“Yes!” Bex says passionately, her cheeks flushed from what I assume is excitement. “Which is why we need conservation efforts to focus on biodiversity not just—”
“Hey.” Loren, a Chris Hemsworth look-a-like, calls out over us. “You guys mind keeping it down? We’re trying to have a real conversation over here but it’s hard to be heard over your soapbox speech.”
“A real conversation?” Bex says, her face turning redder now for a different reason. “About what, whether or not you could pull off a bee beard?”
He glares. “You’ve been eavesdropping. Mind your own business, Greek.”
“Whatever, jock—”
A female body knocks Bex aside. “Oh my gosh, you came!” Meegan from the coffee shop squeals and does one of those excited girl squatty things as if she’s trying to keep from pissing herself. “Girl!” She throws her arms up, sloshing her beer over the lip and subsequently onto Bex’s fuzzy slippers. “Hugs!” She lunges for me and I feel Spider step close when she wraps her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she slurs into my ear.
I give her an awkward pat on the back then slip free of her hold, but she grabs my wrist before I manage to put much distance between us.
I stare briefly at her grip on my arm. “Let go of me.”
She doesn’t seem to hear me. “Come on, I’m going to introduce you—”
Spider practically plunges her in shadow with his dark presence. “Let her go.”
She blinks up at him and while dazed by his sinful beauty I slip free of her loosened hold. “Whoa. Who are you?” She looks at Carey, Loren, and the other blonde guy. “Football players.”
“Genius observation, Meegan,” Bex says casually her tone laced with sarcasm. “That 90 IQ is really working for you.”
The drunk Barbie glares at Bex, her nose wrinkles and her upper lip peels off her teeth. “What are you wearing?”
Bex looks down at herself, twisting right and left as if searching for dog shit on her sweats before meeting the girl’s eyes. “Clothes?”
“You know the rules,” she sneers at Bex. “You’re representing Eta Pi.”
Bex points to the big EP embroidered on the chest area of her sweatshirt. “I am.” “But,” Meegan says, swaying on her feet. “You look like a fat, sloppy pig.”
“Soon, you’ll be fat too,” I say, getting the drunk sorority girl’s attention. “From stress eating. After I kill your whole family.”
Rowan gasps. Bex grins. Spider coughs to cover his laughter.
Meegan’s boozey brain takes a minute to catch up and I watch as her bloodshot eyes focus on me. “What did you say?”
“She said,” Rowan interrupts with words and with her body as she moves between me and Meegan. “There’s a rat from grass eating who fed his whole family.”
“I love rats,” Bex says absently.
“Ew.” Meegan still looks like she’s eating sour grapes. “Gross.”
“That’s not what she said,” Spider chimes in with a quiet grumble.
“Anyway,” Rowan hooks her arm in mine. “We were just headed to the ladies room.”
“Follow me,” Bex says, stomping ahead of us ungracefully.
“When you’re done, come find me,” Meegan calls out to my back. “I want to introduce you to…”
Her words dissolve into the background mix of music and voices.
Bex turns around grinning. “That was epic. No one ever stands up to Meegan.” She leads us up the stairs and down the hallway. “Over here.” She pulls out a key and unlocks her door, pushing it open and into a small room.
I take in the space that resembles a typical college dorm room except for the three terrariums that line one wall.
“Hope snakes don’t freak you guys out. Bonus of being the sorority outcast? No one wants to share a room with me so they gave me a single.” She points to the door on the far end of the room. “Bathroom’s over there.”
“These are yours?” I bend over to get a closer look inside the glass cages. The biggest snake is pretty, white and yellow.
“That’s Monty. He’s a ball python.” She nods toward the next case with the black and white snake. “Cuddles, he’s a king snake. And the small one on the end is a young corn snake. Rumplesnakeskin. Rumple for short.”
“They’re beautiful.” A girl who keeps snakes in her room to keep mean girls away? I was right, Bex is totally my people.
Rowan comes out of the bathroom. “What was up with that Meegan girl?”
Bex sighs. “She’s not my biggest fan. My cousin Riley is the Eta Pi president and Meegan thinks I get preferential treatment. Most of the sister’s don’t like me.”
“Sisters.” I don’t look away from Monty as he lays coiled and completely still. “What a ridiculous term for women who use another woman’s insecurities as a weapon for cruelty.”
Bex snorts. “You obviously don’t have sisters.” She sits on the edge of her bed, readjusting her glasses.
I straighten and face her. “I’m an only child. But I lived in an all girl’s dorm and it wasn’t all hair braiding and pillow fights.”
Rowan pulls her phone from her back pocket. “Carey’s asking where we are.” She tucks her phone away. “We should hang out again,” she says to Bex. “Emery and I work at Bean Madness. Come by sometime and grab a coffee.”
“I usually stick to the more deserted parts of campus, but…” Bex shrugs. “Okay.”
Rowan looks at me with apology flashing in her eyes before she says, “Spider’s looking for you.”
“Let him look.” I don’t owe him my whereabouts.
“We’ll see you around, Bex!” Rowan says.
I follow her out of the room and down the crowded staircase where I see Theodore casually leaning against the banister while a woman in a tight black mini-dress invades his personal space. Not that he seems to mind.
