Monte
Chapter 1
Mandatory fun? Yeah, I had a hard pass ready for that one.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes. It’s a requirement that all brothers will attend,” Denny insisted.
“There’s gotta be some way out of this.”
“Monte, you’ve managed to avoid every event Delta Omega Gamma has attended this year. It looks bad.”
“No one even noticed I was missing,” I argued.
He rolled his eyes.
“Not true,” Denny’s mate Lauren chimed in. “I’ve been asked numerous times where you’ve been. Being the only female living in the doghouse puts me in the awkward position of filtering all their questions.”
“Whose questions?”
“Theta,” they said together, and then turned to grin at each other as they both laughed.
Lauren was great. We all loved her. She was the mother of the house now, or maybe everyone’s overprotective big sister.
Denny snagged a quick kiss, causing her to blush. A part of me longed for that with someone, but not here. Not while in college. I would be graduating soon and then who knew where life would take me? Back to my tiny Pack with few opportunitiesin life? Or on to a new adventure? My entire world was about to open, and I did not want to risk being bogged down with a mate.
It had been an easy decision to fade out of ARC society. I much preferred it even. I got to sit out in my boxers playing video games in my spare time or get away from campus altogether and enjoy a hike up in the mountains. I’d even taken up rock climbing lately. Turns out, I like being alone. So on my return to campus for my final year, I simply stopped inserting myself into the middle of things and no one seemed to notice.
“Trust me, they notice,” Lauren insisted, as if she’d just read my mind.
I let out a small growl of frustration.
“The guys are starting to worry,” Denny said.
“I’m not a freshman anymore. Far from it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my time here drunk and partying. I don’t want to risk any long-term attachments or anything like that. I just want to spend time with the guys, hang out, and pass my classes while I contemplate what the hell I’m going to do after this place.”
“Boring! There’s plenty of time for that shit,” Remy claimed as he and the guys butted into our conversation.
Remy, Braxton, Caleb, and I had been friends since childhood. Add in Sadie, Rose, Delilah, and Dakota and that pretty much summed up the entirety of people my age back home in Maxwell Pack. It didn’t exactly make for many opportunities.
“Yeah, what’s up with you?” Caleb asked.
“I was having lunch with the girls today and they all mentioned they hadn’t really seen you around much this semester,” Braxton added.
I shrugged. “Just busy. It’s senior year,” I reminded them.
“Yeah, senior year,” Remy repeated. “We should be partying it up and living life before the real world calls us home way too soon.”
“Next year we can be serious, but this year it’s all about fun,” Caleb insisted.
“I don’t know, I feel like there should be a happy medium this year. It’s okay to have fun, but I don’t particularly want to repeat my senior year either,” Braxton said.
“I think I’m just going to go camping this weekend,” I told them.
“No you aren’t. At least not until after the Theta party. All brothers are required to be there. I promised Zoey,” Denny admitted.
“Zoey Rey? Why the hell would you promise her anything?” I wondered aloud.
