“Hey, where are you?” he yelled over the music.
“I’m back in my room.”
“Oh. Hold on a sec.” I heard some muffled talking before it got quieter. “Sorry, I went up to my room so I could actually hear you.”
“You live in the house?”
“Uh huh. I’m looking forward to showing you my room tomorrow night.”
“About that…”
“Oh no. That’s not a good way to start a sentence.”
“I have to cancel. It’s a pledge thing.”
He sighed. “Fine. It sucks, but I know it’s not your choice. When do you get out? Maybe we can get drinks instead.”
“I should be done at nine.”
“Okay, I’ll pick you up at your house.”
Great. I wouldn’t be at my house. “I’ll need to change, why don’t you meet me outside my dorm at nine-thirty?”
“What dorm?”
“Maude.”
“Okay, I’ll see you at nine-thirty then.”
“Great. Good night.”
“Good night, Juliet.”
Chapter Five
From: [email protected]
Subject: Hey back
Dear Juliet,
I have that shirt, but I got it in an extra small by accident. Maybe it’ll fit you since your boobs aren’t as big as mine ;) JK, we all know you’d win that contest. Have you met any guys?
Your Beautiful and Perfect Cousin,
Amy
I got out of the shower and put my hair back in a bun before pulling on a black skirt and a pink tank top. Every part of me wanted to rebel and wear jeans instead, but that would probably get us all in trouble. I didn’t bother with makeup. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
I went down the hall and knocked gently on Cara’s door. She slipped out into the hallway. “Ready for some fun?”
“You mean hell?”
She laughed. “Amanda had better be there, too. If she isn’t, it would be like feeding us to the wolves.”
“And she wouldn’t do that to us? Why do they call her a pledge mom if she’s going to treat us like crap?”
Cara locked her door. “I don’t think they’re usually like this. Amanda’s just a bitch.”
“Aren’t we lucky?”
We met up with Mallory and headed to the Kappa house. Amanda waited outside. “Good, you all followed instructions.”
I wanted to say something like, “Yes, we can handle dressing ourselves,” but I kept that to myself.
“You all look so uptight. This is going to be fun.”
“Great,” one of the other girls, Claire, said with enthusiasm. Suck up.
We walked inside, and the muscle guys from the night before waited along with another dozen guys who looked just like them.
Guy number one smiled. “Welcome, welcome.”
We tentatively moved toward the center of the room. Even Claire slowed down a little. The house was trashed. I had a feeling our job would be to clean it. Now the skirt part made sense. We’d be bending over a lot to clean. Fabulous.
I was trying to brainstorm a plausible way out of spending the day as a maid when Mr. Baseball Cap stood up, only he wasn’t wearing his hat. He had dark brown, longish hair and these piercing green eyes I hadn’t been able to see in the darkness of the laser tag room. “Hi, girls. It’s so nice of you to join us today.”
I snorted. That was a bad idea because every single guy turned to look at me.
“Hi, there.” Mr. Baseball Cap closed the distance between us and held out one of his large hands. “Great to see you again, Annie. I’m Reed, by the way.”
Amanda made a really fake forced laugh. “That’s actually Juliet. She’s quite the comedian.”
“Juliet?” His eyed widened slightly. I knew what was coming next. “Have you found a Romeo?”
Original. So original. I forced a laugh of my own. “No, not yet.”
“Good luck with that,” Reed said over his shoulder as he walked away.
When he reached the front of the room, he started up again. “I’m sure you’re wondering what kind of work we have for you, and the answer is a little of everything.”
Cara nudged me, and I rolled my eyes.
“As you can tell, we need some help cleaning the place, but we also have some other jobs.”
“We needed five girls, but it seems my friends selected six.” Reed looked right at me, and I knew something bad was coming. “Since we don’t want to send anyone home, I think I’m going to take one of you as a personal assistant for the day.”
No-freaking-way.
“Juliet, how would you like that honor?”
Amanda probably expected me to curse Reed out because she answered for me. “She’d love to. But remember the guidelines.” She gave him a warning glance. I hoped the guidelines were for my benefit.
“I’ll be a perfect gentleman.” He grinned at me.
My stomach flipped. Great. I had to open my mouth—or, okay, make a noise, and now I’d be stuck spending twelve hours with baseball cap.
“The rest of you, report to Aaron.” He gestured to one of the guys from the night before.
Aaron told us where all the cleaning supplies were, and I started to follow the other girls when Reed touched my arm. “You’re with me, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Cara and Mallory gave me sympathetic looks while Reed led me away.
“What am I going to be doing exactly?”
“I thought I made that clear. You’re my assistant today.”
I put a hand on my hip. “What does that mean?”
“You’re about to find out.”
I shivered.
He laughed. “Ready for your first job?”
“Sure.”
“It’s upstairs.”
“Upstairs?”
“In my room.” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Hell no.”
“It’s not anything that exciting. Trust me.”
“It has nothing to do with removing clothes?”
“I’m afraid that would violate Amanda’s rules. But it does involve clothes.”
“Okay…”
I tentatively followed him upstairs. He pushed open the door to a room that was a total disaster. “You’re going to find all my dirty clothes and bring them down to the laundry room.”
“Wait, you want me to do your laundry?”