Page 17 of Riding the Pine

She nibbles her lip, the blush in her cheeks growing as she fiddles with the handle of her coffee cup. “Thanks for this.” She gestures to the door. “And for saving me from whatever that was.”

I shrug, taking a giant bite of my quiche and washing it down with a long drink of my coffee. “It was nothing. Us girls gotta stick together, right?” I hold my mug out to her and smile as she lifts hers to clink it against mine.

“Right.”

CHAPTER 9

Athena

SEPTEMBER 2021

My brothers have been on campus for a grand total of forty-eight hours, and I’m already clutching a flyer for a party they’re hosting at the hockey house—that they don’t even live in.

Like me, they have their own apartments across town, but I suspect they’re going to spend more than a little of their time hanging out with their hockey brothers. The hockey players that live together, play together, party together, and never leave each other’s sides are the hockey players that are codependent as shit. But what the hell do I know?

They aren’t the types to rest on their laurels, whatever a laurel is, and nothing says, “know who we are,” better than a party sponsored by the hockey playing rookie twins who just got their stripes and came to college and joined the UCR Raccoons.

Go trash pandas?

It’s flashy, it’s crass, and I’ve heard at least three sophomores talking about the damn party in the last half hour.

I’m in the library; it’s turning out to be one of my favorite places to spend time, and I really wish those fuckers would shut the hell up about how delicious and charming my brothers are. There are two girls on the opposite side of the bookcase from mewhispering loudly about how they want to bed my drop-dead-gorgeous and exotic twin brothers.

It’s gross. And distracting. But mostly gross. Very, very gross.

I’m not naïve, I know my brothers have sex, but I don’t want to be actively thinking about it while I’m trying to do my homework.

Wow. I sound like such a friggin’ nerd. But it’s also true. While I didn’t think business admin and accounting would be a walk in the park, I underestimated how tough it would be. I mean, I’m doing alright, but there’s definitely the occasional moment where I have to smack myself in the face for selecting to study something so intellectually challenging.

I can’t deny that I love math, so it fits, but sometimes the math just maths too hard. You know?

“Like, oh my god, are we going to like, the hockey party tonight?” Vannah drops her bag onto the floor next to my feet and sits at my table with a wicked grin on her face. “I hear there’s these super-hot new hockey players we justhaveto flirt with.” She’s got the best Valley-girl accent as she tosses her locks over her shoulder.

“Actually, I should probably swing by to make sure they don’t do anything stupid.”

Her brows twitch. “Wow. I thought for sure you were going to say no.” She rocks toward me, catching me with her elbow. “Such a mother hen.”

A huge sigh leaves my body, rustling the pages on the desk in front of me. “It’s their first week at college. I don’t want them to get kicked out for being… you know…” I waft an arm toward her.

“Themselves?”

“Exactly. I just need to stop in and make sure no one needs activated charcoal for alcohol poisoning, no one’s passed out in a pool of their own puke, and no one’s peeing in their closet thinking it’s a bathroom.”

She slow-blinks at me.

“Yeah, all real-life scenarios I’ve lived through.”

She opens her mouth, but I hold up my hand. “Don’t ask. We aren’t unpacking that level of trauma in the library.”

She rolls her lips between her teeth to smother a laugh. “Okay, so, like drive-by big sister check in at like, what? Midnight? One?” She raises her brows in question.

“You donothave to come babysit my brothers with me.”

She shrugs. “Maybe I have a crush on one of them.” She quickly bursts into fits of giggles that gets us shushed by surrounding students. “Sorry,” she manages through her amusement. “I know I’m not allowed to even joke about that, but I couldn’t help it. I’ll totally go with. They might have snacks.”

I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to go to a hockey party in the middle of the night.

We don’t even make it till midnight before we’re heading to the hockey house. It’s ten thirty. If we didn’t know where it was, we’d have heard the music from a couple blocks away and simply followed the trail of college kids until we found the front door.

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