I’m pulled out of the house, down the steps to the lawn, where we congregate on the sidewalk.

“What is going on?” I blurt out. “I did exactly what you wanted me to do—why are y’all acting so mad?”

“Because, Georgia! Do you know who that is? Do you have any idea?” It sounds like she’s accusing me of something.

My eyes roll. “Obviously not.”

“That’s Ashley. Dryden. Jones.”

I’m silent after her stilted pronouncement.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Then, “Wait…is his last name hyphenated?”

“Yes it’s hyphenated,” she hisses. “He’s British, for god’s sake. That’s what they do when they’re rich.”

“Okay but…why are you mad at me?” She looks madder than a fox in a henhouse, which is only making me more and more confused. “You told me to go inside and find a guy who’s…who is…” I can’t even say the word ugly.

“Ugly.”

“I know what we told you, but you weren’t supposed to choose him!” She’s hissing again, getting worked up into a snit.

“Ronnie, I don’t know who any of those people are.” I’m using my most placating voice. “How on earth was I supposed to know to not choose him—you didn’t give me pictures to look at of any guys who were off limits.”

I haven’t started my classes yet! I wouldn’t know Ashley Dryden-Jones from a hole in the chemistry classroom wall.

“This isn’t an episode of The Bachelor, Georgia—you don’t get a wall of photographs to study! Ugh!” She throws her arms up and stalks off in the opposite direction from whence we came, her gaggle of followers doing what they do—following her. “This is a nightmare!”

That seems a tad dramatic, but this whole evening has been. And for the record, it was a dumb idea anyway—these are practically grown women. They should know a prank like this was eventually going to backfire.

The good news is, I don’t know that guy inside and will probably never see him again. I may lie in bed tonight hating myself for putting him in that awful position, but at least I won’t have to look him in the eye while I do it.

Ugh, he looked shocked and hurt, kind of.

I trail along behind my teammates, bringing up the rear with my incessant questions.

“Can someone please explain why this is a big deal?”

“Ash is like, blue-blooded or something.”

I’m not sure I’m understanding her. They’re all really overreacting to this. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“We’re never going to be invited back into that house after tonight, no thanks to you!” Tamlin sputters, high heels clicking furiously on the pavement. She trips on a crack and stumbles. “One time, a few years back, the baseball house kicked a girl out for jockblocking, and she was never allowed back inside.”

That sounds extreme.

“Never?”

“Well…maybe not never, but they did ban her for like, a few weeks.”

“For cockblocking.”

“That’s what we said, isn’t it?”

No, they said jockblocking, which I guess must be a made-up word to describe someone who’s preventing you from having sex. Jockblock must be the term they use on Jock Row, egomaniacs that they’re turning out to be.

I don’t like these girls at all. Not a single one of them—they’re acting like mean sorority girls, not Division 1 athletes with a code of conduct and a There is no I in team attitude to uphold.

They’re nothing like the young women on the team where I spent three and a half of the best years of my life, and it makes me homesick being here tonight, standing in the shadows of the trees lining the street.

Listening to them ridicule me.

Without another word, I turn and head the opposite direction, striding on the long legs that brought me here.

Two

Ashley

That pretty girl thinks I’m a munter.

Ugly.

I lie in bed after leaving the party the moment the group of girls walked out the door of the rugby house, barely remembering to grab my jacket from the kitchen before ducking out.

I had to drive home—my place is on the outskirts of campus, not on it—and I might be in great shape, but I have zero desire to hoof it through the dark streets in the middle of the night.

Folding my arms behind my head, I stare up at the ceiling, head resting on a white pillowcase embroidered with my initials.

A D J

Ashley Arthur Calum Dryden-Jones.

The fifth.

Thank bloody god Mum left my middle names off the pillow; that’s some posh bullshite for a student at uni in America, but they’re the only things I had when I moved, and there seemed no sense in replacing perfectly good linens.

The furniture came with the house, and I could bring nothing but a few suitcases when I enrolled in school here, moving clear across the globe in an attempt to seek some semblance of normalcy.

Some semblance of normalcy.

Ha.

I chuckle to myself knowing the guys on my team would ride my arse for sounding like a massive wanker. None of them seem to have any grace when it comes to grammar, all sounding like goddamn simpletons most of the time.

The only indication they’ve any intelligence at all is the fact that they were accepted by and enrolled at this university to begin with.

“You think I’m ugly, eh?” I quietly repeat the words I said to the girl to myself in the dark, remembering the look on her face and the stutter in her voice.

She’s not from here, either. Some weird accent inflected her tone the same way I know it inflicts mine, hers sweet though. Except I have no way of identifying it.

I haven’t lived in the States long enough.

But she said y’all, and I think that’s a Southern thing. Then again, I could be wrong.

Brunette hair, blue eyes.

Taller than most girls, I’d sized her up before she asked me on that damn date, calculated her to be about one hundred seventy centimeters.

Not sure what that is in American. I’m shite at conversions.

And her voice…

Airy and sweet.

It doesn’t fucking matter, Jones—she thinks you’re ugly.

She was asking me out on a lark, some stupid track ritual they’ve become famous for in our circle. See, that’s the thing about athletes—we all hang out together. Eat in the same cafeteria on campus, work out in the same gym facility, use the same trainers.

Have the same friends.

Therefore it stands to reason I’d have heard about the hazing some of those blithers go through; rugby is just as bad, only I’m not a big enough cockup to participate.

Even the extreme frisbee team hazes their members, and they’re not considered an actual sport. Those idiots make each other drink beer from the frisbee, and did you know you can fit three beers on one before it spills over?

The women’s track team? They haze their freshman members by having them find the ugliest guy they can—usually at a party—and ask him on a date.

They never actually go on the date, but any unsuspecting arsehole who believes their invitation is a flipping moron who deserves to be embarrassed.