31 Kisses Page 7

  “The porch will probably cost a thousand to fix. The screen door another couple hundred, but we still have the Alpha account through the university. I didn’t want to touch that, but if we need to, we can dip into the funds and then put it back with next semester’s fund-raisers.”

  “The new members will have to pay their dues when they move in. That’ll help.”

  He rooms around the hall, looking for something. “Can we induct them early?”

  “Not officially… We’re already in trouble. Let’s try not to create a running tab with the probation office.”

  “I would pay for it,” he offers as he steps onto a chair cautiously. “But I don’t want my dad to know. A large withdrawal like that’ll alert him.”

  “It’s not on you to take on the house’s financial problems. We can make that money back.” We both know I don’t have the money to pay. I’m here on scholarship. My house dues are covered by my student loan, the other portion I use for books, food, and the occasional article of clothing. I work three on campus jobs to make extra money to spend at the end of the month.

  He pulls a lighter from his pocket and holds it up to the ceiling sprinklers.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? Holding a lighter at a Bon Jovi concert?”

  “Bon Jovi?” I chide.

  “Fuck off.” He peers down at me and switches the subject. “Any bright ideas? Because people are going home for break soon, and we have until the end of the year to hand the university a check. Dipping into the account is the only way I see this going smoothly.”

  “People are already home for break, Stone. The frat’s down to half; the rest only stayed this long to help us with the party.”

  In a matter of minutes, it’s raining in the Alpha House, but no alarms are going off. “Did you rig the smoke detectors not to go off?”

  He holds onto my shoulder and steps down from the chair, just as all the girls come running out of the rooms to get out of the rain. “Beautiful sight,” he says, leaning against the wall to give the half-dressed girls space to escape.

  I roll my eyes and step to the side. “Cameron?”

  He shrugs. “He’s a smart kid.”

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding my head. “He is.” I look at the water around my feet and the patches of light gray material that are getting dark from the water stains. “You just made the cleanup ten times worse.”

  “How?”

  “Everything is wet!” I shout as one of the last girls to exit the room slips on the floor. I help her up.

  “Thanks,” she says quickly before evacuating.

  I stand in the middle of the hall, eyeing my best friend and surveying the water damage. Stone’s smart, but he’s impulsive. He always has great ideas, but horrible ability to see past the quick fix. Sarcastically, I say, “Nice tactic…”

  He doesn’t look worried. “How else are you going to wake up fifty guys and get rid of at least thirty girls in less than ten minutes?”

  I sigh. There’s no point in arguing with the guy. “We need to get to work. No way in hell we’ll have this all ready.”

  “We live in New York. I’m sure there’s a cleaning service that works on Sundays.”

  There goes a good chunk of the money we made yesterday.

  “Go downstairs,” he orders as he troops toward the middle of the hallway. A lot of the guys are standing in their doorways, using them as a sort of umbrella to shield their heads from the rain. He motions for them to head downstairs. Some do. “Don’t worry.”

  Someone has to.

  “I’ll get the rest of these guys downstairs and send a few to the laundry mat with the bedroom stuff to dry. The maids will mop everything up here while we gather the trash downstairs and outside.”

  “What about the wet carpet? And the wet sofas? And the wet mattresses?”

  He pats me on the shoulder. “I’ll think of something.”

  “Something that’s going to cost us probably.”

  He disappears down the hall and I shout for Cameron as I carefully go down the stairs. He shows up immediately, before I even clear the steps. “Can you shut this off please?”

  He nods and disappears.

  Shit. All the electronics in this place. I rush to the TV; it still works, but the PS4 on the ground is probably gone and the laptops… Fuck me.

  It stops raining. Cameron comes back into the living room, holding his computer with one hand and an umbrella with the other.

  “That thing still work?”

  “I had it in a waterproof book bag.”

  “How much water can they take before they fry out?”

  “Fry out,” he repeats with a chuckle.

  I fix the nerd with a poignant stare. I’m not in the mood to play games.

  “I don’t know. It depends on the computers, but I’d say some people will be needing new ones.”

  New ones that the frat will have to cover.

  “We can’t claim this with the insurance company. No fire engine was sent out.”

  “Yeah,” I say, kicking the stacked cups in front of me toward the sofas.

  Fear etches across his face. “They’ll dig into it and see that the reporting loop back to the campus’ Public Safety Department was tampered with.”

  “Don’t worry, Cameron. No one will know.”

  “I told Stone it was a bad idea, but he asked me to do it after the guys used the birthday candles to blow wishes with their asses—”

  I cut him off, “I know all the dumb shit that goes on around here. I don’t need a recap.”

  Cameron smashes his lips together and looks uncomfortable. The urge to ease his mind flutters inside me until a group of fraternity brothers amble down the stairs in somewhat dry clothes and towels draped over their shoulders, looking pissed as fuck and grumbling about the water damage. With wet couches, they drift to the kitchen for breakfast and will probably head downstairs to the basement where the meeting tables are.

  “How’s breakfast coming?” I ask as I try to assess the situation.

  “Plenty of coffee. Soggy pancakes,” Cameron reports.

  Fuck. The campus cafeteria is closed until ten. “Round them up. Tell them to go into town for brunch. If you all get there now, you can beat the church rush and be back here by 10:30. That gives us three hours to clean up.”

  “On it.” He vanishes through the kitchen. I grab a few trash bags from off the coffee table and gander out the window. The porch is definitely busted, three of the small pillars are missing, and a chunk of the top railing is splintered off. On a good note, aside from some random cups and articles of clothing, the street looks decent.

  Cameron comes back in with a handful of pledges: two leave through the front door; the others stay and take some trash bags to clean up.

  Cameron explains, “A few of the pledges are driving to the donut shop to grab a quick breakfast. Some of the brothers are outside. They’re going to get the bottles, cans, and stuff into the cars, and toss it in the dumpsters away from here.”

  “Good idea,” I compliment his incentive.

  “I heard they like to check the trash.”

  Stone comes down the stairs at that exact moment, talking to some of the senior brothers. All of them are carrying black trash bags with numbers on them. “Take those and go the laundry mat on Ivenson. The other guys will take the rest to the one on Adams.”

  They wave, or grumble, a good morning before they leave.

  “Before you ask, the sheets went under everyone’s bed. No one wants to touch those.”

  I laugh and jut my chin toward the pledges. “I sent everyone away for breakfast, but they decided to disobey me and hang out.”

  “Good,” he affirms as he holds onto his stomach. He stretches a hand in the air and curls his fingers toward two of the pledges. “Do me a favor.”

  They nod as if they have a choice.

  “Go to the Zeta house. Ask to borrow all their hair dryers and then dry
down the sofas.”

  My ears perk up at this. Smart.

  “Cameron? Can you grab the leaf blower from the basement and bring it up here?”

  “Up here?” I echo back, holding my hand in the air and stopping them. “Are you nuts? That’s an industrial blower!”

  The pledges snort laugh, taking the comment as an innuendo.

  I cut my eyes to them. “Not the time for your immature crap.”

  Stone sends them away. “Yeah. It’s also a reverse vacuum. The pledges can stand along the front of the house.” He points to where he wants the pledges to stand, and they get in position. “I’ll hold the blower. They’ll have them close to the floor. Most of the trash will end up in the bags. They’re just plastic cups and paper.”

  He’s insane. “It might work.”

  “Good, because I can only find one maid service who wasn’t booked before the holidays, and they charge higher for their hourly rate based on the damage. If they see a party, I think they’ll charge more.”

  “Okay. I’ll head to the kitchen and clean it out.”

  “Make sure there’s no alcohol in the common fridges or anywhere. If there is, take it upstairs and put it in the upperclassmen’s rooms.”

  By two in the afternoon, the sofas have been dried, the alcohol dispersed, the kitchen cleaned, and the trash all blown into bags. Upstairs, industrial trash bags were placed over the damp mattresses and the freshly dried comforters stretched over the beds. The maids mopped down the floors and the surfaces while the guys used the hair dryers to dry out the wet parts of the wall. Outside, the porch was glued back together— a mere temporary fix—and a few guys were staged in the front to block the view.

  Downstairs, the screen door was hidden under the couch cushions, and one of the pledges was pretending to steam clean the carpets. The guys had wiped down everything and some went downstairs to study, others were out in the backyard grilling for a late lunch, and the rest were scattered around the house.

  Thirty minutes later, we passed our first inspection. After everything and all damages were reported, we had spent all the money we made yesterday, and were no longer sixteen thousand dollars in the negative but twenty-seven thousand.

  I am sitting on my plastic-covered bed with my dead computer in my hands. Stone’s sitting on my computer chair, holding his phone in his hand. He’s not in as much pain after we went to the hospital. They gave him some painkillers, and he’s thinking clearer now.

  I snap my fingers in the air, getting his attention. “Who are you talking to? We’re supposed to be brainstorming.”

  “I’m talking to Kelsie,” he says, as he thumbs over the keyboard.

  At the sound of her name, I check my phone, in case she messaged me today. She didn’t.

  “She wants to know how I am.”

  “Did you tell her you have two fractured ribs?”

  “I told her I’m fine.”

  Right, because two fractured ribs are like a stubbed toe. “If you say so.”

  She’s probably with the old guy who wears the expensive cologne and bites her. I attempt to ward off my feelings by relaxing my jaw and focusing on my lung capacity. Breathing in until there’s no longer any space, I trap the air inside me, like I trap the doubts. My lungs collapse, expelling the air and releasing my thoughts. The jealousy trickles through and causes a tension in my body—a tension I don’t like. The unfamiliar sensation stirs my idle hands into movement and I open up my message app.

  The sudden itch to define who we are to each other takes the lead, but it only produces a one-word text. Girlfriend?

  I don’t send it though. Instead, I message the treasurer, who went home for the holidays a couple days ago. I ask Stone the same thing I asked him, “Do we have twenty-seven thousand in the account?”

  “I don’t think so.” He places the phone on my desk and pores over me. “We can have a fund-raising party at Danvers? We can book a night. Maybe if we help man the place, they’d be willing to give us ten-percent profit.”

  “A lot of people are leaving tonight to go home for the holidays, but I do like the idea.” No damage to the property and no quick fixes.

  “True,” he sulks. “We need people though. Most of Danvers clientele go to FHU.”

  “I don’t think locals go there that much.”

  Instantly, his face lights up, like someone just turned on the switch of a bright idea. “We can get them there though.”

  I shake my head. “We don’t have money to offer giveaways or contests.” Years of dealing with this guy every day and you start to get a feel for how his brain works.

  “What about a…” He pauses for emphasis and holds out his arms. “Who’s your Santa?”

  I blink slowly; it takes a few seconds for my eyelids to flap open again. Sometimes his ideas aren’t so bright. “What?”

  “Think about it.”

  “I’d like to.” Because someone has to. “Walk me through it.”

  “Simple. We dress up as sexy Santas. Girls pay to sit on our laps and tell us who they want for Christmas.”

  Wait for it… That’s too simple for Stone Rissi.

  “We’ll have a bag of presents each.”

  I stop him right there. “Presents? With what money?”

  “Okay,” he says as he bobs his head back and forth, snapping his fingers by his ears rapidly until something comes to him. Holding his index finger in the air, he says, “Ornaments. We’ll go to the Dollar Store and get some of those cheap plastic ball ornaments and sharpies.” He gleams wickedly. “Blue ones.” He smiles wickedly. “Blue Balls.”

  “This sounds stupid.” However, his most profitable ideas usually are. I can’t believe I’m going to ask this. “What are the ornaments for?”

  He nods his head as if it’s genius. “We’ll write numbers and a letter on them, and the girls pay for the balls. But we should only have five guys. A-E.”

  “Wait.” His brain thinks way too fast. “The girls choose which Santa they want, and buy an ornament?”

  He doesn’t like the interruption, and swirls his head away from me.

  Too bad. “Are they like, taking pictures with the Santas or something?”

  I swear he mumbles an “or something” but I can’t be sure.

  I put the phone down and snap my fingers. “Use your words, Rissi. We need the money so explain it to me. No more sprinkler stunts and fireworks shit.”

  He taps his foot and minutely shakes his head. I’m across the room, but I can see the vein on his neck throbbing. Stone doesn’t like being snapped at. I adjust my approach. “Let me help you plan.”

  He lifts his head up and beams at me before holding his phone up and showing me a message thread. “I already got a meeting with Danvers.”

  “Great.” I wait for him to offer some more information. When he doesn’t, I ask, “What do you need me to do?”

  “Should we take our printers and print out pictures? It’s been a while since Laura took me to see Santa.”

  I laugh. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I need him to stay focused and not go off on a tangent.

  “I say we have a few guys act like photographers; they can use the girls’ phones to take the pictures. That way there’s no cost to us.”

  He types some more.

  “Are you taking notes?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe.”

  I’m impressed. “What do you have so far?”

  He reads off his phone, “Every chick who buys an ornament gets to take a picture with the Santa. The ornaments will have a number and then at the end of the night we pick a winner for each Santa.” He rests his phone on his lap and elaborates, “So she, or he, can get one ball from Santa A, one from Santa B…”

  “I got it,” I answer abrasively.

  “Your sure? Because she can also get one from Santa C…” he’s drawling out the words for emphasis.

  I ignore it. “What does the winner get?”

  “Something from us…” He adjusts his
statement. “Like a lap dance or something. Nothing expensive.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  “What do we have to lose?” he asks with a smirk. “I only see gains from it.”

  I quickly run down the list of possible problems: angry boyfriends, catfights, puke, bar brawls. All of which, would be Danvers’ problem. At most all we lose it the blue ball money.

  “We need the money. Set it up.”

  5

  A Question of Legitimacy

  Kelsie

  Breaker barges into the office in the back of the restaurant without even knocking. I drop my phone into my pocket and glare at him. “Ever heard of knocking?”

  “This is my restaurant,” he says, taking a seat directly in front of me. “You just run it.”

  I close the accounting spreadsheet on my computer and ignore his condescending nature. “Aren’t you supposed to be at a meeting with your capos?”

  “I’m supposed to be.” He throws his arm over the back of his chair and rests his foot on his thigh, twitching it nervously and tapping his knee.

  “So?” I cross my hands over my chest and lean back on the desk chair, making myself comfortable. There’s a deep furrow in his forehead that only shows up when he’s really anxious about something. Costa has dedicated most of the time he has left to ensuring that Breaker is ready to take control, so for him to be here—when he’s supposed to be uniting and discussing logistics with the leaders—can’t be a good thing. “What is it?”

  “Dad needs to send a representative to The Commission in order to get the approval for me to ascend.”

  I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the Beneventi hierarchy. I haven’t technically taken the Omerta yet, but I have made my bones. Twenty-seven sets of bones so far, but without the oath, I’m on a need-to-know basis. Not that I minded, being an associate provides me a certain kind of freedom.

  “He refuses to send one until he talks to Stone, and you finish the caccia.”

  “Why does it matter if I finish before we get permission?” I know big plays require approval—I assume that’s why it took years to get the list of the people responsible for my father’s murder—but maybe Costa Beneventis approved tasks die along with him.