CHAPTER ONE
CAYDEN
“Larry, Curly, and Moe. What great, cosmic power decided to throw you three stooges into my lap?”
Dean Smith looks like she’s chewing on something particularly unpleasant as she says it. I can’t speak for my brothers, but the last place I’d want to be is in her lap. Given her personal hygiene, I doubt she’s been eaten out since World War II.
Colton leans forward in his chair. “Actually, our names are—” He’s silenced by the Dean’s hand.
“Did I say you could speak, dumbass?”
Colton looks across to me in surprise. He’s about to learn we’re not in high school any more.
Dean Smith prods a chubby finger at him. “You, Colton Beckett, are new to this, given you’re a freshman and all, but your two brothers here are regular visitors to my office, much to my displeasure.”
Hunter sniggers beside me. I’m struggling to keep a straight face myself. This bad cop routine is so cheesy I’m pretty sure Dean Smith’s going to pull out wine and crackers soon.
The Dean shakes her head, looking between us. “We’ve had familial groups like you before at Abbotsleigh during my tenure. There were the McIntyres—wonderful, smart boys, one of which is now a federal judge. There were the Hardy triplets back in ’09—excellent, studious sisters who’ve gone on promising careers in the upper echelon of the business world.”
I’m getting ‘hardy’ picturing them.
The Dean’s eyes narrow. “But you Becketts…” She pauses. “You’re the kind of arrogant, sport-over-study assholes whose sheer presence muddies this fine institution. I don’t care if you know how to throw a ball, that you bring in sponsorships and endorsements. I don’t care Daddy’s a big lawyer from New York with more money than God. But what I do care about are my students—the innocent parties drawn into your debaucherous ways.”
I want to interject, remind her about the new library our father donated to the university just this year, but I hold my tongue.
She sighs, tapping the cell phone on her desk. “The university intranet is for scholarly file transfer, not for…” She holds the phone up. “What the hell even is this?”
I start to chuckle, a second away from losing it.
Colton’s somehow keeping it together. “It’s an Eiffel Tower,” he says, serious as a heart attack.
The Dean’s eyebrows jump up to her hairline. “A what?”
Colton points to the picture on her cell screen. “As you can see, this girl is performing fellatio on myself there while Cayden penetrates her vaginally from behind. We’re connecting our hands above her, to make what loosely looks like—”
“Enough!” The Dean slams the cell down on her desk.
Hunter and I explode with laughter. I don’t know how the fuck Colton got that much out without wetting himself.
Dean Smith taps the cell again. “Clarification, I do not need, Mr. Beckett.”
“Which one of us are you referring to?” I ask.
Truth is, we’re pros at this. It’s almost too easy to get a rise out her.
The Dean starts to smile, pushing her cell to the side. “Okay. Very funny. And hell, you’ve got me. This… sex act was performed off campus grounds. We can’t identify who posted it to the intranet or how they came to obtain it. It looks, god knows why, consensual, so my hands are tied, but know this. When you screw up, and just like your big brother, you will, I’ll be waiting here with Abbotsleigh’s one-strike policy to kick your preppy asses back to the East End. Am I clear?”
We nod in unison.
“Just give me a reason, boys. Just one,” she continues. “Now, get the hell out of my office. I need to order some eye bleach.”
*
I lean against Colton as we step outside. “First year inside and already you’ve got balls bigger than Hunter and I combined.”
Hands in his pockets, Hunter starts walking backwards to speak to Colton. “You forgot to tell her I was the one filming the whole ‘debaucherous’ spectacle.
I punch Colton in the shoulder. He stumbles away and almost hits a pretty redhead. “That was ballsy, little bro, but you’re marked now. The smarter play would have been to keep quiet.”
Colton laughs, head tilted back. “And I suppose you two football fagboys know all about the ‘smarter play,’ right?”
Hunter shrugs ahead. “At least we’re not jerking each other off on the lacrosse field all day.”
Colton stabs his finger at Hunter. “Fuck you, Joe Montana.”
“Lick my ass, stick boy.”
I push them apart. “Enough, enough. You want to fight, or you want to get laid?”
“Por que no los dos?” trills Colton, imitating the little girl from the Old Paso ad. “Why can’t we have both?”
I shove him again. “You’re buying.”
*
The campus bar doesn’t have a name, but everyone calls it ‘The Lab’ given its proximity to the science building.
The rest of the Trojans are here. They form a gauntlet for Colton, shoving him through.
“Where’s the rest of the lacrosse team?” shouts one of the boys.
“Practicing their ball-handling skills,” calls another.
Poor kid. He should have stuck with football like Hunter and I, but no. He wanted to be different.
Colton emerges from the gauntlet smiling. It’s all in jest, after all. He’s a Beckett. There’s a certain level of respect around these parts for that name.
Hunter and I wait with a couple of others at our usual table up the back, Colton arriving with a tray of drinks.
I pick one up. “What the hell is this?”
Colton places the others down. “The girl at the bar called it a ‘magic mojito.’ You said this was the Lab, so we should experiment, right?”
I swipe the cotton candy on top of my drink. It dissolves like a deflating balloon. “Looks like a fucking tampon. What happened to good, old-fashioned beer?”
Hunter’s already downed his. He wipes his mouth, addressing Colton. “The girl at the bar? That’s Lucy, and you just put down, what? A hundred for this round?”
“Two hundred,” replies Colton.
Hunter stands up, shouting across the bar to Lucy, who’s smiling with knowing. “Thank you very fucking much, Lucy, my darling.”
She salutes back, her nose piercing glinting.
I push the cocktail aside, speaking to Colton. “You’ve been played, baby brother. Lucy’s laughing her ass off over there.”
He looks confused. “But…”
I put a hand up. “What? Did you think she was going to suck your dick or something? Hate to tell you this, but you’d have better luck penetrating a Sherman tank than Lucy Love over there. Ain’t that right, Lucy?” I shout.
She throws her hands up. “I like girls. What can I say?”
“See?”
Colton falls into his seat. “Ah, shit.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “You’ll learn, brother. You’ll learn.”
Someone picks up my glass. “What the fuck is this sissy shit?”
It’s Dwayne and his cohort of cum-munchers. We might all be Trojans, but there’s only room for one quarterback this year, and I intend it to be me.
Hunter, normally the most level-headed of us, stands and shoves him, the ‘magic mojito’ spilling down the front of Dwayne’s jersey. “Fuck off, Dwayne.”
Dwayne shoves him back, pulling out a chair from the table beside us and sitting down. “Hey, Cayden.”
Reluctantly, I turn with hands raised. “Sorry, Dwayne. I’m fresh out of blowjobs tonight.”
Dwayne fingers the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, because it looks like you still have a bit of, you know, right here.”
“What the fuck do you want?” I ask.
I see Hunter fuming. He’s ready to knock this prick out. Fuck what the Dean said. The Lab could use some excitement tonight.
Dwayne leans close. “I want you to pull back in training. It’s my time.”
I laugh. “So, what? So you can be QB? What the fuck makes you think I’m going to allow that?”
Dwayne looks to his pals before answering. “Because you’re a limp-dick waste of fucking space.”
That’s it. Hunter launches for him, but he’s intercepted by Trojan team captain Ricky Lewis. He holds Dwayne back with one hand, Hunter with the other. Colton’s on his feet looking for a piece too.
Dwayne sees him. “Oh, look at the Beckett baby here. Big boy sport too much for you? Too busy playing with your silly little stick?”
Colton launches now, Ricky forced to hold him back as well.
“The fuck?!” shouts Ricky. “You assholes are on the same fucking team, you know.”
He shoves Dwayne away. “Sit somewhere else.”
Dwayne flips the bird before walking off. We’re laughing, but it’s short lived.
Ricky turns to us. “And you two?”
“Three,” chimes Colton.
Ricky ignores him. “You’re not helping the situation. The Dean’s all over my ass this year. She wants blood.”
“We know,” I tell him.
“Do you? Because I think you’ve forgotten what happened to Mason.”
Mason, the eldest of us. He was a student here at Abbotsleigh as well, on his way to grid-iron fame, but he fucked it all away. He fucked up and they kicked his ass out. It didn’t matter. He still became a lawyer. He still cashes in more money per annum than Smith could hope to see in her entire life, but he never lived it down, what happened here.
Ricky picks up the magic mojito Dwayne discarded. “Get your shit together, boys.”
He walks off.
I grab Colton by the collar and hand him another hundred. “Beer this time. For the love of God.”
*
Three rounds in and my wallet’s feeling a hell of a lot lighter. That goes double for my head, which scans The Lab for promise. We’ve attracted a couple of girls to the table, but they’re not my type. No, I’m looking for something different tonight, something fresh—exotic.
Hunter’s boring the table to death with running stats when the need to urinate shifts from ‘pressing’ to ‘extremely fucking urgent.’ I excuse myself and stumble my way to the john, fending off two girls looking to join me. The first I was with earlier this week, a real screamer. The second has a face like an armpit, though it could be the beer googles in action.
Whatever the case, I manage to make it to the bathroom, answering the call before taking a further five minutes to find the door out.
I see her the second I’m out.
She glows. I mean, one of the spotlights on the roof is literally beaming down on her as she stands at the bar. She speaks to Lucy, papers of some sort in her hand.
She’s fucking angelic, and not just because of the aforementioned halo. It’s her honey-blonde hair, the way it’s drawn up into a tight ponytail. It’s the way she stands, the way her lush lips move. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
Locked on. Weapons hot.
My cock gives a small jerk of life in my pants. It’s as hungry as I am for something wet and warm to sink into.
I’m on my way, ignoring the cat calls from the corner, when I see Dwayne stand and stumble his own way toward Angel Girl from the other side of the room.
Fuck that.
I quicken my pace, almost falling over a table in my haste, but he’s too quick. He sidles up beside her as Lucy disappears to the far side of the bar to attend to a gaggle of Sig Kappa sisters who are shouting something about slippery nipples.
Dwayne taps Angel Girl on the shoulder. She turns, bemused.
He leans in and starts to speak, a hand moving up her hip.
She shakes her head and swats it away, but Dwayne hasn’t got the picture. He leans in closer and presses her against the bar, a hand snaking up between her legs.
She screams, shouts something, but it’s lost in the din of The Lab, Twenty-One Pilots pumping from the speakers overhead.
Dwayne manages to get a hand over her mouth, another pinning her right hand to the bar while he grinds and oscillates against her.
I’m there in seconds. I shove him, far harder than I mean to.
He’s a big guy, but he’s drunk. He goes spinning away, sprawling onto a table, glasses smashing to the ground, the entire place coming to a stop.
He’s down, disorientated, but he’ll be up soon enough. He brushes fragments of glass off his jacket while I close my fists, preparing to take him out.
I’m ready for him, red all I see, until I’m swept away by strong hands, literally dragged towards the door by Hunter and the others.
As I’m being pulled, I see Dwayne’s buddies coming to his aid.
Just before the stairs, I manage to break free from Hunter’s grip. He hauls me back. “Cayden. Fuck. Let’s go.”
“The girl,” I stammer. “Wait.”
I’m looking for Angel Girl, desperate for another glimpse of her, but she’s gone.