Page 11 of Off-Ice Misconduct
“I … yeah, okay. I’ll go.”
As much as I wanted to be a fucking saint in this whole ordeal, part of me was mad. I’d tried to do a good thing.
“Why can’t a guy give a girl a jacket without it meaning he wants to take her hand in marriage?”
“Not to be a dick, but if you gave me your fucking jacket, McKinnon, I’d think I was yours,” Bender points out, blinking his long lashes at me. Which, now that I think about it, are criminally fucking long. We’re on a couch in one of the common rooms back at the house. His arm’s slung around me, and I havea bag of peas around my eye—not on my eye—so I don’t freeze my eyeball.
“You kinda are mine, Bend,” I say. “Not in a romantic way.” We have a different kind of friendship than the usual.
“Okay, fine, same. I’m not the best example, but you can’t do that shit. You’ve never experienced it because you’re the jacket giver, so to speak, but for us jacket receivers, it means something.”
Huh, but if I’m truly a jacket giver, shouldn’t I have known that? I don’t say that out loud, but now I’m thinking.
When Shep put his jacket around Hudson for the first time in freshman year, it meant ownership. Sometimes I feel that way too … and sometimes I don’t. Can a person feel both ways? Do I always have to be one way or the other?
I mean, I already like menandwomen. When I’m with a woman, I still like men. When I’m with a man, I still like women. Being with one gender doesn’t negate the attraction to the other, or change my sexuality from bisexual to straight or bisexual to gay, so maybe you can also be a jacket giver and a jacket wearer at the same time?
“No, you don’t, but, well, have you ever felt the other way? Has anyone ever put their jacket on you?”
I huff a laugh. “Noooo. Look at the size of me, Bend. Who’s gonna put a jacket around me?”
But then it occurs to me, someone could.
Guess who comes to mind? Yep, Professor VanCourt. My backdoor deal doesn’t work if I actually want the person.
Fuck.
The year is fucked.
It was supposed to be the best year, but things seem to be unraveling one by one.
The next day, I hide in my room. Professor VanCourt’s stack of required reading sits on my desk, taunting me. It’s Sunday, so there’s no hockey anything today, and I’ve canceled out of several events around campus to lay low. The House thinks what happened last night will blow over by Monday so long as I don’t show my face.
Icouldread today.
I let my fingers toy with the hi-gloss cover. Should I actually fucking read?
A loud knock jolts me from any notion of doing what I should. “Yeah?”
It’s Shep. “Fuck, Ace. You’ve got to see this.”
I race down the stairs after Shep. The team and a few of our other frat brothers who aren’t on the team have gathered around the large bay window, looking out to the well-manicured yard. Oh shit. Oh, holy mother shit.
The entire Delta Gamma sorority has gathered on our front lawn. They have signs. They have a giant Scorpions flag. They have a fucking torch. Wendy’s poised beside Celeste with a megaphone.
“Christ. The war paint’s a bit much,” I mutter.
“Male scum of Alpha Kappa Epsilon,” Wendy says through the megaphone. “We see you. Yes, all of you.”
Wendy points her finger, scanning the air with it as if to highlight all of us.
“We demand Ace McKinnon’s removal from office, or our alliance is over.” A cheer erupts from every member oftheir sorority as our sacred Scorpions flag burns to cinders, disappearing into the orange and blue flames.
I rub my hand over my face. This is bad. Soooo bad.
Shep steps forward. “Let ‘em riot, Ace. This is bullshit.”
Maybe, but we’ve got several fundraisers and socials set up with Delta Gamma this year, meant for building financial and social capital. I want to leave this fraternity in a better position than when I took over, not worse.
