In Pieces, page 3
Chapter Three
Beth
There are throngs of people outside of the frat house, a small crowd slowly but surely funneling its way up the walkway and into the party David finally convinced me to come to.
But the more I think about it—and his new tattoo—the more I think he’s right. Part of why I chose to go away to school despite my parents all but begging me to commute was to prove to them and Sammy—and maybe even to myself—that I’m not the same broken girl I was three years ago. That I’m ready for this. Adulthood. Independence. All of it. And like David said—like his bicep will forever say—there are more things in heaven and earth…
It takes a full five minutes before Lani and I are even on the steps of the front porch.
“Ten dollars each,” some faceless frat boy tells the group in front of us. He’s a walking cliché, with his jeans, polo shirt, and RRU baseball cap.
“I can’t believe we have to pay to get in here,” I murmur to Lani, and we both hastily rummage through our bags and pull together twenty dollars. Lucky, since I don’t often carry cash, it being 2017 and all.
The group in front of us is allowed through the door and we walk up next. Faceless frat boy does in fact have a face, it turns out. And it’s actually a pretty handsome face. He is the epitome of All-American with his blond hair and blue eyes, but he reminds me of Brian, and I find it a little irksome.
“Well hello there, beautiful girls,” Frat Boy smiles wryly.
Okay, flirting. I remember how to do this, right? “Uh…hi.” Apparently not.
“Hi handsome, this your house?” Thank God for Lani.
His smirk widens. “Sure is. Are you freshmen or transfers? Because I definitely would have remembered seeing you before.”
“Freshmen,” we say in unison, and I wince.
But Frat Boy chuckles. “Welcome to Rill Rock. Hope to see more of you.” He looks between the two of us like he hasn’t decided which one he finds more interesting, but I doubt he cares. It’s early days, and we are fresh meat.
“Um, it’s ten dollars, right?” I murmur.
Another chuckle. “For some people, yeah. Not for beautiful girls, though. Put your money away.” His stare slithers down my body in a way that makes me shudder, and I peek over at Lani. But her smile is pleased and inviting, and directed squarely at Frat Boy.
“I’m Drew.” His gaze lands on me as he holds out his hand.
I shakily slip mine in for a shake, but he kisses my knuckles instead. “Beth Caplan.”
He drops my hand like it’s on fire and I startle. He abandons the flirtation, his smirk rebounding into a cordial smile. “Go on in. Nice to meet you.”
I roll my eyes and start in through the open door.
“Your bodyguard is really starting to cramp my style,” Lani grumbles.
I wonder if David warned the entire party about hitting on me, or just his frat brothers. It’s irrational—I know I should probably be grateful, considering I have zero interest in dating right now—but still, it bugs me. Because it isn’t my disinterest that motivated him. It’s that he still sees me as a child. Imagine if he knew about my suicide attempt? He’d probably cover me in freaking bubble wrap and write “delicate” across my ass in black Sharpie.
The party is packed, and people toss drinks down their throats faster than they can refill their cups. Everyone seems to know each other, and I start to gather that we may be two of the only freshmen here. Some guy offers Lani and me drinks, but I stop her before she can accept. I know better than to take a drink from a stranger, and I tell him that we’ll make our way to the keg ourselves.
“There she is,” David’s voice drawls from behind me.
I turn to face him and he falters for a strange moment. Of course, this has got to be weird for him, too—seeing me here, in his frat house, all done up and in a dress.
“Let me get you guys drinks,” he says, recovering.
Minutes later we’re being introduced to crowd after crowd, drinks in hand, but I do note the guys are exceptionally disinterested. Lani grows increasingly discouraged as the night wears on, and eventually she gets tired of her boy-repellant roommate, and excuses herself to see what kind of trouble she can find.
While the guys work hard to discredit every frat-boy stereotype ever portrayed, at least every time they get within five feet of me—an act that would be far more encouraging if it were earnest and not, in fact, an act—the girls, on the other hand, are walking clichés. They don’t seem remotely daunted by the fact that David has a girl on his arm, ostensibly at least. I mean, they don’t know me. They don’t know I’m not his date, right?
Of course, it’s possible that they know David, or know his reputation well enough to assume that even if I were his date, it wouldn’t make him any less available. It irritates me, and I shrug his arm from around my shoulders, masking it by stepping the few feet back to the keg to refill my cup.
It takes less than a minute, and by the time I turn around to make my way back to him, another lioness has moved in on my territory.
Not your territory, Beth, I reluctantly remind myself. It’s a familiar message, and you’d think that all these years of repetition might actually get it through my head.
I hang back, watching her overt flirting, watching David fall so naturally into his role in this little game. He was made for it. Hitting on girls, getting laid. My chest echoes with a timeworn ache.
Well, I don’t have to watch him in action.
I’m about to turn around and go find Lani when he spots me, and before I can make my escape, his huge palm closes around my shoulder, as if he knows I’m about to flee.
“Beth, come meet Liz. She’s in SDG, our sister sorority.”
Liz’s smile stretches wide, revealing a mouth full of unnaturally whitened teeth, framed by scarlet lips that match her nails. “Nice to meet you,” she sings, but I suspect she’s less than thrilled about adding another girl to the equation.
I murmur a cursory greeting. I’m not great at conversation, especially small talk with strangers. It doesn’t help that David’s hand hasn’t left my shoulder, and I try to focus on the tail end of whatever this girl who wants to sleep with him is saying, instead of the way his contact sears my skin.
“I don’t think that’s really Beth’s thing,” David murmurs, and I blink at him, mortified that I have no idea what was even said.
But David rescues me. “Sororities aren’t for everyone,” he says. “Rush starts next week,” he explains.
“Oh—uh, yeah,” I agree.
Liz doesn’t respond. The way she looks at me has unease rising in my belly—like she’s sizing up the competition or something. Well, the joke’s on her, because that’s the last thing I am. I am the girl-next-door to her vixen, the kid sister to her one-night stand. But that’s fine. In all of my fantasies of David, I never once imagined myself as some one-night stand. No, I wanted to be more than that, and that’s something this girl will never be.
“So, Beth,” she says, “is that your full name? Or is it Elizabeth?”
“Oh. Um, it’s Elizabeth. But no one ever calls me that.” It’s not that I didn’t know Liz is short for Elizabeth; it’s just that I haven’t enough interest in her to care.
“How funny,” she coos, though I don’t know why. It’s not exactly an uncommon name.
My smile is forced and, I suspect, only marginally convincing.
David’s hand squeezes my shoulder in encouragement, or camaraderie. He may want to fuck her—hell, for all I know he already has—but he doesn’t think much more of her than I do. I know him well enough to know that.
“You know, my mom once told me they’d considered calling me Beth. You know, as a nickname. But she said it was too…” Liz searches for the word, waving her hand in practiced nonchalance. “You know—like for a little girl. Childish. And she knew it would stick, so she went with Lizzie, knowing that as I grew up it could easily be shortened to Liz.” She laughs dismissively, flipping her long, black hair, as if it’s all just good fun. Like she didn’t just insult my name. It’s calculated, and I see right through it.
Yeah, this is why I don’t like people.
“Beth isn’t childish,” David interrupts before I can even work my way up to a response.
Liz’s eyes go wide—fake—as if she’s been misunderstood. Bullshit. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean she’s childish. I was talking about nicknames and—”
“No. The name. Beth. It isn’t childish.” David’s voice strengthens as he loses his patience.
Liz waves her hand again. “Of course not. I was just saying my mother—well, you know, it doesn’t really matter. She just preferred the name Liz. It was her hang-up. She went to school with some girl they nicknamed Bad-Breath Beth, and I guess—”
“That’s so funny,” David cuts her off. “My mom went to school with some bitch named Liz they nicknamed Lizard. On account of her reptilian personality.”
Liz’s mouth gapes and her eyes narrow. I chew on my bottom lip to fight a smile, clamping down the giggle trying to burrow its way out.
Liz pretends she doesn’t realize David’s dig was personal. Instead, she changes the subject, but if David was open to her advances before, he obviously wants nothing to do with her now. That’s one thing about these boys—my brother and his brothers. They like their fun, but fuck with one of their own and they close ranks like SEAL Team Six.
And I am one of their own.
* * *
Eventually, David’s frat brother Reeve emerges from the basement door like he’s only even mildly aware there’s a party going on at his frat house, and he gives exactly no fucks about it one way or the other. He’s David’s closest friend here at school, and idly I wonder how you become close to someone who seems so unapologetically closed off. Reeve forgoes the keg, retrieving a bottle of Scotch from some cabinet in the kitchen island, and drinks from it straight.
I’ve met him a couple of times before, but I can never quite get a read on him, and it’s a little unnerving. There’s something dark about him, and even when he’s partying with his friends—his brothers—he never seems sincerely happy. He doesn’t talk much, and I’ve never seen him flirt with girls, or do anything really, other than drink a hell of a lot of whiskey and keep to himself. But he’s been nice enough to me so far, so I suppose I should probably just mind my own business when it comes to him. And other than my small smile to acknowledge his nod—the extent of his greeting as he passes—that’s exactly what I do.
I sip drink after drink, slowly at first, until I lose count of how many I’ve had. The guys continue to treat me like I’m contagious or something, and David barely leaves my side all night, which I find both appealing and frustrating.
“You don’t have to babysit me, you know.”
His eyebrows raise. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“Isn’t it?” I accuse.
He doesn’t respond, and I follow him as he heads toward the kitchen.
“I invited you, Bea. Did it ever occur to you that it’s not babysitting if I enjoy your company?” He elbows me playfully and I struggle not to succumb to his charm.
“You warned all of your friends to stay away from me, and you haven’t taken your damned eyes off me all night.”
I vaguely catch him muttering “no fucking kidding” under his breath.
“What?”
He glares at me for a beat, his expression inscrutable, before he sighs and gestures around the room. “Neither has any other guy here.”
I roll my eyes. Here we go with the paranoid, overprotective bullshit…
“And I didn’t tell anyone to stay away from you.”
I shoot him a skeptical look.
“I told them to respect you. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I grumble.
“Come on, kid, these guys are looking for a hookup. ’The fuck do you need some guy trying to get you drunk and drag you to his bedroom for? ’The fuck do I need that for? To get into a fight with my frat brothers? Nah. It’s better that they’re warned.”
Frustration mixes with alcohol, surging through my inebriated body. “I’m not a kid!” I growl. “And you know what? It’s not about what I need or don’t need. And it’s definitely not about you, David. The point is I can handle myself without a fake fucking big brother making sure there’s nothing to handle!”
I stomp off, much like the kid I just swore I wasn’t. But what the actual hell? He wanted me to have some fun—to experience the social side of college, right? So here I am, and he’s put me in a figurative fucking bubble.
I hear him call after me, and even though he’s calling me Bea and not kid—even though it makes me want to turn back, I don’t. I head around a bend and spot Lani talking closely with a tall, dark, and very good-looking guy in a David Wright jersey. My kind of guy.
I wouldn’t interrupt them, but some other guy does it first, joining in on their conversation, so I do the same. Lani introduces me to her new friend Derek, who’s about two full heads taller than her and plays on our school’s baseball team. His skin is a deep mahogany that makes his unusual honey eyes stand out even more. The friend who interrupted them is Sal. He’s a more average height, but also pretty damned handsome, and I start to wonder if exceptional good looks are a prerequisite to pledge BEG.
“I’m Lani.” She introduces herself to Sal. “And this is my roommate—”
“Bea.”
Sal rakes me purposefully—almost predatorily—with his gaze. I don’t appreciate it, but it doesn’t especially bother me, either. Like I told David, I can handle it. Guys flirting blatantly in search of a one-night stand are not the danger. At least not to me. The danger lies in those who promise more.
“Bea.” Sal purposefully smoothes his voice. “That’s a pretty name.”
I fight an eye roll. Original. “Uh, thanks.”
“So, you’re a freshman?”
“Yep.”
“If you ever need someone to show you around campus—”
“She already has a fucking tour guide, Salvatore, thanks. And her name is Beth,” David interrupts from behind me. Sal’s face registers instant recognition. Great.
I huff and start walking away, but David grabs my elbow. “Bea, what the fuck?”
Oh, so he can call me Bea. “What?” I snap.
“What? How about Salvatore Tinelli is a fucking douche bag who likes to sleep with girls and then hide articles of their clothing just to make them endure public walks of shame.”
My stomach rolls with revulsion. What an asshat. But again—not the point. “I’m not a kid. I can take care of myself,” I remind David. As if I would sleep with that guy even if he weren’t a douche bag. I don’t even know him. We were just talking, for God fucking sake!
“Yeah, Bea, I know that.”
That shuts me up.
David shoves his hand through his hair and sighs. “I’m not underestimating you, okay? I know you can take care of yourself. Any girl worth shit can. But you know what? Any guy worth shit looks out for her anyway,” he growls.
I drop my gaze. How can I argue with that?
Suddenly David’s eyes dart over my shoulder, and he tenses, his face going pale in an instant. I try to turn to see what’s irked him, but he grabs my shoulders and tugs me back around the bend, angling me so he’s effectively blocking my line of sight.
What the fuck?
“Beth, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to stay here for a few minutes, in this exact spot.”
“What—”
“Please. I’m asking you to do this for me.” His hazel eyes implore me desperately, and it’s deeply out of character. “Bea, please?”
My mouth gapes open, and I think I’m more stunned by his plea than his reaction to whatever’s got him all worked up. But before I can even respond, he squeezes my shoulders to emphasize his request—stay—and then he’s gone.
I look around from my time-out corner, infinitely puzzled. What the hell is going on? Is David in trouble?
My heart races in concern. I don’t really know him in this world, but back when they were in high school, he and his friends, including my brother—especially my brother—definitely threw their share of fists. I wince when I remember David walking into our house with Sammy and Tucker hot on his heels, six pairs of knuckles swollen and bloody just days after Brian broke up with me.
Brian didn’t show up to school for over a week.
I shift in place, tapping my fingers on my opposite elbow with impatience. It’s not like me to hang back on the sidelines, or to do what I’m told without challenge. But the way he asked me to stay here…
Suddenly there’s shouting in the distance.
I hesitate briefly, but even David’s desperate plea can’t change my nature, and I abandon my corner in search of the commotion.
I find it by the back door.
David shoves someone into two of his frat brothers, who grab the guy and start pulling him outside. “I didn’t fucking know it was your frat,” the guy sneers.
I freeze. That voice is unmistakably familiar, but of course, it’s impossible.
David wipes off his hands like he’s just handled trash. “Now you fucking know. Don’t come back here.” He turns his back on—
Holy shit—Brian.
Brian is here. “Brian?” His name falls from my lips like I’m in a dream, and all eyes turn to me. “Bethy—” Brian starts to say something, but David gestures to his buddies and they quite literally throw him out.
I stand, frozen, in the middle of the back hallway, still not entirely convinced this is reality.
“Beth.” David gets my attention, and I blink at him.
“What is he doing here?”
He rubs his palm down his face in frustration. “He transferred here.”
“What? Why?” That makes no sense. “He’s at Dartmouth.”
David grits his teeth, grinding them together in that way he does when he’s trying to hold in his frustration. “Not anymore. There was an open position on our soccer team. He got recruited.”
I rub at my head, trying to relieve the tension pooling in my temples.
