Hard Facts by Penny Clarke

8

Summer

“You have a boyfriend!?!?”

Clio’s what I call a clapper. The ultimate hype-woman. An ideal type of sister, since every activity she’s involved in, no matter how banal, is sure to be celebrated with an overly exuberant round of applause.

Unfortunately, this ability also lends itself to her uncontrollably punctuating every sentence with a smack of her hands. A habit I would find less annoying, if it wasn’t currently being directed at me.

“That’s right,” I tell her.

“I heard from Chelsea Q. You guys met in the library? How.” Clap. “Cute.”

Is it any wonder I keep every secret I learn? When the instant it’s revealed, my entire sorority knows about it?

Ever since Iris spilled the beans, I’ve been Alpha Beta Beta’s hottest topic. Summer Prescott, who has made quite a reputation for herself on Greek Row for hopping from bed to bed, has finally bunked onto a singular mattress. She’s found the one. She’s settling down. It’s all right, everybody, she’s locked down a man.

It’s a bit disconcerting, seeing as I’ve worked hard to cultivate an image of strong independence. A woman who needs no one but herself—and a durable bra—for support.

But to hear any of my sorority sisters talk about it, you would think that I’d been eternally destined to die an old maid. Alone in a drafty mansion, left only with piles of my father’s cold, hard cash and my own shriveled up ovaries for company.

“So what’s he like?” Clio asks. “Tell.” Clap. “Me.” Clap. “Everything.” Clap clap clap.

“His name’s Grayson,” I reply. “He’s an engineering major. We met in the library—”

“I already know that.”

“Right.” I duck my head to rearrange a platter of cookies on the table between Clio and me.

Next to me, someone coughs. A cough that sounds more like holding back a snort.

“He’s just… so smart, you know. And super cute.”

Another cough-snort.

Clio gives another firm clap clap. “When do we get to meet him?”

“Yeah, Summer,” Liz clears her throat from all that cough-snorting. “When can we meet him?”

The look I send her is more bared teeth than smile. But her head’s bowed over the wooden rectangle in her hands, frowning as she plucks one of its metal tines.

Luckily, I’m prevented from having to answer Clio’s question when the dining hall doors open and a cluster of students all stop in their tracks, eyeing our table.

“Sorry, Clio, we’re a little busy right now,” I shrug, without feeling an ounce of actual guilt. “Were you gonna get anything or…?”

“Oh!” she pauses mid-clap, making room for the other students. “I was just passing by, I’m not actually buying anything. Gotta watch those carbs.”

She waves goodbye to Liz and leaves, conveniently forgetting the question she’d just asked, or that I hadn’t answered it. The other students make their choices of cookies, and after they’re gone, I sit in the chair beside Liz’s and organize the mess they’ve made of my perfectly displayed baked goods.

“Do you think we should try putting out the oatmeal raisin cookies again?”

“It won’t end well.” Liz openly snorts.

“You’re right. Only heathens like oatmeal raisin.”

“Summer.”

“Liesel.”

Technically, telling Liz isn’t breaking part of my contract with Grayson. She already knew about him tutoring me. And since she’d been flabbergasted to hear I was suddenly dating him after one lesson, I’d had no choice but to come clean.

Except now that she’s my confidante, my little sis has soundly made it known that she thinks I’m making a huge mistake.

I huff. “It’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.”

She misses a note, the chord sudden and jarring, as she tilts her head to look at me. “You know, Jessica, Isabelle, and Courtney all came to me the other day—separately—to ask what I knew about Grayson. Clio’s not the only one that wants to meet him. How much longer do you think you can keep him hidden from the house?”

“How long is ‘never’?”

“And even if you somehow introduce him to everyone, how are you planning on convincing them that you actually like him? Everyone knows how much you don’t like nerds.”

I inspect my nail beds. Jeez, what atrocious cuticles. Time to book a manicure, stat. “Are real siblings this invested in each other’s dating practices?”

“Summer.”

“I don’t know, okay?” I bite my thumbnail, then realize what I’m doing and throw my hands up in a shrug. “I told Grayson that we don’t have to make a big deal of this thing. Honestly, I thought it’d blow over by now.”

“It’s only been a week!” Her hand drops onto the instrument in her lap with a dull thud and a sharp, metallic reverberation. “Do you not remember how long everyone obsessed over Anna-Kate’s brother when it got out he’s an underwear model? There was a petition to have her invite him to campus.”

“Dawson,” I sigh. “Now there’s a boy I’d let go down on me until the cows came home.”

“You did. Twice.”

I shiver with fond memory. “It was the accent. Something about that southern drawl…”

Liz coughs for real this time, and I shake myself out of it. “All right, Anna-Kate’s brother’s cunnilingus skills aside, I’ll admit that I did not anticipate how freaking pushy the house would be about Grayson.” I mean, I knew they’d be snoopy, which is why I’d advocated for complete secrecy. But this is something for which I am not prepared.

I’m not used to this. This everyone-knowing-my-business business. Especially when I’ve made great strides over the years to keep that business on the down low.

I might have to return to the drawing board with my plan. Wipe the slate. Go back to square one.

Now, though, I reassure Liz, “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

Doubtful, she settles back in her chair, picking up her instrument and striking a series of notes. An odd percussive, yet almost harp-like, sound carries from it. Something eerily along the lines of dun dun, dun dun. I tell myself it only sounds like a certain Spielberg film theme because I’d just rewatched it the other night.

Deciding it’s best we don’t dwell on this topic, I wave my hand at the wooden box. “Tell me what you’re learning.”

“It’s a kalimba,” Liz says. The music softens as she speaks, turning blunt and ominous to pleasant and hypnotic. “I’m thinking about including it in my independent study project on world musics and cultures. This one’s out of tune, though, so I’ll have to…”

Smiling, I let her ramble on.

ABB’s Big/Little Sister program never appealed to me in the slightest. I’m an only child. I like being an only child. I joined a sorority not out of any sense of sisterhood, but out of obligation to my dead mom and my own self-interests.

But I knew, the moment I saw her at last year’s rush—sitting at the living room piano by herself, in matching knee socks and headband, more in tune with the melody she’d been playing than the sorority around her—that Liesel Parry needed me.

Under a year of my tutelage, she’s come a ways. The knee socks, thankfully, are long gone. I’m still working on the headbands, and she’s downgraded from gaudy sequins to a thin strand of rhinestones that sparkles against her wild, dark hair. Now, not only has the shy caterpillar turned out to be a true social butterfly, but she’s become my eyes and ears inside our sorority.

And she’s probably the closest thing I have to a real sister.

So the fact she doesn’t think my plan will succeed is more than a little worrying.

As if sensing disturbance, my phone chirps with an incoming text from Grayson. We’re in the middle of trying to schedule next Monday’s lesson around my sorority duties and his other tutoring appointments. Nodding along when Liz starts talking about digeridoos, I approve his proposed time adjustments.

Then, I simply type, Kalimbas.

Three dots appear. I already know this will take awhile, so I turn back to Liz, giving the appropriate ‘uh huh’s and ‘you don’t say’s to show I’m listening. Until finally, my phone chimes again. This time, with a block of text detailing kalimbas’ African origins, its acoustic characteristics, and an interesting tidbit about it being Zimbabwe’s national instrument.

A separate message comes in before I’m finished reading over Grayson’s facts.

You know you can just Google all this yourself, right?

Biting my lip, I respond, And let all your precious knowledge go to waste?

Liz clears her throat. I glance up to find her regarding me with an odd expression. “What?”

“Nothing,” and her head dips quickly back down to her kalimba.

I’m about to ask her what she means by that, when a deep voice calls out, “Summer Prescott.”

With one last suspicious glance at Liz, I turn to greet the voice. “Hunt Hammond.”

The guy leisurely strolling through the dining hall doors gives a lop-sided smile, showing off one darling dimple.

Hunt Hammond. Horticulture major. Lives in a green house off-campus—aptly named The Green House, though not from any association to its exterior paint job. That’s where we met, at a party a few semesters back. At first, I’d written Hunt off as a frat guy too lazy to actually join a frat, until I’d learned of his hedge fund manager dad, currently on trophy wife number four. We’ve since bonded over our complicated relationships with our wealthy fathers.

When he reaches us, I round the table to wrap my arms around his shoulders and he returns a lax squeeze. His eyes fall somewhere below my neck, nodding his appreciation of my low top. “Haven’t seen you in awhile.”

He whispers it to me, breath heavy and humid on my ear. And it reminds me of another time, with another guy, and another touch on that part of my body. A small, reverent graze along my skin. Giving me goosebumps in an entirely different way from the ones I’m getting now.

I step out of Hunt’s hold. Too quickly, it seems, from the bemused look on Hunt’s face. I’ve never balked at his flirting before. Covering up the awkwardness with a giggle, I ask, “What are you doing over here? Shouldn’t you be on the other side of campus?”

Dismissing my weird reaction to his closeness, he smiles again. This is the Summer he’s used to. Playful Summer. Flirty Summer. Twirling her hair and batting her eyelashes Summer. “Heard you were hawking your wares and thought I’d drop by.”

“Well, in that case,” I flourish my arm over the table. “See anything you like?”

“How could I not?” And his gaze drops, once more, to my cleavage. Winking, Hunt pulls out his wallet and a thin black tube from his pocket. Puffing on the vape, he holds in his breath and, without pinpointing anything in particular, says, “I’ll take the lot.”

After handing a wad of cash to Liz, he blows out a cloud and offers me the vape. I turn it down and gesture to the table. “Can’t. On official bake sale duty.”

He shrugs, and I try to offer him the oatmeal raisin cookies, but apparently, even rich stoners have standards.

Sweeping cookies into his bookbag, Hunt leans in again, “When you get off bake sale duty, you should stop by the house.”

“Didn’t you hear, Hunt?” Liz cuts in. “Summer has a boyfriend.”

Hunt stares at me with an indiscernible expression. “Thought you didn’t do boyfriends.”

“Jealous?” I ask with a saucy hand on my hip.

“You know it, babe,” and he laughs, suggesting he’s anything but. I scoff and push him away under a playful shove, because he is, once again, too close for comfort. “So who’s the lucky guy?”

Hunt finishes collecting his purchases, as I tell him about Grayson. He blinks, either unaware who that is, or just super stoned. Probably a little of both. With one last careless shrug, he tells me, “Well, invitation still stands. Come and hang out soon. Bring the boyfriend with you.”

What the hell is up with everyone wanting to meet my made-up boyfriend?

The moment he’s gone, Liz makes a gagging motion. “I don’t understand why you’re so friendly with that guy.”

Stacking the empty bake sale platters, I laugh her off. “Hunt? Pfft, you know he’s just a flirt. Totally harmless.”

“I know everyone else wasn’t happy about Iris’s boyfriend,” she stands, helping me break down the bake sale now that we’re out of inventory. “Honestly? I’m just glad you never slept with him.”

I fiddle with the platter of oatmeal raisins, not meeting her gaze.

After a moment, she groans, “Oh, Summer.”

“We were baked, Liz,” I gesture to the cookies. “When you’re high as fucking kites, it doesn’t count.”

“What?” she shakes her head in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself? How does sex not count?”

“It just doesn’t,” I grumble. “I was stressed after the spring fundraiser, and I needed to let off steam. Hunt just happened to have the bud and the balls to help. It didn’t mean anything. Besides, I needed to confirm a rumor I heard about his dick.”

“See, that right there,” she snatches the cookie tray out of my hands so I have no choice but to meet her eye. “That’s why no one will believe your plan. To even have a slight chance of it working, you do realize that you need to pretend to actually care about a guy for once, right?”

“And I will. Stop worrying about it,” I take the tray back, two cookies falling on the table. I grab both and throw them back with the others. We finish clearing everything in silence, until I ask, “Wanna know if the rumor was true?”

Liz throws her head back with another groan. Shaking her head, she collects her kalimba and her bag from her chair. Holding up the lockbox, she tells me, “I’m taking this back to the house. And then I’m going to pray for you.”

“I adore when you get all preacher’s daughter on me,” I pluck at her curls as she moves around me. “Please ask Jesus for multiple orgasms.”

“I’m not praying for your sexual gratification.”

“Little sis, I meant for you.” I pop one heel. “Remember, I am happily leg-shackled. Classic ball and chain. No more spice for Summer. It’s all vanilla from here on out. Now you have to get it for the both of us. Do you hear that?” I call after her. “Get some, Liesel!”

She’s so cute, flipping me off like that.

Giggling, I whisk the abandoned oatmeal cookies away to the back of the dining hall. I have an understanding with Alma, the head cafeteria lady. ABB gets free use of the dining hall space in exchange for whatever’s leftover from our bake sales. Nothing’s ever left except oatmeal raisin. Which works out, since I have a sneaking suspicion that Alma is partial to them.

In the kitchen, I stay clear of line cooks prepping for the upcoming dinner rush and head for the back corner where the walk-in cooler’s located. Humming Liz’s kalimba jingle to myself, I maneuver the door open with my hip and foot, careful not to spill any cookies—

Only to immediately drop the entire thing in my rush to swing the door shut at the sight and sound of undressed moaning.

One week.

It’s been one damn week since Grayson and I settled the terms of our deal. Since I promised him that our pretend relationship wouldn’t interfere in each other’s lives.

And it takes one week before our separate worlds disastrously collide.

Minutes later, I’m tapping a foot, arms crossed, as the cooler door opens again and a dark head pokes out.

The girl holds up the tray, cookies neatly stacked in rows, with a chagrined smile. “Sorry about that. Um, we weren’t sure what you wanted to do with these—Oh, hey. Hi.”

Rylie Stone. Transferred to Lakewood last year. Art major. Works at the same off-campus coffee shop as Walsh. Also known around campus as Leopard Girl, from her flirtation last fall with the football team’s leopard mascot.

“It’s Summer, right?” Rylie asks.

“Uh, yeah, I thought that’s why we went with the cooler—” a tall figure steps out behind her, arms in the air, shirt over his head.

I unabashedly check out tanned abs, already knowing whose bulky torso they belong to.

Levi Hart. Lakewood Leopards tight end. The man behind the spotted mask, since it had been him flirting with Rylie as the football mascot, after a sex tape scandal with Spencer Armstrong’s ex-girlfriend got him suspended from playing.

And, I silently amend my catalog entry for both of them. My fake boyfriend’s friends.

Rylie yanks her boyfriend’s shirt down. Ruffling his mop of dark curls, Levi’s blue eyes widen when he sees me. “Oh, you mean Gray’s Summer.”

“Forgive me for this crazy assumption,” I ignore him, running a flat stare over their disheveled clothes and flushed faces. “But don’t you two have houses to do that in?”

Rylie has the decency to cringe as Levi rocks back on his heels, shoulders shaking. He sends her a teasing grin, and then she can’t contain her laughter, either. They launch into an explanation about not seeing each other all weekend, since Levi was at some football thing, and then running into each other outside the dining hall by sheer coincidence and Rylie’s wearing Levi’s favorite top and, well, they’d been banned from one house (at that, my eyebrows go way up) and too far away from the other.

They speak all at once, over each other and finishing sentences, until my head starts to ache. I wave a hand and refuse to hear any more. Pressing two fingers to my temple, I tell them, “Alma will freak if she finds you desecrating her cooler.”

Levi swallows, “Right, well. Look at the thyme.” He points to a spice rack on the opposite wall, then drops a kiss on top of Rylie’s head. “See you after the game?”

She nods with an indulgent smile, and he steals one more kiss from her lips and three cookies from the tray.

I clear my throat. “Those are for charity.”

“Bribery. I can see why Grayson likes you. All right, take my money.” He hands over payment for the cookies, shaking them in one hand. “And remember, you saw nothing.”

“I saw exactly where those hands were, Levi Hart.”

Grinning, he walks away, unwrapping one cookie and shoving it into his mouth. A second later, “Oatmeal raisin? Ugh, only Morris eats this shit.”

Then he’s gone, and I’m alone with Rylie. I expect her to make excuses and leave, too, but she stays put, tray in hand. I take it from her, setting it down on a shelf for Alma, and when I close the cooler door, she’s still there.

Even more confusing, she falls into step beside me as we exit the kitchen. “Are you going?”

“Where?”

“To the game,” she says, seemingly in no rush to go, despite that I’d seen her with her jeans around her ankles barely ten minutes ago. Come to think of it, though, didn’t she once streak across the football field?

“—supposed to have dinner with them before the game. Wait, have you eaten? We should grab a bite and meet them after.”

“Meet who?” I ask, realizing I’d missed the entire first half of her rambling.

“Natalie and Gray. I was supposed to grab a bite with them, but then, well…” she glances back in the direction of the walk-in cooler. A faraway look takes over Rylie’s face, but she quickly snaps out of it and claps her hands together. Just what I need. Another clapper. “Yeah, this will be great. Let’s get some food, and we can get to know each other. Everyone’s dying to meet you. Except Kennedy, but she already knows you, and even though she thinks it’s weird you’re with Gray, she says—”

“Walsh thinks that?” I stop in the middle of the dining hall.

“Shit, I’m botching this, aren’t I?” Rylie interlocks her hands and twists them. “Kennedy likes you, honestly. Point is, I really want to get to know you. Besides, think how surprised Gray will be when we show up at the game together.”

Surprised is one word for it. Pissed might be the more accurate option. I’m pretty sure Grayson doesn’t want me within a fifty foot radius of his friends. Fuck. Another unforeseen dilemma.

I nod to the dining hall entrance, where the bake sale table sits unattended. “I need to finish up some sorority stuff.”

“No problem, let me help!”

Help? No one ever wants to help break down a philanthropy setup. They all flee like Liz when their volunteer hours are over.

How the hell do I shake this girl off?

I open my mouth, willing an excuse to come. Nothing does.

Because… wouldn’t Grayson Rowe’s real girlfriend want to meet his friends? Wouldn’t she care about the people he cares about? Wouldn’t she be just a little excited at the prospect of surprising him? Of just simply seeing him again?

Make it believable.

Hesitantly, I nod, and that’s enough for Rylie to cheer, throwing her arms around my shoulders in a quick hug that I have absolutely no idea what to do with. Then, she’s skipping to the bake sale table, talking fast, asking questions about my sorority, what do I like about Grayson, how do I feel about the facts, and by the way, she really likes my shoes.

It’s only when she asks where I want to eat that I snap out of this daze, and my answer makes her ears turn an even brighter red, “Anywhere but here. I don’t trust the food storage integrity.”