Rushed (The Rushed Series) (5 page)

He stripped it off over his head, twirled it with a flourish and a sparkle in his yes, and tossed it to me like I was a groupie.
 

I kind of was. I almost went weak in the knees. The chest beneath that shirt was toned and ripped. I caught the shirt and turned to wash it out. It was filled with his body heat and smelled like him, of cologne and sweat.
 

I turned the water on and tried not to look at his bare chest as I ran the stained part of the shirt beneath cold water and wrung it out.

He held my gaze as I handed it back to him. Our hands brushed again. I had a crazy urge to grab his and not let go.

"You should get out of here before someone catches us." He took the partially wet shirt from me.

"And you should walk past the PNMs without your shirt on. You're as completely adorable as those puppies." It wasn't like me to be so bold.

He laughed.

I hated to leave, but I couldn't linger much longer without being missed by the all-seeing, all-watching Morgan. "You're right. I have to go."

"Oh, shit, PNM!" He grinned wickedly. "I'd almost forgotten why you came in here. Of course you do. Feel free to use the stall. I'll go back to work."
 

As if there was any way I'd be able to pee with the thought of him hearing me. I laughed and shook my head. "Not
that
way. I dodged in here to escape the hard sell and get a second of peace and quiet."

"Sorry I ruined it."

"No. You didn't." I smiled like a flirt. "See you around." I turned to leave. At the door, I hesitated and looked over my shoulder at him. "Zach?"

He looked surprised and flattered that I remembered his name.

"Are the girls in this house really as shallow and backbiting as their reputation?"

He looked even more surprised by my question. He shrugged. "They're like any house, a mixture. Some of them are all right."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Not a condemnation, either. You could tell a lot about people by the way they treated their help. That's what my grandma always said. Zach had just rendered the Delta Delta Psi as totally neutral.

I nodded and turned to leave.

He stopped me. "Make sure the coast is clear before you slip out, PNM."

I laughed. "Sure thing. Put a
Men at Work
sign up, okay? Unless you're trying to get a rep as a perv."

I caught up with Em and the rest of the PNMs in the dining room as they were eating cookies and drinking iced blended mochas.

"They went all out on refreshments. Wow!" I came up behind Em and grabbed a mocha. We'd been served sweets and sweet drinks at every house we'd visited. What I really wanted was a burger. I settled for a cookie.

Em frowned at me. "You were gone a long time."

"Was I?" I smiled coyly and took a bite of cookie, trying not to give myself away.

After the house visit, Em and I grabbed our laptops and went to sit at the edge of the open green beneath the shade of some tall trees. Guys were tossing footballs and flying discs. Music blasted. The air smelled of suntan lotion and sunscreen as Em and I made one of the most important decisions of our college careers.
 

Every other time we preferenced houses, we wrote down the houses we wanted to eliminate. This time, we had to enter in the three houses we wanted to keep. The sororities would then match our choices with their preferences and have a big meeting to hash things out. They had a top-secret system for negotiating when two houses wanted the same girl. We could preference three houses, but we could only get one bid. We either accepted that offer tomorrow at the bid meeting at the SUB, or declined to be Greek.

Some girls had only been invited to one house visit. They only had the option of writing that house down. Em and I had been to the maximum five house visits. That meant we could list one, two, or three choices. If we only listed one, that was called a suicide bid. Because if that house didn't want us, we'd just knocked ourselves out of getting into a house at all.

Em stared up at the sky, watching a bird chirp overhead in the branches. "Let's bid the same houses."

"Serious?" I said. "You know I have to put down the Double Deltsies?"

She nodded. "I like them."

I was shocked. If I'd been in her place, I would have chosen one of the other houses, one of two I really loved and felt comfortable in.

"But you could be in…" I named my two favorite houses. "I think you're definitely a rush crush of a recruiter in each house."

Em shrugged and looked away like she didn't want me to see what she was thinking. I hoped I hadn't misjudged her. I had thought she was real, not like the girls who just wanted popularity at any price.

"And you're Morgan's rush crush!" She made a point of watching the guys toss the football.

I rolled my eyes, thinking about how Morgan had told me to suicide bid. "I can't believe you'd sacrifice for me and take the chance of becoming a Double Deltsie."

"You're such a brat, Alexis!" She took a deep breath, turned her head toward me, and frowned. "I would kill to be in your shoes. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for me."

Before I could reply, my cell phone buzzed. "My mom," I said to Em, and took the call. "Mom!"

"Hey, baby kid! How was your last day of rush? What did you think? Aren't the Double Deltsies fabulous!" Mom's voice was full of missing me, mixed with sunshine, hope, and a heavy dose of trying to influence me.
 

I hesitated. "Everything was great!" I feigned her perkiness and went for broke. "The Double Deltsies were really nice to me. I think I'm still one of their main recruiter's rush crushes."

"Of course you are, baby! Why wouldn't you be? Sorority greatness is in your blood."

It was hard to imagine my aging, graying, slightly plump mom had ever been a partying Double Deltsie. But I suspected, from what she'd told me about her college experiences, that they weren't the top house in her day. And that they were now was part of the reason she pushed me so hard to pledge them. Their prestige impressed her. The college girl she had been showed through in her voice and she sounded almost girlish—the pride, the desire to live through me, her hopes that I would have the excellent college experience that she had had. Her soaring hopes for my future and career.

"There are two other houses that I like a lot, too," I said, testing for wiggle room. "I think I could really fit in those as well. The girls are fun and friendly, welcoming…"

There was a pregnant pause by my mom that said just about everything.

"I can make three choices, but we can only get one offer." I took a deep breath. "Morgan from the Double Deltsies said I should suicide bid them. She broke the rules by mentioning bids. There's nothing I can do about that. But if I do suicide bid, and they don't pick me…" I paused. "I think I should write all three houses down."

"Morgan? The girl you've told me about? Their toughest recruiter?" The pride came through in Mom's voice. "Against the rules or not, if she told you to suicide bid, you'd better do it!"

"But if they don't pick me, I'll be out! I won't be Greek. Wouldn't it be better to—"

"No!" I could almost picture Mom shaking her head, and the wild look she got in her eye when she knew she was right and worried that I wasn't going to listen to her. That I was going to do something stupid, like think for myself. "Do what Morgan says, baby. You don't want to upset them."

"I could get a call before the bid meeting tomorrow warning me not to show up. That I'm out and didn't get a bid." My voice fell to match my heart. "Everyone would know by my absence that I've been snubbed by the Double Deltsies."

"No, Alexis! You? Never. I have complete faith in you!" There was the pride again. And the pressure to be perfect, just like there had been in high school.
 

The pressure I had hoped to escape at college. I was my parents' pride and joy. Their only child. Every one of the hopes and dreams rested on my shoulders.
 

"They won't snub you. They wouldn't
dare
." Her voice was fierce and full of the promise that if they snubbed me, my mama bear was going to come to the rescue. "Suicide bid them." There was that warning in her voice that dared me to defy her on peril of some extreme punishment.

I silently cursed the timing of her call. But I caved. "Okay, Mom."

The smile returned to her voice. "Call me tomorrow the minute you get your bid! This is so exciting. It reminds me of being young and going through rush…"
 

I ducked as an out-of-control football fell between Em and me, hardly listening as Mom reminisced and Em sized up the guy who came to retrieve his ball. He ignored her and gave me the up-and-down. I ignored him, acting as if I hadn't noticed. "I have to go, Mom. We need to have our preferences turned in by five."

"Oh, yes, yes! Get it done!" I could hear her inhale with excitement. "Call me tomorrow as soon as you get your bid!"

"Yeah, Mom. I will."
 

The guy left with his football. I hit the disconnect button.

"Well?" Em raised an eyebrow, grinning like she knew what Mom had said.

"Mom wants me to suicide bid. In her opinion, the Double Deltsies are the only house worth belonging to." I frowned.

Em studied me and laughed. "You don't agree?"

I shrugged. "I'm just not sure I fit there."

"What are you going to do?"

"What Mom wants, Mom gets," I said, trying to hide my resignation. "This may be suicide, but I'm going to suicide bid them." I typed them in on my onscreen form. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm not in the great position you are." She sounded almost sad about that. "I'm not committing suicide. I'm going for the Double Deltsies and the other two houses we liked." Then she laughed and turned to her attention to her laptop screen.
 

As Em typed, on impulse, I did something I rarely did—defied my mother. If the Double Deltsies wanted me badly enough, they could compete with the two houses I really wanted. I hit send with my heart pounding. Morgan wasn't going to tell me what I could do. And I wasn't giving her the chance to double-cross me.

Then, to distract Em from trying to get a glimpse of my screen as it disappeared, I laughed. "At least we can finally get rid of Molly's house."

That got Em to smile as she hit send, too. "Yeah, and I think you were her rush crush. Poor Molly! She'll be so disappointed." She paused and studied me. "No matter what happens tomorrow, let's stay friends, okay?"

I gave her a hug. "Always." But I had my doubts. If we pledged different houses, wouldn't we be competitors?

Chapter Four

Zach

Seth, Dillon, Paul, and I got up early to make Sunday breakfast for the girls. Betty, the cook, had weekends off. She left casseroles for us to stick in the oven for Saturday, and Sunday dinners and breakfast food for us to fix on Sunday. On Saturday we set out cereal and stuff to make toast and let the girls fend for themselves. On Sunday, we each had a specialty. Mine was scrambled eggs with cheese. Seth was a mean pancake flipper. Dillon was a potato man and Paul was a terrible cook. We usually made him man the toaster.

This was a big day, bid day, and the house hummed with anticipation. The girls had planned a special beach event at the river for their new pledges. The four of us houseboys had to help Kelly and the recruitment committee pack the picnic.

But before I helped Kelly and the rest of the officers haul the pledges' new pledge T-shirts to the SUB and then load the girls' cars with picnic supplies, I had to call my mom. A task that was right up there with scrubbing the toilets on Sunday morning after the girls had had a rough night of partying and drinking.

I went to my room for privacy and called, hoping Mom didn't chew me out for waking her.

"Zach." When she picked up, her voice had that irritated tone that she held in reserve for me alone. Like she barely tolerated me and didn't have the time to deal with my problems. Like I was
the
problem of her life.

"Sorry to bother you, Mom." I was always apologizing to her. In the background, I heard my spoiled twin half brothers roughhousing and screaming at each other as they played a video game.