted to ask the man what the hell he had been talking about so emphatically with the dean, but it really was none of my business.

  I quickly donned my professional face and pushed all my questions and wondering out of my head. I was supposed to hate him, not be pondering about his day to day conversations with people we mutually knew. Besides, it was probably boring fraternity stuff that would only irritate me even more.

  “Shall we get started?” I asked as pleasantly as I could.

  “Lead the way.” He answered, his polite tone sounding both strained and painful for him to keep up. At least he tried.

  I turned and headed straight for the headquarters for our charity. It was in the southern wing of the student alumni union where several rooms were reserved for our needs. We had our receiving room that held our new inventory, our sorted inventory room, a break room, and then finally, the room where the magic happened, the celebration room.

  I couldn’t help but smile at thinking about my most favorite of places. The celebration room was the place that we decorated to the hilt, complete with a Christmas tree and a boatload of tinsel. We would place the presents, some wrapped and some not, all around the room with plenty of my volunteers waiting to replace them as they found their new forever-homes.

  I felt warmth spread through me as I recalled some of my fondest memories. I almost dreaded bringing these men into my happiest of places, but I supposed I didn’t have much of a choice.

  At least they didn’t have any wisecracks as I showed them around the place. In fact, they were incredibly respectful.

  So naturally, I decided to put them to the worst tasks. Three of them were on untangling Christmas lights for the celebration room, three of them were on general cleanup duty, and the rest were on retaking inventory.

  Surprisingly, they all listened and did as I asked without complaint. In fact, Brayden seemed to be working the hardest. He drifted from group to group, making sure everyone kept in line, and helping wherever he was needed.

  It was at about one hour in that Melina, my roommate and fellow charity enthusiast, came rushing in with our school-approved debit card. “I’ve got the money!” She announced, clearly not realizing I wasn’t alone. “We can go print off the flyers in the library now. I budgeted for two hundred.” She just noticed the assortment of men gathered around and blushed. “Oh. Um, hi.”

  As amusing as it would have been to watch her flounder, I quickly stepped out from behind one of the frat boys and gave her a little wave. “Over here.”

  “Oh, hi,” she quickly strode over to me and whispered in my ear. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you,” I answered honestly. “You’ve been out of town with family. But these are the men of Alpha Kappa Psi, and their entire fraternity has offered to help us this year.”

  Her eyes went wide, clearly feeling some of the revulsion that I did. “Are you serious?”

  “I am.” A brilliant idea came to me, and I thought of a perfect way to get the ever-watching leader out of my hair. “Why don’t you take Brayden to the library and show him how to use our charity account. Come back here with some fliers, and I’ll have the guys take turns passing them out and posting them across campus.”

  “And the town,” Melina offered helpfully.

  “Yes. And the town.”

  “Okay. I’ll head out now, then, since I’m all bundled up. And which one of you is this Brayden?”

  “That’d be me.” The president said, already putting on his coat. It seemed he was as relieved at the idea of a little space.

  “Oh, nice to meet you, Brayden. I’m Melina.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” he said as he reached her, and the smile on his face could just about melt steel beams. “Shall we head out?”

  I watched as my roommate’s face flushed in real time, and the two quickly exited. I couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief and went about putting together a to-do list for the day.

  The boys all continued their tasks even without their president’s watchful eye, which impressed me quite a bit. I guessed they weren’t as bad as I had thought they were. But could anyone blame me? Frats had a reputation for a reason. They were a bunch of rich boys and bullies who were used to society going their way.

  I shook my head, sticking my tongue out as I did. If I kept thinking about everything I hated about the Greek row, I was going to put myself in a pissy mood, and I had finally gotten into a good one.

  I kept myself busy until Melina and Brayden came back, the man’s arm loaded with a towering stack of papers.

  “We did it,” she announced chipperly, a blush still about her cheeks. Poor, naïve girl. She didn’t know any better than to be pleased with the attention of a handsome man. That was her flaw, I guessed. She was entirely too trusting.

  “Thanks,” I said, flashing her a smile. “Um, Jake, Noah, Micah, and Shawn, do you mind going out to place these at hangout spots around campus and pass them to
people walking by?” The four nodded, each of them taking a chunk from Brayden until he was left with nothing. Their expressions seemed like they were surprised I had remembered their names, but learning people’s monikers was the easiest way to stay organized.

  “Perfect, thank you. Now Melina, John, and Chris, I would greatly appreciate if you guys focused on calling the local businesses about collection boxes. Especially the diners.”

  “Not the bars?” one of the boys asked. Jason, I was fairly sure. “Seems like those get pretty busy around now.”

  “We prefer to avoid giving children gifts that smell like alcohol. Also, we did try bars our first year only to end up with some inebriated sophomore pissing all over the stuffed animals.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I do thank you for your suggestion.” I gave them all an affirmative nod and put my hands on my hips. “So, since we all have our tasks set out, let’s all get back to work. We’ve got a limited amount of time and a whole bunch of kids to make happy.

  We all got down to business, and the time really started to fly by. Before I knew it, my alarm was going off, notating the four-hour mark. Originally, I had been so sure the frat boys were going to be an abysmal failure that I hadn’t foreseen being able to tolerate them more than that short of a time span. Now I found myself regretting it. We could have gotten so much more work done if I’d told them six or even eight hours.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t like I could keep them there, so I didn’t object when they all started to file out, Brayden bringing up their rear. Melina waved giddily as they left, but I remained passive with my arms crossed.

  It wasn’t until the last one was out of my sight that I packed up, so we could head back home. As much as I loved Melina, I found her grating on my nerves the moment we stepped out of the building. She was going on and on and on about one of the boys. Jake, I thought, but I was only half listening. Sure, this wasn’t the last time the sweet girl had gone gaga over a pretty boy, and it certainly wasn’t going to be the last, but her talking about one of the frat boys made me think about Brayden, and he was the last thing I wanted on my mind.

  And yet, my mind kept bringing him up. Whether it was the stubble across his defined chin or his piercing eyes that watched me as if I was some sort of oddity in a zoo. From his built frame to those lips that looked like they were just begging to-

  No, you stop that right now. I hissed inwardly to myself. His stare was unnerving, not alluring. Apparently, I wasn’t being rude enough for him to completely dismiss me as a female.

  I guessed I would have to try harder.

  Chapter 7

  Brayden

  I finished the last sentence of my paper and heaved a huge sigh of relief. Double-checking it for any typos or grammatical errors, I quickly hit save and then sent it off to my professor.

  It was a pretty big weight off my chest, considering it was my penultimate paper for the class. I rolled my eyes as I could practically hear Hailey lecturing me that penultimate meant the second to last, and that alone sent my wood spiraling into oblivion. I was spending far too much time thinking about the obnoxious woman, but what could I say? She had gotten under my skin and then some.

  I checked my phone, hoping for some sort of distraction, and decided I deserved some good old-fashioned celebration. Nothing a draft beer and a pretty transfer student I had never met before and wouldn’t see again couldn’t fix.

  Whistling to myself, I bundled myself up and headed out.

  My phone buzzed almost the instant my foot was on the pavement. Giving it a glance, I noticed it was an email from none other than little Ms. Too-Good-For-Me herself. I couldn’t wait to see what thinly veiled insult she had for me this time.

  Quickly I opened it up and saw that she was hitting up local pubs and businesses to ask them for extra boxes. Apparently, the local grocer she had previously worked with had gone out of business. Sad, really.

  But hey, at least I had a way to kill two birds with one stone.

  I quickly headed to the bar she mentioned, one of my favorite establishments to hit toward the end of a good beer crawl. Thankfully, despite Boston being a sprawling city, there was a good number of places to get boozed up on the cheap that were close by, so after walking to my truck, it only took me about five minutes to drive there.

  I could have walked, but doing so in the cold seemed like a shit idea. Plus, if we wanted to haul boxes, I couldn’t think of a better way to shorten the process en masse than using the back of my truck. She was a faithful, loyal piece of work and never had a problem getting me from point A to point B.

  Of course, there was always the matter of parking, and that slowed me down quite a bit. But after about ten minutes, I found a spot nearby that I could fit my truck into around the back of the building, and I threw it into park.

  I walked into the bar, shaking off the cold of the wind outside and glancing around the room. My eyes found Hailey instantly, her short stature combined with her fire red hair sticking out vibrantly against her pale blue coat made her quite easy to spot. However, it looked like she wasn’t alone.

  There was a man with her, college-age but at least a junior or higher. He was fairly lithe but not overly skinny, making me guess he was either on the swim or track team. It didn’t take me more than a second to figure out she was trying to get the male to leave her alone, so I quickly walked over and swung my arm around her shoulders.

  It was so easy to press her small but womanly form against my side. I fixed what I hoped was a lovey-dovey smile on my face and gave her a familiar squeeze.

  “Hey, darling, sorry I’m late!”

  The man looked from me back to her, and I could feel the petite woman sag with relief into my form. Maybe I would seem like less of a bad guy to her now. That would be nice.

  “Sorry,” he grumbled before walking off, seemingly pouting. What a little brat.

  “Thank you,” Hailey breathed, pulling away from my side but not with the vehemence I had expected. “He would not take no for an answer.”

  “They never do, do they?” She looked surprised at my comment, and I shrugged. “Men like him make it harder for people like me.”

  “People like you? What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means exactly what it sounds like. I prefer my partners to be willing and enthusiastic. He just wants a partner period. Unfortunate.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were such a champion of consent.”

  I gave her a wary look. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Do I really need to explain this?”

  I let out a growl of frustration and grabbed her arm, hauling her out of the bar.

  “Ow! What the hell.”

  “Enough is enough,” I spat, letting go as soon as we were outside. “I just helped you out there, and I didn’t have to. If you’re going to ask me to come help you haul boxes, you could at least try to be a little bit polite about it.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m not throwing myself at your feet for being a decent human being. Would you like a cookie? Because I’m fresh out.”

  “Dude, I have been doing the best by you! What is it going to take for you to stop disliking me so much?”

  Her face turned bright red, and I could see the anger rushing behind her eyes. “That’s the issue, you sanctimonious bastard. I do like you!”

  She gasped instantly, and her hand clapped over her mouth. Her eyes went wide in horror, but my mind was already quickly wrapping itself around what she had said.

  She liked me? What? That wasn’t possible!

  And yet I was already moving toward her, my body making a decision that my mind hadn’t yet. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her to me, and before I knew it, she was wrapping her legs around my waist so that our faces were level.

  God, she really was beautiful. Her cute freckles and somewhat rounded cheeks stood in stark contrast to her pointed chin and catlike eyes. A man on a mission, I carried her around the back to my truck.


  I wasn’t sure how I did it, but I managed to unlock the vehicle and slide the both of us in. Putting the seat back a little, she fit perfectly in my lap. I hesitated a moment, wanting to make sure that she wanted this as much as I did. Hailey was breathing hard, and her eyes were looking at me like there were a thousand and one things she wanted to say, but she couldn’t find the right words.

  Before I could question it, before I could lose my gall, my two large hands cupped her face, and then we were kissing.

  A million years could pass, and I would never forget the feeling of our lips touching for the first time. It was exhilarating, more than it had any right to be, but I didn’t want to question it. I didn’t want to do anything to possibly break the moment between us.

  Because, with the way life was going, I could certainly use the paradise currently sitting in my lap.

  Our lips and tongues worked against each other, figuring each other out. It was a stark difference to how most of our interactions worked out, but I more than welcomed the change. I just hoped that she was enjoying it at least half as much as I did.

  Chapter 8

  Hailey

  My mind was completely and totally in shock. I couldn’t believe I was kissing Brayden Keller, President of Alpha Kappa Psi and all-around pain in my ass. I shouldn’t, I knew that. I should slide out of his truck and forget this ever happened.

  But holy hell, I didn’t want it to stop. His mouth felt like fire on my mouth, and I was more alive than I had been in ages. It was just stupid kissing, and yet it felt like so much more. Every cell in me was electrified as if someone had plugged me into a socket, and I was absolutely living for it.

  I pushed into him, chest against chest, demanding more, more, more. I wanted to feel as much of him pressed against me as possible, but I also wanted to never move from this spot and to stay rooted in each other’s presence. He brought out feelings and sensations that I had always thought I was far too busy for, ones I had considered wastes of time or something I could indulge in later when I was successful.