“Relax. She’s not my type. Her friend on the other hand…” iPhone grins. “That diva’s a ten.”
I relax a little. If it wasn’t for iPhone, I wouldn’t have known Haven was at the G’s party last night. Honestly, I didn’t think she’d leave her room after what happened Friday night, but Haven’s always had a tough skin. Guess it’s only gotten tougher the past few years.
Kruger passes iPhone the blunt, but he waves it away. “Don’t think I can get higher.”
“Thad, dude, you can always get higher,” Kruger says.
I’mdefinitelynot high enough. Can still remember way too much of my life, thank you very fucking much.
The gun going off in Haven’s hand.
Rooke’s groan as he came in my mouth.
The jolt of pain when he twisted his hand in my hair.
And that traitorous swell of pride when he called me a?—
I reach past iPhone to take the blunt, but before I can grab it, he snatches it from Kruger and hits it hard.
“Everyone knows, bro. Fucking everyone.”
His real name’s out, which means we’re treated to thirty minutes of Thaddeus Rex, Thaddy Daddy, Thaddeus Prime, or whatever the guys can come up with every time iPhone walks into a room.
“Better than iPhone, right?”
“iPhone?” He rolls his eyes so hard I’m shocked they don’t fall out. But when he looks around, I guess the pieces fall intoplace. “That’s what you guys have been calling me behind my back?”
“And to your face,” Nolan says. “Thaddy’s better, though.”
“That’s my first name, dickhead. Everyone calls me Blake.”
“What, even your folks?” Kruger asks, looking quite genuine about it. Or at least, too stoned to be making a joke.
iPhone—Blake—looks around the hot tub with growing disbelief. “Seriously? I’ve been in this frat as long as Jordan, andnoneof you fuckers even know my name?”
This sets us all off for another minute or two.
“Don’t be a Saddy Thad—” Austin shrieks when Blake beans him with a beer can.
“I know you told everyone, fuck face!” Blake yells, lunging over the churning water toward Austin. I grab the blunt from him, sticking it in my mouth before me and Kruger manhandle him away from Austin.
We shove him down on the seat beside us hard enough to send a surge of water over the side of the sunken hot tub. It splashes harmlessly onto the paving, but it washes a few roaches and some beer tops back into the water, and would have submerged my phone if I hadn’t snatched it off the paving just in time.
Thaddy’s phone isn’t as lucky.
“Fuck man, I just got a new one,” he whines, shaking water off the phone.
“Rice it,” Kruger says.
“Probably spend another twenty minutes looking for it,” Blake mutters as he stands to go back inside.
I inspect Kruger’s blunt, but thank God it’s still dry enough to smoke. I give it a few shallow puffs to get it glowing again, then a deep hit. The tobacco leaf burns my throat like Jäger, but I keep it pinned inside my lungs as I hand the blunt back to Kruger.
A violent and painful—but thankfully brief—coughing fit follows.
“Hey, dude, you been to see Ezra yet?” Nolan asks.
I’m not the only one who’s surprised when they realize he’s speaking to me. “What?”
