No Easy Choices (A New Adult Romance)

No Easy Choices

Copyright 2013 Trista Cade

Chapter One

“What the hell is that thing you’re carrying? Please tell me it’s not a musical instrument. You’re not in the band, are you?” my new roommate demanded, only halfway hiding the sneer that let me know exactly what she thought of band geeks. I sighed and dropped the hard-shell plastic tubes and the oversized flat cardboard portfolio I had hauled up three flights of steps. Exactly what instrument did she think would fit in a three-foot by four-foot flat case?

             
“No,” I promised her, wiping at the hair that had glued itself against my sweaty forehead before gathering my things from the floor and carting them all the way into the room. “It’s my portfolio. You know, for my drawings?” The look on her face spoke volumes, mostly about how art majors were second only to music majors in lack of acceptability. She forced a smile and spoke through almost gritted teeth.

             
“Well, I’m Kennedy,” she gushed, actually coming over and extending her hand to me in a handshake. “And you’re Andrea?”

             
“It’s Andie,” I answered, with a real smile. I could tell Kennedy didn’t mean anything by her comment about my giant black portfolio. I just wasn’t used to the heat in the South yet, and it was making me overly cranky. We didn’t have heat like this in Illinois. The heat in Georgia was the kind that grabbed you and wrapped itself around your neck before sliding up your nose and choking you. I pointed to the empty furniture on the closer side of our room. “Do you mind if I move this desk a little closer to the window? There’s nice light over here for working.”

             
“Oh, sure. So you like to draw, I suppose?” She went back to folding a huge pile of pink clothing and placing each piece carefully in the drawers on her side of our room.

             
Stop it
, I told myself.
You just got here. There’s no reason to be sarcastic this early in the morning.
I squashed the comment about how art majors generally like to draw and shoved it way in the back of my brain before returning her smile.

             
“A little bit,” I answered, reaching back into the hallway for my suitcase.

             
“I draw some too, but mostly flowers and little animals and stuff. I never understood why I had to take an art elective, but it came in handy this year,” she continued. I vaguely remembered that her name was Kennedy, but I couldn’t have come up with her last name if I tried. It didn’t matter; she was doing all the talking anyway.

             
I made out snippets of information, something about her being a sophomore and dating a guy named Walker and how she was an elementary education major and how that one art course really came in handy, even though the only art tools she ever needed were crayons and Sharpies. My brain hurt trying to decipher all of the info, but eventually I realized I wasn’t supposed to be learning any of this. My only real contribution to the conversation was to say, “oh my gosh, that’s so cool,” as she rambled about Theta Zeta Delta activities.

             
“You don’t, do you?” Kennedy suddenly asked, stopping in mid-fold of a cashmere sweater, watching me wide-eyed.

             
Busted. “I’m sorry, what?”

             
“I said,” she continued, rolling her eyes slightly, “you don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

             
Ouch. Why would she assume I don’t have a boyfriend? Just because I’m a new sister, an art major, and I had to carry all of my own luggage up three floors of the Theta house by myself? Wait, it did kind of make sense.

             
“No, not at the moment,” I answered with a grin, implying that I would be working on it. And truthfully, I would be working on it. I had struggled all the way through high school to find any guy deeper than a bottle cap, and I was looking forward to the potential to meet hot guys who could still pull off a polysyllabic conversation. If the sampling of guys hanging out in front of Sorority Row was any sign of things to come, there’d be plenty of hot in my future, though probably not many discussions of world events.

             
“I didn’t think so,” Kennedy continued, completely oblivious to how rude that sounded, “but don’t worry, the first Theta event is tomorrow night, and it’s with three different fraternities, plus the athletic department always has an official standing invitation to all of our events. I guarantee we’ll find you someone. Of course, first we have to find you something to wear.” She actually looked me up and down and shook her head a little bit, making a disappointed clucking noise with her tongue.

             
I wasn’t even fully in the doorway and Kennedy had already cracked on my major, my love life, and my wardrobe. Why did I decide to go Greek again?

Chapter Two

             
Contrary to the rocky start with Kennedy, she turned out to be nice, and so were all of the other Theta sisters. They were almost too nice, like little robots who had all been programmed with the correct thing to say in all social situations. All those movies had it wrong, the movies where the older sisters were cruel to the pledges. These girls were practically giving me diabetes from their attempts at sweetness. Even when the comments came back around to “artsy” people with their sad choices in footwear, their eager smiles and sugary voices made it hard to take it personally. And Kennedy had tried to help, fluffing me up in an outfit that showed more leg than my swimsuit, promising me I would meet all the best guys tonight.

             
Too bad we had different definitions of what constituted a great guy. There wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar in the bunch.

             
“Is this awesome or what?” Kennedy demanded, coming up behind me and pulling me into a hug. The sudden movement sloshed something fruity from her tell-tale red plastic cup all over the front of my shirt, which would have bothered me except it was on loan from her closet. If she didn’t mind, I didn’t mind.

             
“It’s great,” I answered genuinely, and truthfully, except for the giant “Designated Driver” button they had slapped on me at the door, it really was a lot of fun. There hadn’t been that many opportunities back home to do anything that didn’t involve a fast food restaurant, an empty cow pasture, or buying birth control from a coin-operated machine in a gas station bathroom. College was already an improvement over Pine Hill, population 3,451.

             
Another sister—Carter, I think—announced her arrival with a squeal and a tight side-hug, but this one was actually fully sober and just chronically excited about everything. We were in the same pledge class and I remembered enduring her enthusiasm all week. Wait a second, how come she didn’t have to wear the embarrassing I’m-under-age button?

             
“This is exactly like I always pictured college life!” she screamed, jumping up and down and linking her arm through mine. “Momma always said college was the best part of any girl’s life, and I never did believe it until now!”

             
Well, okay, that was a stretch, considering all we’d seen of the campus so far was about 150 muscular guys with hair that perpetually fell in their eyes and manly attempts at rocking the flip flops, but I could see her point. There was nothing in the room that wasn’t worth a second look, even the guys who were obviously paying their dues as lowly pledges, putting up with the abuse of the older fraternity brothers and carrying drink orders around the house.

             
“Yeah, it’s great. Any good nibbles from the guys?” I asked, playing it safe with my line of questioning.

             
“Oh no, none for me, thanks,” Carter answered with a smile. “I’m just looking. I’ve been with my boyfriend for the past three years and we are completely dedicated to each other. He got a scholarship to U of A, but Daddy insisted I go here since he’s on the board of trustees. But we’ll see each other over the breaks, and he’ll come here to visit. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the scenery! And that I can’t fix you up with a hot thing or two.” Something about her evil grin had me worried. I needed to take action for myself before someone decided to make me her project.

             
“What about him?” I whispered loudly over the thumping music, pointing behind my hand to a nice-looking guy, his broad shoulders and muscular arms practically tearing through the short sleeves of his T-shirt. There was a telltale tan line on his hands from where he’d been doing something outdoorsy like kayaking or water skiing. He certainly looked like the rugged type.

             
“Oh no, not him. He’s an education major,” Carter said sadly, shaking her head at what appeared to be a waste of an incredible guy.

             
“What’s wrong with education majors?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow and trying to not to look oblivious.

             
“Everything! They’re only going to make a teacher’s salary so you’re never going to get to stay home when your children are babies, because if they’re men, they have to coach. Which means, you’ll be the coach’s wife. Which means, you’ll spend the rest of your life sitting on a metal bleacher somewhere, waving at your husband from the stands while he ignores you completely, too busy screaming at a bunch of middle school football players to notice you. On top of that, your sex life will revolve around which ever season he happens to be coaching at the moment. You’ll have mind blowing orgasms when his team wins, and it’ll be bone dry if his team is losing. Nope, never. Don’t go near the education majors.”

             
I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had both narrowly missed a fate worse than death while simultaneously thinking that was just about the stupidest thing I’d ever heard.

             
“Okay. Well, I’m sure the right guy will come along soon enough,” I replied, making a point to be polite while still not giving Carter the impression that she was going to get to play matchmaker.

             
“Too late, Andrea, he’s coming this way,” Carter said in my ear, pulling the sober driver button off my shirt with one hand while pushing me forward with the other. I ended up wearing still more alcohol sloshed from a red cup, this time something that smelled familiarly of warm beer. I brushed the droplets from Kennedy’s borrowed blouse while looking up into the most stunning blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

             
“Hi there,” my mystery man said, looking down at me from where he towered over me. “I’m Bryce. And you are?”

             
“This is my Theta sister, Andrea,” Carter intervened with a giggle. “She’s from out of state.”

             
“Um, it’s Andie,” I managed to answer, while doing my best to make sure that I wasn’t wearing the perfume of an entire open bar.

             
“Bryce is a finance major,” Carter said, shooting me a look that clearly said
get your hands on this one, quick!
I smiled back at her as she waltzed away from us, crinkling my eyebrows in confusion before turning back and beaming at Bryce. That is, until this happened.

             
“So, you wanna go upstairs?” Bryce asked, putting one hand on the wall behind my head and leaning so close to my ear that I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck.

             
I looked around for Carter but she had mysteriously disappeared. Without any direction from another Theta sister about what to do at a time like this, old-Andie made a sudden and snarky reappearance. I blinked my eyes coyly and asked, “And why would I want to do that? Do you have a really awesome baseball card collection you want to show me?”

             
Bryce looked at me for a second like he couldn’t tell if I was kidding or not. He took a slow sip of his beer, watching me over the rim of his red cup, then decided I wasn’t worth the brain cells it would take to figure out if I was serious. He smiled weakly and gave me a small, flippy hand wave before walking away to find someone more willing to fall for his invitation. I was going to kill Carter.

             
Unfortunately, with bachelor number one moving along, that left the whole of my new Theta sisterhood—all eighty-five or so of them—on a mission to make up for my lack of Bryce-ness by shoving endless throngs of males past the driver table where I was still sitting. With every sister and a new potential hook-up came news about his fraternity affiliation, his major, and even a pedigree.

             
“This here is Baylor,” one sister whose name I couldn’t remember announced, shoving a chemically tanned specimen in front of me. “His daddy owns four car dealerships.” I waved half-heartedly and pointed to the giant button someone had managed to replace on my blouse, indicating that I just couldn’t get away.

             
“Andrea,” Kennedy hissed in my ear as she passed, “it’s like you’re not even trying. Stick out your chest a little bit and smile!” She flitted away again, completely oblivious to the alcohol vapors wafting from her loaner blouse. I was smiling! But there was no way I was sticking out my chest to a bunch of drunken party boys. This was stupid.