“We’re not done,” Nico says.
“We’re done,” she repeats.
“You’re done, bro,” someone else hollers, and then other voices from Greek Row chime in.
“Go home, asshole!”
“You’re killing my buzz!”
Nico only has eyes and ears for Demi. “You don’t mean it,” he informs her.
Idiot. Men really need to stop telling women what they mean or don’t mean. The one lesson I’ve learned over the years is that a woman doesn’t appreciate it when you put words in her mouth—or your dick in someone else’s mouth.
“Oh, trust me, I mean it.” Demi abruptly disappears from the window.
For a moment I think it’s over. But then she reappears, her arms full of clothes.
“Let me help you clean out your drawer before you go,” she says angrily.
I choke on a laugh as items of clothing come sailing out the second-floor window onto the lawn. A Celtics hoodie. Some T-shirts. A pair of boxers float down.
“You don’t deserve a drawer in my house! You don’t deserve anything anymore. I’m done with this. Take all your stuff and get out of my life.”
Once again I think it’s all over.
But then Nico, stupid stupid Nico, utters the dumbest shit he could’ve ever uttered. “Don’t you dare throw my PlayStation out the window, Demi!”
If that ain’t a challenge.
She whirls around again, and this time she doesn’t come back.
Huh. Okay. Maybe she decided to spare the PlayStation. Nico seems to think so, because his entire body relaxes. He glumly walks forward and begins picking up the clothes on the lawn.
He still hasn’t noticed me, and I’m not about to make my presence known. It’d be like approaching a lion with a thorn in its paw.
Just when I decide all is well—when the night is quiet and Nico’s scattered items have been collected—the front door of the sorority house flies open and Demi emerges. Holding a tangle of cables, controllers, and a slender black PlayStation.
Nico’s head snaps up. “Thank you!” Looking relieved, he holds out his hands as if he truly believes he’s getting the game console back unscathed.
“Thank you? No, thank you,” Demi shoots back. She’s spitting fire again. “Thank you for wasting eight years of my life.” She hurls one controller to the ground. “Thank you for lying to my face.” The second controller smashes on the concrete walkway. “Thank you for disrespecting me.”
When she reaches the curb, the only item she’s left holding is the PlayStation.
I hold my breath. The other components could easily be replaced. This console itself can’t.
“I never want to see you again. You’ve ruined this. You ruined our friendship, you ruined our relationship, you ruined everything.”
Crash!
The PlayStation collides with the sidewalk, breaking into several pieces.
Nico has the nerve to say, “I can’t believe you did that!” Which prompts Demi to take a swing at him, and that’s when I jump away from the hedge.
She manages to get one sharp blow in before I haul her away from him, trying to corral her like a wild horse.
She might not be a teammate, but I think this still qualifies for paragraph four, line eight of the captain’s log: Don’t let your teammates commit murder.
“Hey, hey, stop,” I order.
“Hunter? What are you doing here?” She blinks a few times before her eyes go feral again. “Let me go. He deserves an ass kicking!”
“Yes, he does,” I agree, and Nico scowls at me. “But karma will do that job for you, trust me.”
“Hunter, let me go!” Now she’s grunting, gritting her teeth, attempting to punch her way out of my grip. So I fling her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Hunter!” she screeches in outrage. “Put me down!”
“No. I’m not watching you get arrested for assault tonight, okay?” I kick away a piece of Nico’s PlayStation, while trying to contain a struggling Demi. “You’re already guilty of property damage.”
“I don’t care!” she says stubbornly. “Now I want to do bodily damage.”
“I know you do, Semi, but trust me, he ain’t worth it.”
But the riled-up woman in my arms is still flapping her arms like a trapped bird trying to get free. I spare a dark look at Nico before marching off toward my Land Rover. Only when I reach the vehicle do I set Demi down. The moment her socked feet meet the sidewalk, her steely demeanor seems to crumble. Suddenly she turns into a vulnerable girl, tears welling in her eyes.
“He humiliated me,” she whispers.
“I know, babe. C’mere.” I open my arms, but she ducks her head shamefully.
“No. I don’t want a hug,” she mumbles.
“Fine, then get in the car.”
“Why?”
“You’re coming over to my place and we’re getting drunk. You could use the distraction.”
Demi hesitates. She glances in the vicinity of the Theta house, where Nico is slowly walking toward his pick-up truck. Then she tears her gaze away and opens the passenger’s door of my Rover.