"House opens at nine," Tyler decides. "Ian and Rex, you're on the beer run."
"Why me?" Ian whines.
"Because you deserve it," at least six people say in unison.
"Rex because... well, Rex knows what he did," Drew adds.
Rex sighs. "Yeah, that's fair."
"Everyone else, clean your shit up! This place looks like a frat house!"
"It IS a frat house," someone yells.
"A classy frat house! Move it!"
Gavin presses a kiss to my hair and mutters, "Be right back, gotta help or Drew will have my ass," before joining the chaos of guys scrambling to make the place look less like a disaster zone. I find a quiet corner near the stairs and pull out my phone to call JP.
"A party?" JP sounds skeptical. "At the frat house?"
"You don't have to come. Just figured I'd invite you."
Silence. Then I hear a muffled conversation before JP comes back. "Max wants to know if they have beer pong."
"Almost certainly."
More muffled conversation. "We'll be there by nine-thirty."
I spend the next hour watching Gavin in his element, laughing with his brothers, effortlessly charming, pulling me into conversations as if I belong here.
By the time the house fills up with people and music starts thumping through the speakers, I've almost forgotten I'm supposed to be an outsider.
That comfortable feeling evaporates the second I see my housemates walk in. Leo looks like he might pass out from anxiety. Luca's mouth is moving like he's practicing his introductions again.
I have to look around to find Elliot, who has somehow already found a quiet corner, and Max is scanning the room with the intensity of a predator.
"Where's the pong table?" he demands.
Gavin points toward the back. "That way. But I gotta warn you, our guys are pretty?—"
Max is already gone, dragging Leo behind him.
"Should we be concerned?" Gavin asks.
"Absolutely."
Twenty minutes later, there's a crowd around the beer pong table, and Max and Leo are destroying everyone.
"That’s physically impossible!" one of the frat guys yells as another ball sinks perfectly into a cup.
"Actually," Leo says, adjusting his trajectory, "if you account for the air resistance coefficient and the optimal parabolic arc?—"
"Leo, less math, more throwing," Max says.
"Right, sorry." Leo sinks another shot.
"What the fuck!”
Gavin's cackling beside me. "Holy shit, Doc. Your friends are hustlers."
