Rich Prick by Tijan

2

Blaise

“Dude! Soccer superstar!”

I grimaced. I wasn’t known here for soccer and a part of me was hoping to keep that on the down low, for now. Zeke welcomed us back into the house with a toga half draped over him, a drinking helmet on his head—both straws hanging down by the sides of his face—and nothing else. Wait, he had flip-flops on.

Mara giggled and disappeared into a side room as I kept going. She touched my back as she went. I knew Mara. This wasn’t our first run around together. She’d stick with the girls for the rest of the night, but if I wanted her later, I just needed to give her the nod. She wasn’t like other girls. Mara didn’t make demands to be more than a hook-up. That’s why we’d worked so far, but that chick…

Who was that chick?

I shook my head. “You forgot your pants.”

Zeke grinned, swaying on his feet. He didn’t say anything more about soccer and glancing around the room, no one seemed to be paying attention. The usual group surrounded him—Brian and Branston, brothers, who tended to wade into any stupid fucking fight Zeke liked to pick. I didn’t really mind his friends, but they were his friends. Zeke was mine. That was about the best way to describe my ‘friends’ since coming to FCA.

Best friend.

He and I threw that phrase around, but it wasn’t always accurate. Some days I loved my best friend. But I won’t lie. Some days I couldn’t stand the guy. And he also loved me more than I ever did him. He liked to use that word a lot too. He meant it in a fierce, bromance sort of way. His feelings for me had grown while I’d been gone, living in New York. I had buds out there, a few good ones—and right now, as Zeke’s dick flapped in the wind and two girls giggled beside him—I missed my East Coast friends more than I wanted to admit. One or both of those girls had already knelt before Zeke this evening, and I was sure the three of them would end up together later tonight.

Still. Despite being mean, ugly, and slimy at times, Zeke was loyal.

I gestured back to where I’d come from. “You invite some chick to the party this weekend? Fresh face. Long legs. Blond hair.” Her eyes. “Green eyes.”

Zeke’s eyes narrowed, but they were glazed over. And the effort left him swaying even more erratically. He belched. “Fresh face? What’s that mean?”

One of the girls laughed. “That means hardly any makeup.” She lifted her top lip in a sneer before looking at me and smoothing her face into a seductive smile. “No girls like that are worth our time.” Her hands came over my arm, and she caressed my bicep. “But I’ll make it worth your time.”

I stared back at her, not impressed. Her name was Penny, and she was one of Mara’s best friends. “I just came back with Mara.” I looked her up and down, mirroring the disdainful look she’d shown a second ago. “What kind of fucking friend are you?”

Zeke belched again before pointing at me. Even his grin was sloppy. “Fucking friend. That’s what she is. Get it, man?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Because you can certainly get it. If you know what I mean?”

Yeah. Loyal. That’s why I liked him.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, dude. Like your dick wasn’t just in her today.”

He frowned, because he honestly didn’t understand why I’d have an issue with that.

I leaned in. “I don’t share chicks.”

Another reason I liked Mara. She kept herself for me and me alone.

But Zeke’s grin was easy. He was always easy when it came to me. Anyone else said that shit to him, they’d be flattened in two seconds. I almost shook my head, staring at my “best friend.” I was an asshole to him. He was a good friend to me. Why he was okay with me treating him like shit was beyond me, but he was.

There were moments when I had his back. Maybe those went a long way, but that didn’t seem right. Brian and Branston were Zeke’s true followers. They were loyal to a fault. If he jumped over a cliff, so would they. A lot of the other guys were the same. The girls too, now that I thought about it. Zeke had this whole school on lockdown.

Everyone did what he said, until I showed up.

I had a different opinion than his, but no matter how many times I voiced it, Zeke never got pissed with me.

I frowned at him, raking my hand through my hair. “Why you so fucking nice to me, man?”

He blinked, still swaying, and a shit-eating grin split his face. “Because you’re my best friend.”

I sighed. It wasn’t the first time I’d asked, a moment of guilt eating at me. And it wasn’t the first time Zeke had given that answer, as if it made perfect sense to him.

All it did was make me feel like shit, and confused. “Yeah, man.” I nodded, grabbing a beer from one of the girls walking past us. She had a handful of them, and she looked up, smiling coyly, and winked. She wasn’t one of Mara’s best friends, but she was still in their group.

I held a hand up to Zeke, turned, and tipped up my beer.

I wanted to find a room, get wasted, and not think again until Sunday night when we had to go back home. That sounded like a better plan than anything else, except maybe getting Mara to ride my dick.

Or that weird chick.