in the face. Unless Lincoln was misremembering, they’d all just stood there in the entryway, staring stupidly down at the coldcocked kid, until finally one of the other hashers put a hand on Mickey’s shoulder and said, “Well, you did warn us.”
By the following morning everyone at the Theta house had heard about the incident, and there was talk of firing the lot of them. Jacy, herself furious, arrived at their apartment midmorning and commenced pounding on the door. Lincoln and Teddy, groggy and hungover, had only just gotten up, but the sight of a livid Jacy brought them fully awake. “Where is he?” she said, pushing past them, and then, when they didn’t answer quickly enough, “Never mind. I’ll find him myself.”
Mickey’s dark, smelly bear den of a bedroom wasn’t the sort of place your average Theta would’ve willingly entered, but then Jacy wasn’t your average anything. If she was the least bit squeamish, she gave no sign, even when she discovered Mickey lying facedown on top of the blanket, clad only in his boxers. Instead of speaking, she kicked the bed, hard, causing its occupant to groan but not wake up. The second kick, even harder, did the trick. “Jesus.” Mickey blinked up at her in the dark. “Who let you in?”
“Give us a minute,” she told Lincoln and Teddy, and when they backed sheepishly into the hall, she kicked the door shut.
All too happy to be excused, he and Teddy had gone out onto the patio, where yesterday’s empty aluminum keg floated on its side in the metal tub. “We should return this,” Teddy said, as if this duty, in the context of the moment, were of primary importance. “Get our deposit back.”
“Right,” Lincoln agreed, but neither moved.
A few minutes later Jacy emerged with a very pale, contrite Mickey in tow. (Had she watched him get dressed? Lincoln wondered.) “Let’s go,” she said.
“Where?” Lincoln had felt obliged to ask.
“You’re going to the SAE house and apologize.”
They both focused on Mickey, who shrugged as if to concede they had no choice in the matter. As if, admit it, there was no chance the three of them together could take this girl in a fair fight.
“I wasn’t even there,” Teddy pointed out.
“All for one,” Jacy told him. “One for all.”
When they arrived at the SAE house, the beer can that Mickey had set on the lion’s head was still there. Lincoln remembered climbing up the porch steps and ringing the bell, but after that came a memory glitch. They must’ve muttered their apology, but to whom? The kid Mickey had punched? The house president? Had Mickey even spoken, or had Lincoln, as head hasher, assumed responsibility? Had the apology been accepted?
It must’ve been, because on the walk back to the apartment Jacy’s anger had leaked away, like air from a balloon. “Actually, it is kind of funny,” she admitted, sharply elbowing Mickey. “You really didn’t even say hello? You just hit him in the face?”
Mickey shrugged again. “So I’m told.”
“And then you all just slunk off? Left the poor kid lying there in the foyer?”
“It seemed best,” Lincoln explained. “The party was down in the basement and the music was up really loud.”
Mickey snorted, his memory jogged. “Cat Stevens. Who but a bunch of faggot SAEs would listen to fucking Cat Stevens?”
“You wanted to go down there and fight them all,” Lincoln continued, “but we talked you out of it.”
Jacy shook her head. “What I don’t understand is what got you so pissed off in the first place.”
“I don’t know,” Mickey admitted. “But I remember really objecting to those fucking lions.” All three of them had stopped and just stared at him until he shrugged, shamefaced. “Or it could’ve been the Cat Stevens. Hard to say.”
At this Jacy had burst out laughing, which gave them all permission. They’d howled all the way back to the apartment, their shared hilarity putting the whole episode behind them. On the patio Mickey righted the keg, picked up a used cup from where it bobbed in the water, poured out the dregs and put it under the tap, causing the others to wince. When nothing but air hissed out, he sighed and dropped the cup back in the water. “I guess we should start cleaning up,” he said. Clearly, he was including Jacy in this imperative. “Everybody pick a room.” Because, as always after hasher parties, every room in the house was littered with plastic cups and shards of potato chips,