Page 88 of Betting on the Boy Next Door
“Not quite.” I scoop her up, bride style, and she gasps and then giggles as I carry her into my living room, settling us into the center junction of the sectional. I lean back against it, and she slides off my lap enough to settle next to me with her legs still draped over my thighs. I look down at her and raise my eyebrows. “Now talk.”
She responds by wiggling and fidgeting, finally drawing up her legs so her feet are wedged under me like I’m bracing her for sit-ups. Then she tucks her arms into her sweatshirt, leaving the sleeves empty, rests her chin on her knees, and begins.
“I’ll try to keep this short, but interrupt if you have questions.” When I nod, she continues. “I grew up in Hillsboro with a single mother. My father left before I was one and I don’t remember him. Mom grew up with a single mother. My grandfather ran out on my grandma when my mom was three, and she doesn’t remember her dad either.”
“Dirtbags.” That’s the nicest word I can come up with.
She shrugs. “I guess. We did all right. My mom raised me the same way Grandma raised her: don’t count on a man, do for yourself, work hard, and you’ll never have to depend on anyone. Grandma worked as a waitress forever then eventually worked up to regional manager for Pickle Patch.”
“They make a good breakfast.”
“Facts,” Sami says. “My mom became a nurse. It can be hard hours, but there’s always work, and I liked that I could earn well with a four-year degree. College was barely affordable; a masters or law school? Forget it. So I worked like a dog through high school, got scholarships, and went to UT. I had it better than a lot of people in my town, but I’d always look around at the kids whose parents were together, whose dads were lawyers or doctors, or even jobsite superintendents, and I’d think, ‘It would be so much easier to have a family like that.’ And I think I started looking for that in college. Not consciously.”
She stops to rub her cheek against her sweatshirt-covered knee, and it reminds me of a cat, one that will dart away if I make any sudden movements. I say nothing and wait for her to pick up the story.
“I met Ruby, Ava, and Madi our freshman year, and I adored them. Ava and I probably clicked the most because we both love life science, but all of us got along. Madi, though? Next level. She comes from major money and probably has the biggest brain out of all of us.”
“I don’t know her well at all,” I say, “so I shouldn’t judge, but something about that surprises me.”
“Madi doesn’t let anyone know her, really. Even after all these years, in some ways, we barely do. But Pi Phi really wanted her to pledge, and they were constantly recruiting her. Her mom was Pi Phi. It doesn’t look good if a legacy doesn’t want to join. I overheard them one night when they came over to the dorm to sell her on pledging. They talked about the sisterhood, the opportunities to give back, the way you have a lifelong network of women who will look out for you personally, socially, professionally.”
She peers up at me, her eyes tired. “Can you imagine why that appealed to me?”
“Because it was a much bigger net than just your mom and grandmother?”
She nods. “Don’t get me wrong, my mom and grandma areeverything. But having that much backup built in? I’d never experienced anything like it. When the sorority girls left, I started bugging Madi to pledge. I told her we should both do it, and it would be fun.
“Eventually, she was like, sure, okay, and we went through rush and made it through every round. We both got bids. I accepted mine. Madi didn’t.”
“For real?” A lot of girls at UT would give up a future firstborn for a Pi Phi bid. Their grad network is impressive and can open doors from Austin to New York and DC.
“Yeah. I found out later that she only agreed to accept the bid if they offered me one too. Told them we were a package deal.” She shakes her head, and I catch a smile on the half of her face I can see. “So Madi. Lunatic.”
“Were they mad?”
“At Madi. And some of the girls held it against me, but mostly they were mad at her for rejecting them.”
“Did they treat you okay?” The Greek system is not nearly as dysfunctional as movies and TV shows like to make it out to be, but sometimes sororities can be harder on their members than frats are.
“Eventually. In some ways, it helped that I didn’t live in the sorority house. That kept costs down for me, and when I explained to my grandma why I joined, about the professional benefits I was banking on down the road, she was all over helping me. She knows that a lot of professional success comes down to who you know and not what you know. She made sure I had enough for the real dues plus the unofficial ones. The new mandatory T-shirt for every event, the matching outfits they wanted, the specific brand and cut of white jean, or the specific sandal.”
“At this point, rock goddess Sami is as normal to me as sweatshirt Sami,” I tell her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She shivers and goosebumps pop out along her neck. I smile. She’s into me. Maybe as much as I’m into her. “It’s hard to imagine you being matchy-matchy with your sisters.”
“It wasn’t hard at first. It was amazing to be part of a group like that. But over time, it started to wear thin. Especially once I’d committed to nursing and realized I probably wasn’t going to need their connections to get hired. But I stuck it out because of Bryce.”
“That bastard,” I say, mostly to make her laugh. It works.
“Yeah, basically. We started dating my sophomore year. He was the guy that half of Pi Phi wanted, and he picked me.”
I couldn’t blame him, but I did want to punch him, and I wasn’t even exactly sure what he was guilty of yet.
“He came from a super wealthy Dallas family. Graduated in geology with a plan to go straight into an MBA at Rice so he could start working for his family’s oil business.” She lifts her head and rests it on her knees so she can look me fully in the face. “I’ll spare you the details because I’d only want to know about your exes in the most general terms, but let’s just say I was gone on him. Saw our five-year plan, getting married after business school, the whole bit.”
I definitely hate this guy.
“What I didn’t know is that his family didn’t like me. At least, they didn’t like me for him. Felt like I didn’t come from a similar enough background to understand their lifestyle and future plans for their precious boy. His mom told him I was fine for college, but when we graduated, he needed to move on to a more suitable relationship. So that’s what he did. He dumped me the day after graduation. I heard through the grapevine a few months ago that he’s engaged to some girl from Dallas.”
“So basically, you find everything about UT frat boys from wealthy families triggering.”
