Greek: Double Date (14 page)

“Ew, Ash, stop right there.”

“Right. Where was I? So, the old ZBZ pledges totally want to come back as soon as they can move out of the IKI house, and it turns out they pronounce it ‘icky,’ too, or have started since Frannie broke up with Evan so now he’s not paying for anything the house needs. And Katherine from
Panhellenic was seriously pissed at their behavior, but didn’t do anything about it.

“Rebecca came with Evan, you know that—what was up with
that?
—but he was totally like, ‘I’m doing this favor.’ They never really went out, did they? They just had sex.
Anyhoo,
there was pretty much that, and Cappie never showed and Heath was KT president instead for one night.”

“Cappie was at the engineering event.”

“Really? Why?”

“Why indeed?” Casey didn’t put so much emphasis on it. She didn’t want the question actually delved into. Ashleigh would speculate, and possibly be right.

“Is that why he walked you home? Wait, that thing must be over by now.”

“After-party. Dale invited us.”

“Wait,” Ashleigh said, “you went to the formal with Rob, the engineering dinner with Dale, and the after-party with Cappie?”

Casey sighed. “It just sort of…happened.”

“Case, a lot of things with you and Cappie
sort of happen
. I don’t sort of happen into things with my ex-boyfriends.”

“Ash, you have one ex-boyfriend. Can we just drop it?”

“Fine.” Fortunately, Ashleigh didn’t put up a fight and moved right along. “Did you know Calvin used to go out with Heath? Though I guess they didn’t go out because they didn’t actually, you know, go places because Calvin was still in the closet. This system is stupidly backward. Calvin couldn’t dance with anyone. I mean, that he would want to dance with as a date dance, not a pity dance for a girl who can’t get a date.”

“That is sad.”

Ashleigh went on for a little bit longer, but it sounded as if Casey hadn’t missed much. And she’d had her own dance, albeit not with Rob but Cappie, and not at the formal, but a very informal party with a bunch of drunken engineers. Relieved of her duties of keeping up with all things social at ZBZ, Casey went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, only to find Rebecca there—similarly in pajamas, but glaring at her.

“What?” She threw up her hands. “What did I do now?”

“Are you going out with Rob?”

“We went out tonight and we are planning to go out again at some future point. Draw from that what conclusions you want.” Casey looked down at her toiletries bag, trying to avoid the glare of doom. It had its own way of speaking for Rebecca. “What? He’s a nice guy. And what happened with you in high school or whatever, he’s past it, even if you’re not.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So this interrogation about my date for the evening is just for fun?”

“It seems like you had a lot of dates for one evening.”

“And you went with Evan. Whom I could still be pissed at if I even had the energy for it right now—which I don’t. We both went out with guys the other person didn’t like. We’re even—if it’s even a game, but I don’t think it is. Yes, I’m going out with Rob. Deal.”

“You’re going to get burned,” Rebecca said.

“And you’re heading down a wonderful road with Evan Chambers, king of fidelity. Oh, no, wait, you’re the one who made him lose that title.”

“He was doing me a favor. Like you’re going to say Cappie was doing when he walked
you
home.”

“I…” But she didn’t really have an answer to that. Not immediately anyway. “I appreciate an escort. And guess what? Rob was fine with it. Rob was fine, Cappie was fine and I’m fine. The only one upset by my evening is you.”

Rebecca’s retort was not immediate. She was shoring up her anger, then swallowing it, her voice pure determination. “It won’t end well,” was all she said in the end, and stormed off, leaving Casey alone.

“Intense. Not that she ever isn’t.”

Casey turned to Ashleigh, who appeared from around the corner, no doubt listening in on at least part of the conversation that had passed. “She’s not right, is she?”

“You like two guys. One of them is going to be disappointed. It’s math. And life. Life and math. You just have to decide who it’s going to be,” Ashleigh said, not nearly as worked up about it. “But I think we both know who has a hold on your heart.”

Once there was quiet in the house, Casey went to bed, a peaceful end to a far less peaceful night. When she closed her eyes, she conjured up an image of Cappie but as she drifted off, she realized she had no idea what the dawn would bring, or what she would do about it.

When Cappie knocked, Dale answered. Usually, after noon, if Rusty wasn’t at the house or at class, it was a fair shot that he would be the one to open the door to his apartment with Dale. Not the case now, at one in the afternoon on a Sunday.

“Shouldn’t you be at church?”

“Online worship services,” Dale said, sipping on a juice box. “The effect can be amazing if you have really good speakers. All the harmony of the choir but devotional privacy. Do you want to come in?”

“Sure.” He was slower moving than he normally was this morning, mostly for anything head-related, and not just because of dead brain cells.

Dale puttered around the kitchen like an old woman. It was a slightly unfair comparison, but it was true. “Do you want some ice or something?”

“Thanks, but it’s way beyond the point of ice.” His black eye was pretty prominent on his face. Dale probably figured it was from the KT party. “I’m checking on Rusty. He was a little down-and-out last night.”

“He woke in this panic, thinking he’d dreamed the whole night and now he had to go get ready and pick up the ice sculpture. Then he saw my trophy and went back to bed.” Dale was possibly the only person at CRU who kept his refrigerator stocked with Juicy Juice packets, one of which he gave to Cappie. “He seemed okay. I gave him juice.”

“You are the juice man,” Cappie said, trying to push the tiny straw out of its tiny plastic casing.

“Is your eye okay?”

Cappie settled on the futon. He had wondered when Dale was going to mention it. “Yeah. You can’t go into battle without a few bruises. And a little mysterious swelling. Is there a Bible quote about that?”

“‘O virgin daughter of Zion, how can I comfort you? For your wound is as deep as the sea,’” Dale said. “Lamentations.
Second book, I think. I’m really behind on my memorization quizzes. All of these…otherworldly distractions.”

“I was going to say to cure swelling, but, yeah, I see what you’re saying. You could always move to a new apartment. You have a pretty good setup here, but I’m sure you could feng shui the hell out of a new place.”

“When you bring heathen arts into your home, you push Christ out. Or that’s what Grandma Kettlewell said when my mom bought her one of those bonsai trees at a street fair for her birthday. Maybe she just didn’t like the gift.” Dale settled in to the futon. “And I got to go with Casey, which was pretty awesome, even if there was that whole thing with Rusty. It wasn’t his fault,” he said, and leaned in. “This is not, you know, something I would normally ask you, but have you ever had a truly enchanting woman in your life, in, like, all the wrong ways?”

“Um, yeah. Story of my life, Dale.”

“So what do you do? How do you fortify yourself against her persistent attacks? I don’t think she knows she’s making them, but she is.”

Cappie was pretty sure Dale was delusional if he was thinking about Casey hitting on him. He blamed the sugar. “Uh, if she’s making them then she knows she’s making them. I don’t think she was making them.”

“That’s right, she spent the entire night with you.” But Dale didn’t sound angry about it, just down. “I was fooling myself again, hitting on your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“What about when I do find the right woman? How will I know to act? I find someone like Casey, who’s spoken for,
and I can barely do anything. Imagine if I found someone I could actually pursue. What’s she going to be impressed by? My trophy?” Dale said. “There’s this girl in my Introduction to Algorithms class who’s kind of cool. I mean, I get a feeling when I look at her, but I don’t want to blow it. And I think she’s sending me signals. I know in my heart that I have to be strong, but it’s like there’s this other force that’s driving me to her. I would say it’s evil, but I really don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

“Then put up or shut up,” Cappie said. “Sorry to be harsh, but it’s go time. I would be doing you a disservice by saying anything else. If she wants to be with you, you have to either be with her or reject her.”

Dale wasn’t thrilled with this answer, but he wasn’t mad at Cappie, either. “I need to pray.”

“Go on, yon faithful Christian soldier.”

Dale disappeared up the steps, trusting Cappie to show himself out.

“Doing you a disservice? What kind of bullshit is that?”

Rusty emerged from his room. He looked paler than usual, but not red or swollen up like a football as Cappie had last seen him. “What?”

“Dale’s trying to reconcile his wholesome Christian values with his sex drive. Okay, good advice, make a choice, but you are
so
the last one to give it.”

“I was going to say, nice to see you, how are you feeling, little bro? But instead I’ll just observe that an allergy attack can make you quite ornery, and forgive you for bitching me out for a minute there.”

“It’s good advice, but you should take it yourself first,” Rusty said, not relenting. “Casey lives in this state of ro
mantic agony because you won’t commit, for reasons that have never satisfied her, and you don’t have half the excuses Dale has.”

“Spitter, are you seriously trying to hook me up with your sister again?”

“I’m just saying, put up or shut up,” he said, taking Dale’s seat. “And don’t, like, be shocked when she doesn’t want you around, being all ambiguous, or when she has a new guy in her life. Which I don’t even want to think about, because she’s my sister, but I have to because both of you throw it in my face without even mentioning it.”

“Casey doesn’t need me. She has some guy—Rob. Generic name, good suit, appropriate amount of concern for her needs.”

“She’s only going out with him because she doesn’t want to be alone and you’re the reason she’s alone. And maybe it would be fine if you just dumped her and you both got on with your lives, but are you seriously going to tell me that you went to see Dale get an award because you wanted to support him? You can expand your horizons at plenty of pretentious university events that do not involve my sister, and we both know it, and Casey knows it and it drives her crazy.”

Cappie knew better than to try to fight Rusty point-by-point when he was on a rant. “It doesn’t matter. She’s happy with another guy.”

“She’d dump him in an instant if you would commit to anything beyond this crazy game you have now. So do us all a favor—put up or shut up. And, no, this is not the antiallergens talking.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Rusty didn’t have an answer. Or he wasn’t willing to give
one. “Just don’t break her heart—again.” And rather dramatically, he left.

There was something particularly final to Rusty’s comment, and Cappie knew it: there were only so many times a heart could be broken.