“Are you dissing us?”Bax’s mock-indignant tone held a grin as he turned his attention to his teammates.“I think this girl is dissing us.”
“I don’t care if she is.I’m all in for drinking the frat boys’ fancy beer,” Callahan said.Wrapping his arm around Jamaica’s waist, he said, “Lead the way, ladies.”
Having arrived fashionably late, we had to weave our way through the crowd surrounding the dance floor to the back of the room where the bar was set up.Then we had to wait behind a crowd three deep in front of us before we could be served.
Helena squeezed my arm and gushed, “I think the SCRs and the Little Rhos have pulled off the best Mardi Gras Masquerade ever, and the night is still young.”
“Everyone wanted to attend this party.You can have such a good time when you can pretend no one knows who you are.”
Chapter Five
Cash
Iparked my rigin the lot behind Dalton Sneed’s frat and blew out a low whistle at the number of cars filling it.It appeared he’d invited me to the biggest bash of the year.As he’d instructed, I walked in the back door and stepped directly into an industrial kitchen filled with guys who were making the world’s largest batch of jungle juice.A couple of them, with the sleeves of their dress shirts rolled up to their elbows, poured bags of ice into a thirty-three-gallon plastic trash can.I hoped the liner was food-grade, but probably, it was a plain old trash bag.
Several other guys stood at the ready with opened bottles of booze while Dalton and our safety, Taco Hernandez, stood at the sink filling pitchers with water and adding packets of Kool-Aid.Catching me standing right inside the door, Dalton smiled.
“Glad you could make it, man.Give me a second, and I’ll grab you a mask.”
“Thanks.Looks like a pretty lethal brew you’re mixing up.”I chuckled.“And a lot of it.”
“We’ll be lucky if this lasts through the party,” Taco said as he poured his pitcher of Kool-Aid into the rapidly filling vat.
In a couple of minutes, liquid filled the trash can to within a third of the brim.Another pair of guys, who’d been standing on the other side of the sink from Dalton and Taco, stepped over and tipped in a massive bowl of sliced fruit.In seconds, orange, lemon, and lime slices covered the top of the concoction.
Dalton walked over to me and grabbed his suit jacket from where it hung on a peg near the door behind me.With a grin, he reached into the pocket and held out a black silk mask.
“Here you go.”
I grinned back and slipped on it over my head, adjusting it over my eyes.“I feel like Zorro in this thing,” I said, striking a pose.
Dalton laughed.“Yeah, when you slice up defenses with your precision passing, we’ll start calling you Zorro.Right, Taco?”
“For sure, man,” Taco said as he joined us.
“Make way for the fun lubricant!”one of their frat brothers shouted as four of them grabbed the handles of the trash can and hefted it through the swinging doors separating the kitchen from the party on the other side.
A crew of guys were helping themselves to plates of food from an array of snacks covering a wide counter.A DJ was playing something by Kane Brown, I think.Laughter and conversation filled all the airspace.
Clapping me on the shoulder, Dalton said, “Time to party, Cash Zorro!”He laughed at his lame nickname for me.Nodding toward the guys with the booze, he said, “Follow them.”
We walked into a great room, with emphasis on “great.”The place easily held the hundred-plus guests filling it.Fancy decorations in green, gold, and purple hung from the beams spaced at intervals down the two-story-high ceiling.Someone with an industrial-height ladder must have hung the balloons from the ornate chandelier hanging in the middle.
Through the crowd of people, I could make out some couches and chairs along the walls.A gorgeous mahogany bar, like something out of an old Western, lined the wall to our right.At least the guys hefting that heavy vat of party brew hadn’t had to go far.Already they were ladling cups of lethal drinks from it.But from where I stood at the entrance to the behind-the-bar area, I noticed stacks of thirty-racks of beer, thank God.After watching the boys make their jungle juice, I’d already made up my mind to steer clear of it.The alcohol content in that shit was so high, drinking it would make a guy’s ears swell up.
A group of girls took up the space in front of the bar with a row of guys standing protectively behind them.One of the girls in an electric-blue mask, embellished with glittery rhinestones and a set of blue and white feathers, was pitching shit at the bartenders who were laughing at her sass.The girls flanking her laughed too, and I had a sudden urge to be in on the joke.
With my mask in place, I let my eyes take a little tour of Sassy-Girl, hoping like hell she didn’t belong to one of the bruisers standing behind her.She’d arranged her blonde hair in a cascade of curls my fingers itched to wreck just to find out if her hair was as soft and thick as it looked.When she blew a kiss at one of the guys handing out cups of party punch, my eyes latched onto her full rosy lips, and a picture of those gorgeous lips wrapped around my cock flashed through my mind.
The fuck?What was wrong with me?I had no idea who this girl was, and already, I was picturing her giving me head?
Sipping from her cup, she puckered those tempting lips and turned to her girlfriend standing beside her.Though I couldn’t hear what she said over the din of the crowd, after watching the guys build the punch, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out she thought the jungle juice was intense.
“Looks like some of the other players made it,” Dalton said in my ear.
“How do you know?Everyone’s wearing a mask.”
“Well, that girl with the multicolored mask standing at the bar is Jamaica Winslow, Callahan’s squeeze, which means the guy standing behind her is ’Han himself.Next to him are Bax and Finn.Easy to tell them too, because even dressed up, they can’t help looking like the tanks they are.”Dalton laughed.
