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KAPPA KAPPA ALPHA HAS TEETH AND THEY snap at me in the form of about a dozen doe-eyed girls sticking their head out of a cracked kitchen doorway to peer curiously at me.
I crane my neck up at the white spiral staircase that occupies a corner of the black and white tiled foyer. The setup of this sorority house looks like it's straight out of Keeping up With the Kardashians.
The girls follow my movement, their heads moving as one.
I clear my throat. Compared to Mira Zahed's slicing glares, the appreciative glances of the sorority girls are welcome, if not a little terrifying. "Ladies," I say with a nod.
It was the blondest of them all who stepped forward. I say blondest because her hair was basically white, a rather stark contrast to the spray tan complexion of her skin. Other than the slight orange hues, she was hot and she knew it. I could tell from the way her eyes rove me up and down.
The blonde flicks a section of her hair over her shoulder and tilts her head at me. I politely keep my eyes on her face, even though her neon pink tube top hugs her skin generously— because, contrary to Zahed's accusations, I was not here for a booty call.
"Aryan, is it?" She asks and I internally wince at the mispronunciation. Airy-an. "How can I help you?"
I offer her a short smile, eyes glittering as I watch her bite her lip, and incline my chin up the spiral staircase. "I'm here for a rescue, I'm afraid."
Her expression flattens.
And right on time, a pounding of footsteps sounds from upstairs and an angry blonde girl with a box tucked under her arm stomps down the stairs.
"Aryan!" Kenna Westbrooke snaps, pronouncing my name properly, unlike her sorority sister. Or ex sorority sister, I supposed. Are-yan. "Don't talk to those bitches."
The hot blonde girl's expression blackens in distaste as Kenna storms down the staircase towards me. She shoves the box into my arms and shoots a hot glare at her fellow blonde.
"Back the fuck up, bitch," she almost snarls. "He doesn't like fake blondes."
The girl steps back as if Kenna had hit her. I tighten my grip on the box, while all I want to do is laugh because Kenna's glare is near comical. I glance down at the box to keep my composure, only to see that it's filled with college detritus and none of which included books. A sparkly pink bong peers up at me though.
The fake blonde recovers easily and she regains the step she'd taken back with a cruel curl of lip. "Pack your shit up, McKenna." She scoffs with an intense eye roll. "The trash has to take itself out."
Kenna stomps forward, her dark blonde hair whipping like lightning around her cheeks as she glowers darkly at the girl. I worry she might resort to blows. I don't know how to tell her that I don't think I can take a whole group of sorority girls in a fight. They look pretty damn vicious.
In an attempt to soothe the crackling air of Kappa Kappa Alpha, I clear my throat and remark, "I don't have anything against blondes personally."
Kenna throws me a glare at that, as if to say, Whose side are you on?
I shrug.
Neon Pink Tube Top seems to take this as a personal win because she winks at me.
Kenna makes a retching sound.
I don't return the wink, partly because I wasn't here for that, partly because Kenna could murder me with the gold strung anklet around her ankle if she wanted to.
Kenna rolls her eyes, tosses a glare at Neon Pink Tube Top, flips off the girls behind her, and turns on her heel. She doesn't look back at me. "Follow me, Shankar."
And she marches on past the girls, up the staircase of the house as if she owned the place and was not currently being kicked out of it.
I exhale and shoot a playful wink back at Neon Pink Tube Top before dutifully trailing after Kenna. This time, I get a glare in return. It doesn't cut half as sharply as Mira Zahed's.
I climb the stairwell, following Kenna, to find a light pink painted room that looked like a whirlwind had ripped through it. Kenna flops miserably onto an unmade bed, half of the sheet shoved into a box similar to the one in my arms, half still on the bed. She rolls her eyes up at the ceiling.
"Fucking Jessica," she growls.
Ah, Jessica.
I kick a box on the floor. "Was she the one—?"
Kenna shoots up, eyes wide. "Hell no!" She wrinkles her nose. Then, she shudders. "Never. Not fucking Jessica."
I shrug and set down the box. "Listen, all I know is you fucked your sorority sister and now you're getting tossed out on the street."
A grin carves her lips at that. "When you put it like that," she mused, "it does sound pretty fucking legendary."
I lean my hip against her dresser and cross my arms. "Aside from the whole getting tossed out on your ass part."
Kenna shakes her head. "No, that's the best part. This place is fucking awful." She scowls and once again murmurs, "Fucking Jessica."
"Jessica is kinda hot though," I comment if only to see her reaction.
I fully expect the fluffy pillow that is thrown at me, dodging it easily. It even falls right into a box. Kenna grins at this.
"See?" She chirps, sitting up and crossing her legs excitedly on her mess of a bed. "I'll fit right in with you and the boys. I can shoot hoops—," A grin, "and I can say I've fucked someone from Kappa Kappa Alpha. It's meant to be."
"When you hear how loud Herrera snores, even though the walls are meant to be fucking soundproof, you'll run for the hills," I inform her.
"This is a sorority house," she states flatly. "You're acting like I haven't had to hear bed frames knocking against the wall when Brad from Delta Phi aced his Calculus exam."
"Brad is a nice guy," I say nonchalantly. "Good for him."
Kenna rolls her eyes, and in the worse mocking British accent I've ever heard, repeats, "Brad is a nice guy. Good for him. Pip pip cheerio, I'm Aryan and I think fucking Jessica is pretty fit, mate."
I lift a brow at her. "Are you quite done?"
Kenna beams. She picks up another pillow and throws it my way. "Maybe. I don't know. It depends on my mood." A grin. "Mate."
"Yee-haw," I say in mocking reply only to have another pillow tossed at me.
"Help me pack my shit up, Shankar," she orders. "After all, the trash doesn't take itself out."
•••
Kenna's car is a beat-up Toyota that is nothing like Mira's shiny drug dealer Range Rover. She and I take turns tossing her boxes into the boot and the backseat and upon the loading of the final boxes, when we had to pass the glaring sorority girls and fucking Jessica, Kenna stuck her tongue out at her and snapped, "You're just mad I did it better than any of your boyfriends ever could."
I decide not to take offense to this, considering I'd never dated any of the Kappa Kappa Alpha girls so she could not be referring to me. So, I nodded along in agreement, once again suffering a glare from fucking Jessica. As I thread out behind Kenna, I twist my head and mouth Call me to her with a wicked grin.
And with that, Kappa Kappa Alpha became a speck in the distance.
We're speeding toward Santa Monica when Kenna lowers the radio volume, silencing Rihanna to sigh at me, "You gave her your number, didn't you?"
I roll down my window, relishing the rush of wind through my hair before glancing at her. "Would you have preferred I'd given her yours?"
She turns green.
Charles' beach house is a thing of beauty.
I'd grown up in grey London as much as I appreciate the rush and flow of that city, some of my best memories came from watching the sun set over the sea from the large glass pane windows of the house, or drunkenly racing Herrera down the slippery stairwell leading to the sandy beach. I'd never laughed as hard as I did that one time he'd tripped on his own damn feet and bashed his head on the stone. He then told everyone he'd gotten into a fight when Charles and I both knew it was because he'd had too much Fireball, not enough nachos.
If Charlie ever heard anyone call his million-dollar home a frat house, he'd have them strung up, but it is exactly that—a glorified frat house, home to three no-good college boys, now four. Kenna isn't exactly a no-good college boy but she was right about one thing, she'd fit right in.
She grins as she pulls into the driveway, her blonde hair wild around her face from the rushing ocean air. My phone dings in my pocket just as she climbs out of the car, long legs twisting within her rough-cut jean shorts.
I follow after her and pull the thing from my pocket and study the screen.
It's a text from fucking Jessica. I laugh.
Kenna was tall enough that she narrowed her eyes at me over the roof of the beaten car and goes, "What's so funny?"
I twist the phone around and show her the screen.
She scowls. "You're a real piece of work, Aryan Shankar."
I merely smile and fish my keys out of my pocket as we amble over to the front door.
Once inside, the room opens up into an open floor plan, the kitchen greeting us with both Raf and Charles stood at the granite counter.
Raf wears no shirt, his arms braced flat on the granite whereas Charlie was bedecked in a Gucci sweater, his hair falling in short braids at his temples, his back leaned against the sink, an open iPad between them.
Neither of them even glanced up as I walked in, Kenna a step behind.
"What are you two clowns up to?" I greet them cheerily, tossing my keys into the dish that Charlie's mum suggested we get after one visit she'd made and realised we never know where our shit is. The thing is expensive enough looking that I know Mrs. Ross had bought it herself.
Charles is loaded, that's no secret. He'd gone to the same fancy private school as Zahed. He owns this house and says Raf and I pay rent by providing him with entertainment. Now, I suppose, rent in the form of entertainment was split between three.
Kenna smacks her lips and slides over to the counter, hopping onto a stool.
Raf glances up. His chest is bare, aside from the single gold cross necklace hanging around his neck and the sprawls of ink that scattered parts of his brown skin. Though his chain sparkles, his eyes are dark as he narrows them upon Kenna.
"I thought we were joking about that," he says flatly.
Herrera is always a tough man to predict. His moods shift depending on the tides, or depending on the amount of booze in his cup, I'm sure which. Perhaps it's a combination of both.
Kenna, as predicted, is absolutely unbothered by Raf's dark look. She leans forward on her elbows and pouts tauntingly at him. "Aw, Raf," she coos. "Do you not want me to hear you cry yourself to sleep every night?"
Raf scowls, dark brows drawing together in an aggressive line. Charles laughs, causing Raf to toss him a sharp betrayed look.
Charles pushes away from the sink, his ringed fingers glinting as he taps the iPad. "We're ordering a pizza."
"Just one?" I ask, lifting a brow. "Are we pretending Herrera didn't scarf down an entire one all on his own the other day?"
"I was stoned."
"Aren't you stoned right now, mate?"
Kenna blew out a breath. "Look at Shankar, pretending he's all responsible and shite."
The mocking British accent is back, I observe.
I sigh and slump forwards on the opposite end of the counter from Raf. This causes him to fix his stare my way.
A cruel tilt of lip. "How was brunch, Shankar?"
Charles hops into the conversation with this one too. "Yeah. Got some pent up feelings for Mira Zahed today?"
At this, Kenna leans into the conversation, sharing overjoyed, conspiring looks with the boys. She'd clearly found her way of revenge for fucking Jessica or Neon Pink Tube Top or whatever we wanted to call her. "Mira Zahed?" She asks brightly.
"Aryan has an anti-crush," Charlie answers.
"Anti-crush?" I repeat. "Are you stoned too?"
"Anti-crush," repeated Kenna. Then, her eyes brighten. "Oh yeah! I read about that!"
"In a scholarly article?" I ask.
"On Snapchat news," she answers. "What do you take me for?"
"Anti-crush," states Charlie wisely, as if he possessed all the knowledge in the world from one single Snapchat article. "You hate her guts so much that she occupies every thought in your head. It's like a crush but twisted."
"Does it mean that he also still wants to fuck her?" Raf chimes in with that cruel smirk off his. I glare his way.
"No," I snap.
He ignores me. "Then, it's a pretty fitting word."
"Mhm," Charlie agrees, like the traitor he is. He then cuts to Raf in Spanish, a string of words lost on my ears. Raf's reply comes quickly.
Kenna, equally lost, shoots me a confused glance.
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Whenever they want to talk shit, they do it in Spanish because they know I did French."
Raf taps his fingers on the counter before leaning forward. There's a rose tattooed on the base of his collarbone, thorns staring at me and when Herrera smiles, it's just as thorny. "I don't mind translating for you in this case, Shankar," he says. "Charles over here just bet me a Tesla that you'll snap in a month. I said it'd be less than that."
"A Tesla?" Kenna twists her head about. "How do I get in on this bet and get rid of that shitty Toyota?"
I glance between the two of them darkly. "No one's getting any fucking Tesla's."
"I'll let you borrow my Tesla if you ask nicely, Shankar," Raf says kindly. "You and Zahed can take a spin and get rid of all that pent-up rage of yours."
"You wanna see pent-up rage, Herrera?"
And that's how Herrera and I ended up wrestling it out in the living room while Charles shouts after us to mind the pool table.
As I'm trying to strangle Rafael Herrera to death, I hear Charles click his tongue and say to Kenna, "Welcome to la familia."
"I'm thinking pepperoni," comes her reply.
♥ ♥ ♥
wow who knew i could write so fast? not me
i'd love to hear your thoughts so far, what do we think of the boys? what do we think of kenna?