Great!
While I could appreciate the benefits of being in the spotlight online, I despised being the center of attention. I was going to stick out like a sore thumb if I were the only one in gold.
I growled in frustration.Why the hell would they do this to me?
I looked in the mirror and only saw a fraud staring back at me. Shaking off that horrible feeling, I raised my chin in defiance.
“Fake it till we make it,” I told the perfectly manicured image staring back at me.
Monte
Chapter 3
I did not want to attend the Theta party tonight. But what could I do? Carefully avoiding those girls had kept me sane these last few years. I heard the stories, and I knew all they wanted was to get drunk and fuck. That simply wasn’t me.
I avoided Theta girls like the plague.
My freshman year I spent more time at the Panther house than Theta, though I’d attended a few. By my sophomore year I knew to just steer clear of that house. Something about that place just set my wolf on edge. As I got dressed for the evening in the black suit and blue and gold tie we’d all been instructed to wear, I could already feel my anxiety rising.
I wasn’t really sure why my wolf reacted so strongly there, but I had learned to trust him. When his anxiety rose, nothing good ever came from it, at least not in real life. It was only when I was climbing that a good sort of anxiety happened.
Dread washed over me as I braced for an uncomfortable evening. I was already counting down the minutes until I could excuse myself and go for a run to calm myself before retiring early.
It had been a long week, and I was exhausted.
I briefly considered begging off, but Denny had been very clear on his expectations and had personally warned me not to bother trying to get out of it.
Still, I wanted to try.
Remy pounded on my bedroom door. “Let’s go.”
I groaned, grabbed my black suit jacket and folded it across my arm as I left the safety of my room to be escorted right into the wolf den.
Ten minutes later we all walked over to Theta as a group.
“Denny, how long are we required to stay?” I asked. Maybe I could just make an appearance and leave.
“It’s a formal dinner followed by a night of dancing. Denny and Zoey have agreed to keep things very civil tonight. It’s the first required event they’ve shared together in quite some time,” Lauren explained. “So no bailing until after you’ve had at least one dance.” She wagged her finger in my direction in warning.
“Food better be good,” I muttered under my breath.
“It’s going to be fine. Fun even,” Caleb insisted.
“Everyone should be on their best behavior tonight,” Remy said with a wink.
The shit-eating grin on his face told me he had other plans for the evening.
I said a quick prayer that the night would be swift and painless.
As we arrived at the house a few minutes later, Denny stepped up to knock on the door. I was too far back to see who it was, but the shimmer of gold in the doorway made my eyes roll. They were clearly going all out to draw attention to themselves.
My wolf began to grow agitated.
From the very back of the line I looked around for an escape route as my brothers began filing in one by one.
“Don’t even think about it,” Braxton whispered, positioning himself behind me. “It’s not going to kill you to do this one thing. Besides, it might even be fun.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t trying to bail.”
