Hooped (The Hooped Interracial Romance Series #1)

  HOOPED

  The Hooped Series Book #1

  BAD BOY FRAT

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams

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  Chapter One

  “Oh come on, Jenn,” one of my friends said with a nagging tone to her voice. “You know it’s going to be a good time. Besides, it’s not like you can study all the time.” I laughed a little bit, brushing off Alicia’s rolling eyes.

  “I also sleep and eat,” I pointed out.

  “But you need to have some fun in your life! When was the last time you went to a party?” I shrugged; I didn’t think that it particularly mattered how often I partied it up. I wasn’t in college to go to parties—I was there to get a degree, to learn. I wasn’t against going out every once in a while, but I was by far not the kind of person to go to parties constantly.

  On top of the fact that I had classes to study for, I was already tired; it had been a long week and a long day, and all I really wanted to do was veg out in front of the TV, eat some popcorn, and get ahead in my harder courses. The mandatory freshman classes weren’t that hard, but I was trying to get as many credits done as possible for the general education credits so I could get into my major more quickly. I hadn’t exactly decided where I wanted to go; my parents had read chapter and verse to me about how useless an English degree would be, even though I’d always done well in those classes. I was also thinking about going into anthropology—but that, I knew, would be just as useless unless I went to graduate school.

  “It’s the weekend, Jenn!” Alicia threw herself down onto the couch next to me. “Come on. You need to get out and have some fun. There will be plenty of time for you to study, I swear. You can come with us, have a good time, and get over your hangover by tomorrow. You’ll be able to get lots and lots of studying done, and I swear, I won’t even bother you to go out tomorrow night.” I thought about it; I had to admit that Alicia had a point. I couldn’t let myself get burned out by studying.

  It wasn’t so much that I was against going to parties as a rule; I’d been to a few already. I just knew that I wasn’t going to be that person at the end of the semester worrying about failing out because I had spent all my weekends partying, and some of the weekdays along with it. I had seen more than one of my classmates come in hung over and thought to myself that it was stupid to go to class at all if you couldn’t even pay attention because your head was pounding, and you felt like you were going to throw up.

  It had only taken me one night of drinking too much, my second week into the semester, for me to know when I needed to stop. I didn’t normally go out during the week, and I didn’t go out on the weekends if I was too tired already; I hadn’t committed to going with Alicia and our other friends, but I’d said that if I felt up to it I would.

  “Besides,” Alicia said, looking up at me with her bright eyes glinting as she continued her argument. “It’s at the Phi Kappa house. You know it’s going to be a legit party.” I laughed. The Phi Kappa house had always had a reputation on the campus as the rowdiest group of bad boys in any frat. They’d had Johnny Steele there—they’d had so many legendary guys: partiers with the worst reputations for flirting with girls and the best reputations for dominating in sports. I’d mostly stayed away from them when I could, but I couldn’t actually deny that a night of hanging out at one of the legendary parties was appealing.

  The Phi Kappa boys were the kind of guys that my parents had always warned me about when talking about college; I had always blown off their warnings—after all, guys were guys at the end of the day. If they partied hard, they partied hard. I wasn’t about to let myself go falling for one of them, but it could be a lot of fun to see them in their natural element. And as long as the girls and I were together, it wasn’t like any of us would be in any danger.

  “Okay,” I said, rolling my eyes and sighing, even though I grinned at Alicia. “Fine, I’ll go.” I was still tired, but it wasn’t worth arguing with Alicia the rest of the night; I’d end up not studying either way. “But promise me that we’ll go home before it gets super late. I don’t want to drag my ass back into the dorms at dawn and lose all of tomorrow.”

  “I swear, as soon as you’re tired of it, we’ll come back. Kelly is coming too, and so is Giselle. It’ll be so great.” Alicia gathered herself up off of the couch and beamed at me, almost dancing around in her excitement. “Get a shower, slam a Red Bull, and you’ll be totally ready.” I rolled my eyes again, grinning.

  “Shouldn’t I also get dressed?” I asked. Alicia shrugged.

  “I doubt you’d be the only naked woman there if you didn’t,” she pointed out.

  “Real promising,” I told her. “Come and get me when you guys head out.”

  “We’ll come over and get you and Kelly both,” Alicia said. “And if you try and weasel out of this, Jenn…” I gave her a shove.

  “I already told you I’d go! I’m not going to back out of it now. Let me get ready in peace, woman!” Alicia bounded out of my room, calling another warning over her shoulder.

  I finished the show I was watching on TV before I got into the shower, thinking it was probably just going to be another lame party. But in the back of my mind, I thought that at least I’d be able to say that I’d actually been to a Phi Kappa party. And from what I’d heard around campus about the guys in the frat, that was really something. Maybe it won’t be as boring, I thought as I washed my hair and scrubbed my body.

  I tried to decide just how I was going to dress for the party even as I was in the shower. It wasn’t an easy decision. While I wasn’t specifically looking to go after a guy, I didn’t really have a good idea of how I should look if I wanted to blend in. I had heard so many rumors about the kinds of parties that Phi Kappa threw, and Alicia’s joke about me not standing out if I was naked was only about halfway joking. I shook my head, deciding that whatever else, I was not going to show up to the party naked.

  Alicia was right; after my shower and after downing a Red Bull, I started to feel a little less exhausted. The caffeine jittered through me while I changed into one of my skimpier outfits: a slightly flared skirt that came up above my knees a good three or four inches, a tight low-cut almost transparent white shirt underneath, and a pair of heeled boots. I put on a little makeup and sat around with the caffeine buzzing and crackling in my veins while I waited for the rest of my friends to arrive. I hoped that I wouldn’t regret taking a break for the night from studying.

  I thought about the party and the fact that I, of all people, was going to it; Phi Kappa was absolutely notorious for how crazy its parties raged. They had been nearly disbanded a dozen times throughout the frat’s history for underage drinking and allegations of public sex and other, various crimes. Even though I really wanted to study, I had to admit to myself that I was more than a little curious about what might go down. Above and beyond the history of bad boys in the Phi Kappa frat, there was one living legend that would almost c
ertainly be there: Devon Sealy.

  The rumors on campus said that Devon put all the rest of the guys to shame. He was an upperclassman, a star on the school’s basketball team, and a first-class partier. I had seen him around campus; who hadn’t? And since I had gone to all of the basketball games so far in the season, I had seen him play. But I had never really met him. He was way outside of my reach—I was kind of a bookworm, and I doubted that Devon had studied a day in his life; he was an upperclassman and I was a freshman, and I didn’t go to parties that often. We didn’t have any classes together, so there was no real opportunity to meet him.

  As the girls started to arrive from the different dorms, I learned that Alicia had talked a few more of our circle of friends into coming with us to the Phi Kappa bash. Kelly, my roommate, was a junior—and had smuggled a bottle of rum into the dorms, even though she had an underage roommate. We all took shots to “pre-game” and joked around, knowing that even though the flyer for the party said it started at eight, it probably wouldn’t be really going until nine. “Oh god, you guys, what if I meet Devon?” I said, laughing at the thought of it.

  “Jenn’s brush with glory!” Giselle joked.

  “It probably won’t happen,” Kelly pointed out. “I mean he’s surrounded by girls all the time, I doubt he can even see three feet in front of him.”

  It was finally time to head over, and I had to stop myself from feeling nervous. It was just a party after all; it wasn’t like there was anyone there who’d even really know me other than my friends. The other girls had dressed even skimpier than I had, and I could tell Amanda wasn’t wearing a bra under her skin tight shirt. As we walked across campus, a few of the girls joked about how they were definitely going to get laid or at least fool around with someone; all I wanted was to have maybe a drink or two, enjoy watching people act like idiots, and go home. Even if it was illegal for me to drink since I was under 21, it didn’t seem very much like a crime at a party like that.

  Walking up to the frat house was like walking into a giant noise factory; even before we could see the house itself, I could feel the bass from the sound system inside pounding through me, making my stomach feel like jelly. I knew that I’d get used to it in a few minutes once we were inside, but I couldn’t help getting more and more excited the closer we got.

  The door was open, and there was a member of the frat, someone in one of my survey classes, standing there in a bed sheet toga. I fought back a spasm of giggles at the sight of him; he was always so serious in class, it was hard to think of him as this half-drunk frat boy whose toga was already starting to fall apart on him. “Welcome, welcome!” he shouted, raising his hands up into the air. “Come on in, ladies—plenty of drinks to go around.”

  I had been to a couple of parties on campus, even one that one of the sororities had hosted, even though I didn’t have any intentions of joining; but as we walked into the Phi Kappa frat house it was obvious that it was a whole new level of debauchery. My heart was pounding in my chest along to the bass of the music, and as I looked around I saw that most of the girls at the party were even more scantily clad than my friends and I—some of them were basically wearing little more than bikinis, even though it was already starting to get chilly.

  One of my friends put a red Solo cup into my hands and I sipped from it—I wasn’t even sure what was in it, but it was some kind of punch, with the after burn of cheap, hard alcohol. Some of the girls wandered away, and I eventually started to get into the swing of the party, flirting with guys who came up to me, sipping my drink—I didn’t want to get absolutely plastered—and even dancing a little bit. It boggled my mind to see how all the girls around me were going on, throwing themselves at the guys; some of them were making out on the couches and I even saw some people on the stairs who looked like they were doing everything but having sex.

  One of the frat members came up to me and asked me to dance with him, and I looked at my friends; they were all having a good time, so I decided to have a good time too. I let him lead me over to the makeshift dance floor in the living room, but I kept his hands from wandering too much. It wasn’t that I was a prude so much as it was that I was already pretty hot and sweaty, and the guy was obviously interested in getting me alone; I didn’t really have that in mind for the night—I just wanted to have a little bit of fun with my friends. But I went from him to another guy who wanted to dance, and I had a second drink when I finished my first; after all, I was going to be walking home. I didn’t want to get plastered, but I also didn’t want to look like I was trying to ruin anyone else’s good time.

  I was having a great time; the only thing that bummed me out a little bit—even though I knew it shouldn’t—was that I didn’t catch sight of Devon at all, even though I looked around for him more than a little. I figured he must have gone upstairs with some girl, or he might have been hanging out in the back yard around the pool, and put the thought aside. I told myself I could have a perfectly good time without having to meet Devon Sealy; even if he was a star in my favorite sport, it wasn’t like he was the end-all-be-all of existence.

  Chapter Two

  For the first hour or two of the party, I was having a great time. But as the party continued on and on, I started to get more and more tired. The Red Bull started to lose its effects on me, and I was even more exhausted than I had been even before we left. “Drink another Red Bull!” Kelly suggested, putting one in my hand. I drank it, but it left me feeling jittery instead of putting a stop to my fatigue.

  I started to wander around the frat house, even though my feet were hurting. I told myself that I could people-watch even if I didn’t feel much like interacting. My friends were getting steadily drunker, and I watched as Giselle practically humped one of the Phi Kappa boys in the middle of the living room; she wasn’t the only one, either. None of my friends showed the least sign of wanting to call it a night, so I didn’t really have much of a choice. I knew that if I left without them I’d never hear the end of it, and besides, the idea of walking across the dark campus all by myself was less than appealing.

  I tried wandering around, seeing if I could spot any of the campus celebrities; I saw the student body president doing shots of Jaegermeister, which amused me for a little while, since it was totally different from the guy’s public persona: a guy who did volunteer work and studied at all hours in the library. I saw some of the other members of the basketball team, but not Devon; I managed to strike up a conversation with one of the guys, talking about the recent game. He seemed surprised that I knew anything about basketball and asked me if I played.

  “No, I’ve never been all that great with hand-eye coordination,” I said, laughing. “But my dad loved the game, so he taught me how to appreciate it.”

  “Your dad raised you right then!” We started trading team stats and talking about our favorite players, and for a while I was able actually to enjoy myself. Then one of the girls at the party, totally drunk and more out of her dress than in it, wandered up and asked the guy to take a shot with her, and he gave me a quick, wry glance before following her out into the living room.

  I hung out by the pool for a while, drinking one of the bottles of water that had been stashed in coolers—I could say for the Phi Kappa guys that at least they had something to drink that wasn’t alcohol. I was starting to get annoyed by the fact that it was getting later and later, and my friends showed no signs of being interested in heading back to the dorms. For a while, it was nice by the pool; it was cooler than inside the packed frat house, and it was hilarious to watch people being thrown into the pool. I stayed out of the line of fire; I had no interest at all in being one of the people tossed in. I finished my water and realized I had to pee. Since unlike the guys I couldn’t just turn my back on the party and pee in the bushes, I had to go back inside with the pounding bass and the sweaty people.

  On my way into the house and towards one of the bathrooms, I ran into Alicia; she was making out on the dance floor with one of the guys fr
om the hockey team, and didn’t even notice me. Giselle had moved on to a new conquest, and Kelly was nowhere to be seen. I was starting to get annoyed with my friends, but I hurried to the bathroom and told myself that I’d regroup with them once I was out. Surely someone in the group wasn’t busy plastering herself on some guy.

  I checked the time on my phone while I waited for the line for the bathroom to move forward and give me my opportunity. I knew that the bathroom would probably be horrifying; I had seen more than a few people passed out. But I didn’t have much choice in the matter. It was already past midnight—I had been at the party for three hours, and my feet were starting to hurt from walking around and dancing so much. I was losing my buzz and starting to get a headache.

  By the time I had used the bathroom quickly, not looking around me very much at all and barely washing my hands, there was no sign of my friends. I had no idea where they’d gotten to. One of the guys—inexplicably still upright, in spite of obviously being drunk—offered me another cup of punch, and I decided I might as well. I gulped it down, thinking longingly of the TV shows I had missed. It would have been okay if we’d all managed to stick together, but I had no idea where any of my friends had gone.

  Alicia found me finally, reeling and stumbling from being drunk. “Isn’t this the best party ever?” she asked me in a near shriek. I smiled, trying to ignore the searing, throbbing pain in my head from the loud music and cheap alcohol. “Come on, Jenn, let’s do a shot.”

  She led me into the kitchen, and I saw that the other girls were in there, all of them chatting up guys, dancing. Kelly’s top was nearly off while she shimmied up against a guy I was sure she didn’t know, but I told myself it wasn’t my business. I knocked back a shot of what someone told me was Jack but I thought tasted more like the cheapest possible whiskey and chased it with long gulps of store-brand cola, and I tried to get back into the swing of the party. I already knew it was hopeless.