Chapter One
Rush week.
Deacon hated it. Working at a bar this close to campus meant that sooner or later some little asshole with a fake ID would saunter up to the bar, trying his best to look casual, and attempt to order a shitload of beers for his buddies—who would be clustered around a table in the darkest corner they could find, also trying to look casual.
Except this guy didn’t look casual.
He looked pissed.
He narrowed his eyes at Deacon like Deacon had already personally offended him. Okay, Deacon wasn’t one of those now-tell-me-all-your-problems bartenders who existed mostly on TV, but he wasn’t used to copping hostile stares like this one. Not this early in the afternoon.
The guy, all five feet eight of him, strode up to the bar, slapped down an ID, and issued a challenging look that fell just short of belligerent. “Can I get a beer?”
Deacon looked at the ID. Mark Cooper. An out-of-town address, but that accent was from farther away than Bedford. And then he saw the date of birth. Most useless fake ID ever. He slid the ID back to the guy. “Sorry.”
“No, look.” The guy’s forehead creased with a frown. He shoved the ID back. “It’s my birthday today.”
“Happy birthday,” Deacon said. “Come back in three years, and I’ll buy you a beer myself.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” Mark muttered. “In a country where they let embryos drive cars, I have to wait until I’m twenty-one to buy alcohol. What sort of place lets you drive and vote and fuck before it lets you drink a beer?” He glared at Deacon accusingly. “Well?”
Angry little bunny was angry. Deacon folded his arms over his chest and looked back at him. Couldn’t help the smile that turned up the corner of his mouth. “Um…happy birthday and welcome to the United States?”
“Fine,” Mark said. “Can I buy cigarettes, or do I have to be exactly thirty-eight and a half?”
Deacon ignored the sarcasm. “Sure.”
“Can I get a pack of Winfield Blue?”
“There’s a gas station down the street.”
“I can’t get cigarettes in a bar?”
Deacon shook his head. “You can smoke ’em here, though. Be glad for that.”
Mark sighed. “Seriously unbelievable.” He headed for the door.
Deacon watched him. Nice ass, clad in expensive jeans. A T-shirt that rode up and showed a band of flesh as he dropped a coin and bent to retrieve it. And a pair of shoulders squared rigidly as he shoved his money back in his pocket.
Angry little bunny was very angry.
Deacon wiped down the bar. He looked up when he heard Mark’s phone ring, blaring out some song Deacon didn’t know. Mark stopped a couple of feet from the door, next to the pinball machine, and answered.
“Hi, Mum.” He angled himself toward the corner. “Can I call you back later? I’m pretty busy.” He dragged the toe of his sneaker across the worn carpet. “Yeah, I got it. Thanks. Yeah, Jackson’s been good. He’s throwing me a party. Yes, right now.”
Liar. Deacon felt a stab of sympathy for the kid.
“It’s fun, yeah.” In the dancing lights of the pinball machine, his expression was suddenly achingly wistful. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. ‘Bye, Mum.” His shoulders slumped as he shoved the phone back into his jeans.
“Hey, Mark.”
The kid turned.
“Let me buy you a Coke for your birthday,” Deacon said.
He saw the moment the refusal was on the kid’s lips, but then Mark shrugged and came back and sat at the bar. “Thanks.”
Deacon put the Coke on the bar, then reached behind the register and found Bill’s pack of Newports. Figured Bill wouldn’t mind. Flipped it open and held it out to Mark. Mark withdrew a cigarette, looking slightly less angry. “Thanks,” he said again.
Deacon took out his lighter and offered Mark the flame. Mark leaned forward, the cigarette dangling from his lips, his chin inches from Deacon’s hand. Then he pulled back, the tip of the cigarette glowing.
“So how come you’re not partying with Jackson?”
Mark blew out smoke. “You really want to know?”
“Sure.”
Mark stabbed at the ice in his drink with his finger. “Because he’s my stepfather’s nephew, and I’ve met him twice, and he doesn’t want to look out for me just because Jim said he had to.”
Deacon slid an ashtray next to the glass. “You don’t have any other friends?”
“Plenty,” Mark said. “They’re just all at home.”
Home. He said the word like it hurt.
“It’s hard when you first start at college,” Deacon said. “But it gets easier, once you put yourself out there and meet people.”
“I’m supposed to be rushing this week,” Mark said. “I don’t even know what the fuck that is.”
Deacon laughed. “Then why are you doing it?”
“It’s Jim’s old fraternity,” Mark said. “Alpha Delta Phi. It’s a tradition.” Air quotes. “Jackson says I’ll for sure get a bid on account of him being in the frat, and Jim, but I dunno. Wouldn’t some prick trying to get in on his family name just make you not wanna take him?”
“Worked for George W. Bush, didn’t it?”
Mark snorted. “I don’t care if I get in or not. Jim’s not my real family—and I don’t mean that in a whiny-little-kid way. Just, it’s true. But Mum says I ought to give it a go, as a kind of peace offering to Jim. I guess I haven’t been great to him lately.”
“So, where are you from, Mark Cooper?”
“Australia.”
“I guessed that.” Deacon poured himself a Coke as well. “Where in Australia?”
“Place called Bundaberg,” Mark said. “It’s famous for its rum, which is another fucking thing you can’t get here.” He grimaced. “It’s not like I miss it, you know, but I miss my mates. I’m not usually… This isn’t how I imagined my eighteenth, I mean.”
“How did you imagine it?”
“We’d go surfing in the morning at Bargara,” Mark said. “Me and Baz and Richo. I had the best board—a Rip Curl DHD Pistol Whip.” He frowned. “Jim got it for me when he started going out with my mum. I gave it to Baz when I left.”
“You probably wouldn’t get much use out of it around here,” Deacon said.
“No, I wouldn’t.” Mark showed him a rueful smile.
“Good skiing here, though. And snow tubing.”
“Snow tubing?”
“Yeah. You get on a big inner tube, and you slide down a snow-covered mountain.”
“I hate snow.”
Deacon grinned. “It’s not so bad. Hope you have tire chains. Or do you have a car?”
“Not me. Not here. Jim’s letting me drive one of his around town.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’m not driving in snow, though. No fucking way. You ever see those World’s Craziest Drivers? It’s always snow.”
Deacon raised his eyebrows. “Not always, surely. Anyway, who hates snow?”
“Always,” Mark said. “And snow, God! We moved here in February, and it was supposed to be all nice and Christmas-cardy, you know? Instead we got that massive fucking blizzard, so I was stuck inside for a week with Mum and Jim, and no power. And then when it finally cleared or melted enough or whatever it does, I went for a walk into town to check the place out, and—” He shivered at the memory. “So there I was in, like, twenty-six layers of clothing, somehow still soaking wet, and my balls were screaming and trying to climb back inside my body.”
Deacon laughed, the sound filling the near-empty bar.
“Don’t laugh,” Mark said, fighting his own smile. “Mate, I nearly died!” Then, losing the battle, he flashed a grin at Deacon. “Fuck my life, right?”
“Sucks to be you,” Deacon agreed.
Angry little bunny had needed to vent. And maybe just needed someone to talk to on his birthday to take his mind off his homesickness. Laughing at his own misfortune seemed to be a step in the right direction.
“You want another Coke?”
“Sure.” Mark looked down at his glass like he was surprised to find it empty. “My shout this time.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and set it on the bar, as though he was settling in for a while.
Deacon didn’t mind that. The place was empty except for a couple over at one of the corner tables who’d been sitting on a pitcher of beer for ages now, and Bill, who was a part owner in the bar and usually just helped himself anyway. Tuesday afternoons were hardly pumping, and it wasn’t every day that someone as cute as Mark Cooper brightened the place up.
Scruffy light brown hair with sun-bleached twists, hazel eyes framed by dark lashes, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. A crooked grin, when he showed it, that was utterly free of artifice.
“My advice?” Deacon said, setting the second Coke on the counter. “Don’t rush Alpha Delt if you’re not really into the idea of fraternity life. They’re, like, in it to win it.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re the frat boys you see in movies. Parties, girls, Hell Week, the whole deal.”
Mark furrowed his brow. “What’s Hell Week?”
Deacon braced himself on the bar. “Seriously? You have no idea what you’re getting into, do you?”
Mark stared at him, long enough that Deacon’s stomach fluttered. Then Mark’s phone rang, a different ringtone this time, and Mark’s gaze snapped down as he fished in his pocket.
“Jackson,” he said, looking at the screen. “He’s gonna meet me here and take me back to the house for some rush thing. The fuck is frozen-turkey bowling?”
“Just what it sounds like.”
Mark set his cigarette in the ashtray and began typing. “I don’t know what it sounds like.”
“It sounds like it’ll involve a Slip ’N’ Slide, Crisco, ten two-liter-size bottles of pop, and a frozen turkey.”
“Great,” Mark muttered, finishing the text and putting away the phone.
Deacon took in Mark’s jeans and shabby T-shirt. “No offense, but you’re not exactly dressed for rush week, are you?”
Mark took a long sip of Coke. “I said I’d rush to make Jim happy. Didn’t say I’d put any effort into it.” Another sip. “God, have you seen all the wankers in polos?”
“I’m told girls can’t resist a man in a polo. Especially with the collar popped.”
Mark barked out a laugh. “Not really the girls I’m here for, mate.”
Deacon tried not to feel too hopeful. Mark could just mean he was here to study. Speaking of which…
“What are you studying?” he asked and immediately regretted it when Mark rolled his eyes. “Sorry, you must’ve heard that a million times during orientation.”
“It’s all right. I haven’t decided yet. Just signed up for some required courses now. Maybe biology?”
Deacon laughed.
“What? Is it called something else here?”
“No. Just trying to imagine an Alpha Delt bio major.”
“Okay, look, all I know about Alpha Delt is Jim liked it, and it’s, like, they do community service or something. So maybe it looks good on job applications.”
Oh boy. Secretly-not-so-angry misguided little bunny. “How long ago was Jim at Prescott?”
“Uh…I dunno. He’s maybe fifty.”
“Okay, well. A lot has changed since then. Alpha Delt used to be pretty service oriented, but now it’s a lot of rich kids, foam parties, pig roasts, and date-rape cover-ups. And I’m not just saying that because they’re Phi Sig’s sworn enemy, all right?”
“Is that…?” Mark trailed off as the door swung open and a tall kid in a dark polo and perfectly pressed khakis walked in.
Jackson Phillips. Deacon had seen him around before, but he’d never put a name to the face. Jackson was one of the less offensive Alpha Delts. Maybe because he didn’t look like a bro. He had an expression that managed to be chilly and slightly anxious at the same time. His shoulders stooped a little, and he had a long, thin nose and dark circles under his eyes that were noticeable even in the dim light of the bar.
Jackson nodded at Deacon, and Deacon might have been imagining it, but he thought Jackson’s eyes narrowed.
“Hey,” Jackson said awkwardly to Mark.
“Hey,” Mark said.
“You ready?”
“Uh, yeah. Just lemme pay.” He opened his wallet and thumbed through the bills. “All your money is the same color, you know.”
“Yep,” Deacon agreed.
Mark extracted a ten and slid it across the bar. “It’s fucked-up.”
“Well,” Deacon said, ignoring Jackson’s stare, “I’m sure we didn’t do it just to confuse you.”
Mark showed him that crooked grin again. “Okay, then. As long as you’re sure.”
Jackson frowned at Mark’s clothes. “You’ve got to change.”
“I know,” Mark said. He glanced at Deacon and popped an imaginary collar on his T-shirt.
Deacon laughed. Jackson looked toward the door.
“See you later,” Mark said, pocketing his change.
“Good luck.”
Mark made a face. “Thanks, um…?”
“Deacon,” Deacon said. “Deacon Holt.”
“Thanks, Deacon,” Mark said and, squaring his shoulders back into angry-bunny stance, walked with Jackson out of the bar.
* * * *
This was bullshit. Of all the bullshit things that had happened since moving to the States, this was absolutely, without doubt, the most bullshitty. Mark was pretty sure he didn’t like any of these guys, and he was pretty sure they didn’t like him either.
“Don’t name-drop,” Jackson told him when they arrived at the house.
“G’day,” Mark said in his most belligerently laid-back manner to the first guy who approached. “I’m Mark Cooper. My stepfather is Jim Phillips. He was in Alpha Delta Phi. His company makes castors for office chairs, which doesn’t sound exciting, but he’s really, really wealthy. He’s a good friend of the dean’s. Oh, and Jackson’s my cousin.”
Jackson shot him a disgusted look that was completely worth it.
Before coming to Prescott, Mark had only met Jackson twice. Once at the rehearsal dinner, and once at the wedding. And he was pretty sure Jackson thought he was mentally deficient. Which was okay, because he thought Jackson was a tool.
Jackson grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him away. “What the fuck, dude?”
“Oh,” Mark said. “You said don’t name-drop. Sorry.” He blinked. “Dude.”
He hated the word.
Jackson shook his head and turned away.
Mark made a face at him. He was pissed off, and justifiably. It was his eighteenth birthday, and he was stone-cold sober. But…there was a keg on the table over there. And who cared if he helped himself? He wasn’t here to win friends and influence people, though most of the other guys appeared to be trying to do that. Well, good luck to them.
Moments later, beer in hand, Mark looked for Jackson again.
“Hey,” someone said. Someone so big and broad that Mark wouldn’t have been able to get around him if he tried. “You rushing?”
Was he? Fuck knew. Maybe. First there was rush week, then what? Jackson had said something about the fraternities bidding on who they wanted before the pledging took place. Did he mean actual bids? None of it made sense at all to Mark.
“Dunno,” Mark said. All right, so between Jim and Jackson, he’d had the whole process explained to him, but he couldn’t have been expected to listen.
The big guy stuck out his hand. “I’m Blake.”
“Mark.”
“Nice to meet you,” Blake said and seemed almost genuine about it. “You play?”
“Play what?” Mark asked.
Blake looked slightly offended. “Football, dude!”
Right. As though he couldn’t have possibly been referring to anything else. Although, going on his size alone, it made sense.
“Do you mean soccer, or rugby, or league, or AFL, or that other shit?” Mark asked.
Blake looked confused. So footballers were mostly the same the world over.
“Football,” Blake said. “Ya know…football?”
That other shit, then. But given Blake’s size, probably not the best guy in the room to insult. “I don’t play.”
Blake nodded and then stared at the ceiling for a while. “Okay. So, nice to meet you and stuff.”
“Yeah, you too,” Mark said.
Blake ambled off.
Mark sipped his beer, then glowered at it. American beer was shit. Weak as piss, and about as appealing. But at least he was drinking something, right? It was his eighteenth birthday, and he was having a beer. So that was finally going right.
Just not the right beer. And just not with his friends or even his family.
Which was only Mum, really, however much Jim had tried to make himself a part of it.
The worst thing was, Jim was a nice guy. Three years ago when Jim had come into Mark’s life as Mum’s rich American boyfriend, he was great. He didn’t treat Mark like an inconvenience. He played Xbox with him, took an interest in what he had to say, and bought him that Rip Curl DHD Pistol Whip board for his sixteenth birthday.
Then, out of the blue, Jim had finished whatever the hell it was he was doing in Australia—Mark had always been sketchy on the details; Australian office chairs already had castors, thanks very much—and decided to move back to America.
He’d asked Clare to marry him.
She’d said yes.
Now here they all were, and it was fucked-up.
Mark should have stayed at home. Mum would have caved, sooner or later, if Mark had applied a little more pressure. Except he’d seen how much she wanted him with her, and he couldn’t bear to break her heart like that. Or his own, probably. It’d been just them for so long, and the thought of not seeing her for months at a time, maybe even years, was too depressing.
But he missed home. He missed his friends. He even missed his surfboard.
What had the guy from the bar said earlier? “You probably wouldn’t get much use out of it around here.”
Too right.
Mark wasn’t a great surfer—it wasn’t his life—but he liked sitting on his board with his legs in the water and the sunlight on his shoulders, waiting for the waves. Couldn’t do that anymore.
Fucking Pennsylvania.
Mark had told himself that he’d stick it out until he turned eighteen, and then he’d go back home. But it wasn’t that simple. He had bugger-all money and nowhere to stay. He couldn’t crash on Baz’s couch for the rest of his foreseeable future. And that was what stung the most. In the end, it wasn’t Jim and Mum keeping him stuck here; it was his own treacherous sense of… Was it responsibility? Mark hadn’t been troubled enough by it in the past to recognize it now, but Baz was offering him a couch, and Jim was offering a fully paid ride to Prescott. And Mark wasn’t stupid enough to refuse that. Not by a long shot. He just…he just wished he had been. A little dumber, a little more stubborn, and a lot more selfish, and he could have been at home right now instead of here, at Prescott, doing whatever this was. Rushing.
What the everlasting fuck was rushing?
Mark sidled up to a guy leaning against the wall who looked like he didn’t know either. “Hey.”
The guy looked at him gratefully. “Hey.”
“I’m Mark.”
“Brandon,” the guy said. “Are you rushing?”
The question made Mark think he was late for a bus or something. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
Brandon looked at him curiously. “You don’t seem too sure.”
Mark shrugged. “Mate, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Brandon nodded quickly. “Me neither. But you’ve got to do it. If you’re not in a fraternity, you’re nothing, you know?”
Mark raised his eyebrows. Coming from anyone else, he would have shot right back with what he was certain he did know, but Brandon seemed to truly believe it. Not in the cocky way that some of these self-entitled wankers were sounding off about it. Not Alpha Delta or death, dudes! Brandon was kind of quietly earnest.
“You reckon?”
Brandon nodded. “That’s what my dad says.”
“Oh.” Mark had no idea how to respond to that, only that it seemed the wrong moment to share how fucked-up he thought this entire thing was. And how unnecessarily complicated. Didn’t you go to university to take classes, pass exams, and get a degree? Not to stand up in front of a room full of guys and be judged on whether or not you were cool enough to be their friend. Uni was supposed to be about growing up, leaving adolescence behind, not reverting to a form of it that would make a fourteen-year-old girl proud.
Oh, sure. Jim had talked a lot about friendship and camaraderie and responsibility, but this was a popularity contest. No question. Luckily Mark didn’t give a fuck what any of these guys thought.
“Well, good luck,” he told Brandon.
“Thanks,” Brandon said, that same earnest look on his face. His expression slipped toward anxious as Mark watched. “It’s fun, right?”
No. It was absolutely not fun, and they both knew it.
Mark smiled. “Sure,” he said. “It’s fun.”
Then some guy arrived with the frozen turkeys, and shit got really weird.
* * * *
The Phi Sigma Kappa house was lit up when Deacon got back to campus that evening. The old red-brick mansion was warm and welcoming…and the front lawn was littered with beer cans and toilet paper, even though it wasn’t even seven p.m. yet. Deacon shook his head at the mess and scowled at the Alpha Delta house next door. The Alpha Delta house was welcoming as well, if you were the kind of drunken douchenozzle who was into that sort of thing. There was at least one guy passed out on their front lawn already, under a layer of foam, the bass was pumping out of the open doors and windows, and—oh, classy—an inflatable sex doll had been lashed to the front stair rails, her arms and legs splayed and a beer can shoved into the exaggerated scarlet O of her mouth.
They were an absolute fucking cliché.
He met Tony at the front door. Tony was premed and had his first-aid kit in hand.
“Is the guy still on their lawn?” Tony asked him.
“Yeah. You know, if you keep cleaning up after them, they’ll never learn.”
“Sure, and letting some freshman choke on his own vomit will teach them what exactly?” Tony headed out the door.
There were guys inside the Phi Sig living room, rushing. Rushing at a much more sedate pace than was happening over at Alpha Delta. Conversation and board games instead of beer and turkey bowling. Which was staid, and maybe even boring, but Phi Sig wasn’t a party fraternity. They took their charter seriously: academic honors, community service, and fostering relationships that would last well past graduation and into their professional lives. And unlike Alpha Delta, they didn’t just pay lip service to the antihazing laws.
“None of that shit,” James had told Deacon three years ago when he’d thought about rushing. “Absolutely none!”
James was the president of the chapter now. Deacon could see him in the living room talking to a couple of the rushees. He had paperwork on the table in front of him explaining the fraternity fees and how Phi Sigma could help them out with low-interest loans if they needed it.
Deacon had needed it, and he wasn’t alone. Phi Sigma didn’t care about your family’s money, only about your academic record and, if they were honest, whether or not you could play Risk for sixteen hours straight. Which was usually as wild as things got at Phi Sigma, although some of their arguments about string theory could get pretty heated.
Deacon headed up the stairs, thinking again of Mark Cooper and wondering what the hell someone interested in biology wanted with Alpha Delta. The only biology those guys were interested in was the sort that was parodied in the blow-up doll on their front steps. Still, Mark would figure out soon enough if he was a good fit for the Delts or not. That was the whole point of rush week.
He wondered again if he should have encouraged Mark to rush Phi Sigma. Hearing Mark talk about rushing Alpha Delt had killed any desire on Deacon’s part to mention his own affiliation. Not that he had anything to apologize for, or cared what Mark thought of him.
Mark hadn’t known anything about Greek life anyway. Maybe he wasn’t going to rush any other fraternities. Maybe he was putting all his eggs in Alpha Delt’s vomit-splattered basket, and if he didn’t get in, it was probably for the best.
Deacon’s room was on the west side of the fraternity house, and he could hear the music blaring from Alpha Delta even through his closed window. During a break between songs, he heard snuffling at his door, then a jingle of tags, getting fainter. Anabelle, a very chill yellow Lab James and Tony had brought to the house last year. Anabelle never wanted much to do with Deacon—she was always looking for James.
Deacon changed out of his work clothes and into something that didn’t smell like stale beer and cigarettes. Then, resisting the urge to look out the window and see if he could catch a glimpse of Mark, he headed back downstairs to talk to the rushees.
And kind of hoped, foolishly, that Mark would be standing there.