Gwen kissed him, a friendly one and not at all like the kind he’d gotten just a second before. She smiled. "I’ll see you around, Max Holter."
He leaned away from her, had to let her go whether he wanted to or not. And he sure-as-hell didn’t want to let her go, maybe ever. But he had things to do, starting with getting Rob out of there while the lightweight could still walk.
He tried not to be too pissed at the interruption. It's not like he'd meant to try anything with Gwen at the party. It was just that she had a roommate, and he had a roommate… But a frat house was a really stupid idea. He laughed at himself. An idea involved thinking, and even he could admit he wasn’t doing much of that when it came to Gwen.
"Man, why don’t you just do her and move on?" Rob tripped trying to walk into the room.
He was trying to, wasn’t he? He looked out into the hall, thought he saw Gwen heading out the back door and hoped she hadn’t heard Rob. She was better than that. She deserved better than that, better than him probably. "Hey, Rob, let’s check out your dorm."
Rob seemed to slowly take that in. "You think there’s a party, man?"
"Yeah, I think maybe there is." And with any luck, he’d get Rob in his own bed before the guy passed out or barfed or both.
Back to U…
She spent the next few hours re-loading the buffet table and receiving accolades from Chi Omikrons who came through the kitchen to thank her. She might have oversold the contribution of the boys, but she didn’t think it could hurt. And when the last kabob had left the kitchen, she wiped down the counters and headed out to grab her mother for the dorm.
The music had been loud even from the kitchen, but when she stepped out into the party, only the noise of the crowd greeted her. The band seemed to have gone on break, and the small stage at the far end of the room held an abandoned electric guitar, keyboard, and drum set. She wondered if it was the House’s house band.
Looking around, she could understand why the boys wanted to be fraternity men. It was an impressive party without the crude and complete chaos she’d remembered from her own time or two at a frat house event. They’d never served food at anything she’d been to. Maybe the Chi Omikrons were onto something, limiting a party to invitation only so they didn’t have wall to wall partying humanity. Still, there were plenty of people, and the costumes were great.
She could see the standard angels and devils, of course, but they stood near a Methuselah, green-faced with rubber snakes in her hair. The girl managed to look sexy, an important element for the girls and guys. No one was dressed as a circus clown or anything. There were lots of Mardi gras masks and cat masks and dirty old men masks. The senior citizen Hannah Montana would still pretty much win the costume award, but Mark Antony, she had to admit, looked damn good. Even the three peek holes to his glutes were impressive.
"Gwen!" Annie, dressed as a chicken, came up to her and gave her a hug. "I didn’t know you were here."
"I did the cooking." She looked around. "You came with the guys?"
"I came with Guy. He’s a pledge." Annie glowed with pride.
"Guy’s a Chi Omikron?" That boy was just full of surprises. He’d gotten into a fraternity that had rejected the other boys, and he didn’t even speak English. Plus, he’d been a big part of bringing Annie out of hiding. "That’s great."
"He wired the house with a new speaker system for the home theater. Do not go in there, incidentally." Annie’s eyes widened, and Gwen had a vague memory of being with Max in a TV room. "And it’s because of Guy that the band sounds so great."
Gwen tried to find Guy in the crowd and spotted two Jackie Chans, who weren’t even a tiny bit Chinese looking. There was a gorilla costume, and Guy could be hiding in there or in the astronaut suit, or behind the shower curtain. She didn’t even want to know what the boy wore under that one.
When Colonel Sanders put his arm around the chicken, Gwen knew it had to be Guy. It just didn’t look like him. White hair, white skin, long white mustache.