Vaughn, Hunter, and I strolled past them silently, lit joints clutched between our teeth. I wore white, destroyed Balmain biker jeans and a shabby I Fucked Your Girlfriend and Didn’t Even Enjoy It tee that had cost me a grand, paired with vintage Gucci sneakers and a beanie I was pretty sure was made out of real unicorn fur or some shit. Vaughn still wore his painting attire and looked just a little dirtier than a third world-based hooker looking for her next fix, and Hunter was wearing a full-blown suit, bless his Great Gatsby, weird-ass heart.

Our names, moaned and whispered like a prayer among the buzzing girls, drowned in the angry tune pulsating against the walls.

“A Song for the Dead” by Queens of the Stone Age vibrated in my stomach as we glided the length of Vaughn’s hallway, which was complete with Gothic, high ceilings and giant paintings of his family members. It was actually creepier than a Stephen King book: Vaughn’s scowling face staring back at you, life-sized.

Let’s admit it, the fucker gave the Grim Reaper a run for his money in the menacing department. And he looked extra dead in those paintings.

Extra pale. Extra cruel. Extra Vaughn.

Since the girls couldn’t explicitly proposition us without staining their precious reputations—I’d always hated the double standard of guys are players, girls are sluts—they pretended to talk to each other, sipping their drinks.

We stopped to examine the line. The rest of the football and polo squad were behind us, loyal and on guard, like the good puppies they were.

I was captain of the All Saints’ football team, so I had that shiny quarterback title and shotgun rights. But Vaughn had the street cred of Dracula, and Hunter’s family was the fourth richest in North America, so suffice it to say, all our dicks were fool’s gold and had pussies in their cards tonight.

Hunter stroked his chin, making a whole show of it. Sometimes I truly hated him, but most of the time I was indifferent to his theatrics.

“You.” He pointed at a girl named Alice, with pixie blonde hair and huge hazel eyes. He curled his index, indicating for her to come closer. She exchanged looks with her friends, breathless giggles bubbling from her ample chest.

One of the girls pushed her toward us, whisper-shouting, “Oh my God, Al. Just go!”

“Take pictures,” a brunette coughed into her fist.

Hunter jerked his chin to Vaughn. The latter ran his arctic pupils along the line, careful and methodic. He looked like he was searching for someone specific. Someone who obviously wasn’t there.

“You’re choosing a fuck buddy, not a mortgage. Hurry up.” Hunter rolled his eyes, throwing an arm over Alice’s shoulder. She bathed in the attention, smiling up at him with stars in her eyes.

Vaughn ignored Hunter, as he did ninety percent of the people who talked to him.

I examined the line, my eyes settling on a girl named Arabella. She had huge blue eyes and tan skin. A senior, too. She reminded me a bit of Luna—when she wasn’t talking. But that was the thing about high school girls, wasn’t it? They always fucking talked…other than the one whose words I wanted desperately.

No. That one never spoke a word to me.

“Arabella, baby.” I opened my arms in her direction.

She unglued herself from the wall to strut toward me in her high, hot pink heels and black mini dress.

Vaughn finally picked a girl, though he was grunting like a caveman about it. I’d have made a mental note to ask him why, but Vaughn never talked about girls.

Or feelings.

Or, you know, life in general.

I wanted to tell him if he didn’t feel like dipping his dick in someone tonight, no one was forcing him. But clearly, that would have been hypocritical. Not to mention false.

We confiscated the girls’ phones before they walked into the room and dumped them into a fruit bowl outside the door, to be guarded by a designated freshman who wanted to fit in with the cool crowd.

What happened in Vaughn’s entertainment room stayed there, too. We weren’t bad guys, despite what people might have thought. We never spoke about the ladies who entered here—not between ourselves, and definitely not to other people. If the girls wanted to brag, that was their prerogative. But there were never any pictures, any vicious rumors, any drama. The rules were simple: you got in, you had your fun, and on Monday morning, you acted like nothing happened.

Because nothing really had happened, as far as we were concerned.

In the entertainment room, Hunter was full-blown fucking Alice against a pool table from behind while having a civilized, flat-toned conversation with her about her summer. He’d tugged her mini dress up and gone at it, barely even bothering to slide her panties aside.

Turned out she’d lost her virginity a few weeks earlier to some tool at Christian camp and needed a redo.