1
Chase
“This birthday party sucks,”I muttered to a stack of red plastic cups.
My words were drowned out as Jared hollered and tossed a football across his kitchen. It crashed into a neighbouring stack of cups beside me on the counter, scattering them in a plastic explosion. One of them somehow landed on my head. The other dudes cheered like he’d scored a major touchdown.
Thank fuck this wasn’tmyhouse.
The sooner this crappy party was over, the better. I didn’t evenwanta damned birthday party. Not like this. I would’ve been fine hanging out in my apartment with a couple close friends, ordering pizza and watching a movie.
Unfortunately, I’d decided to make plans after a workout when my hands were sweaty. While trying to text my best friend, Lily, my sweat-soaked finger slipped and sent me scrolling halfway down my group chats. The invite mistakenly went to my old college frat instead—and those dudes were all too eager to throw a massive rager.
I couldn’t back out afterliterallyjust asking them to party. We weren’t close anymore, but they were old buds. I’d feel guilty refusing the invite to Jared’s house.
Hence the chaos.
A soft, amused voice broke my spell. “You have a cup on your head.”
It was Lily, who attended the party despitereallynot needing to. She had some past beef with Jared and the guys, which was mostly why I didn’t hang out with them anymore. But she showed up as moral support for me, which I appreciated.
I sighed as she removed it. She put it back on the kitchen island, where it would inevitably become another football casualty.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, glancing up at her. She was already tall, and she wore her heels inside the house because Jared’s place was a ‘keep your shoes on’ kind of establishment. “Why are you even still here? Go. Save yourself.”
“Someone has to keep you company,” she said. “Everybody else is... clearly occupied.”
We glanced over our shoulders. The football was now sitting on the marble counter while Jared and the boys balanced liquid-filled cups on top of it. When one dude poured a little too much vodka, the cup overflowed and caused a chain reaction of cups, booze, and balls all over the marble floor. The dudes roared and laughed like a pack of hyenas, their raucous noise echoing through Jared’s big-ass house.
“They make me embarrassed to be a guy,” I mumbled.
Lily grinned. “Thank god I realized I wasn’t one.”
That got a snort of laughter out of me. But I still felt bad she felt pressured to stay for my sake.
“Go home,” I insisted. “Text your girlfriend. Scroll Netflix. Do literally anything besides hanging out in this testosterone cesspool.”
She looked entertained. “All right. But first, I have gossip.” I could tell she wanted to speak in a conspiratorial whisper, butthe frat boys were so loud, she nearly had to shout instead. “I saw a cute guy in the living room.”
“There are no cute guys in the frat,” I said, deadpan.
But Lily shook her head. “He’s not from the frat.”
I raised a brow. Who else was even here? I’d invited a few other friends, but Lily knew them by name—besides, they’d all escaped the chaos and gone home by now.
“You’ll know when you see him. He’s got this sexy mysterious aura,” Lily explained.
Now I was even more confused. Had somebody snuck into Jared’s house?
I peered out into the front hall. Sure enough, somebody had shoved a brick against the front door. It was propped wide open in the classic college dorm signal for ‘come on in!’
I let out an exasperated sigh. Jared lived in a wealthy neighbourhood, so he must’ve assumed it wasn’t dangerous. But seriously, the dude was inviting random strangers into his house while his parents were out on vacation. It was so high school. We were too old for this shit.
“Yo, guys, check this out!” Jared yelled. He thrust a small black book above his head. “At midnight, we’re gonna summon a demon!”
The guys all whooped.
I checked the time. Midnight was in fifteen minutes. Maybe after they failed to summon jack shit, I could finally go home.
