James Games (12 page)

“I can’t believe I was assigned to partner on Moore’s Philosophy project with the stupidest person in class.”

At first I don’t recognize the voice. It’s harsh, so far from the cool, quiet tone I’m used to that I know it can’t be coming from James. But it is.

But then he jerks his chin at me. He wants me to play along. And I realize what his plan is.

“It’s not like I wanted to,” I say, a little hesitantly but getting louder as more people look at us. “I’d much rather have a partner who spent as much effort on our project as he did making sure his hair looks perfect every morning.”

“My hair is naturally perfect,” he scoffs at me, but his eyes are smiling.

“That’s not what the trucker who drops off ten industrial-size bottles of hair gel at your apartment every morning says.”

Everyone within hearing distance is now staring directly at us, and a few people are coming over to see what the fuss is. Most everyone is wide-eyed, though I did get a few laughs with my hair gel comment. This isn’t the way that a manipulative seductress and a boy wrapped around her little finger are supposed to act.

“I nearly threw up when Moore assigned that private project to just the two of us, since we were falling behind,” he snarls.

“Well, I’ve regretted every second I was
forced
to talk to you because of it, like when we had to leave that party early to go to the library together and work!” I yell, taking a chance.

“Yeah, and I was in such a bad mood about it that I got into that completely unrelated fight with Damien!” he shouts.

What we’re saying is idiotic, so obviously staged that it shouldn’t work, except for the fact that James hasn’t lost his acting chops. Not even a little bit. His jaw is set, his muscles tense. If I hadn’t already seen what his real anger looks like, I’d be completely fooled. For the first time, I really wonder what happened to make him drop the career he was so obviously meant for.

I advance on him, feeling less tiny by the second. “Moore’s an idiot for thinking we could work together. We’re complete opposites!”

“And I find you physically repulsive,” he says, with such a straight face that I nearly bite off the tip of my tongue trying not to laugh.

“Your eyes are the exact color of the stuff I clean my toilet bowl with,” I retort.

“You…smell bad,” he attempts. We have a full-on audience now, and for the first time since Damien, people are staring at me for the reason they always have—because I wanted them to. It feels good. I grin, roll my shoulders and toss my hair back.

“Wait, you can smell? I didn’t realize you had a nose. You’re so tall that I always figured that thing on your face was poop dribbling down from the birds who nest in your hair.”

I get a chorus of ‘oooh’s at that one. James narrows his eyes and touches his flawless nose. “Oh yeah? Well, your hair is—long.”

“Speaking of hair, which surfer dude from a nineties movie did you murder and scalp for that style?”

The bros snort and high-five each other. At the very least, the men on this campus are not opposed to seeing James Reid taken down a peg or two. The girls, meanwhile, punctuate everything I say with a series of very satisfying gasps.

James opens his mouth, but I’m on a roll. I cut him off. “Oh, by the way, the Guinness World Records people called. They want to feature your ass as World’s Flattest Thing.”

That one wasn’t even very good, but the bros hoot. The one who whispered that comment to the others is frowning at the grass. James is looking somewhat taken aback. Poor guy. I should end this before he starts having body image issues.

“I hate you, James Reid.” I flip my hair. “And I would like to roundly continue having absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“I was about to ask that myself, he retorts, but I’m already striding across the lawn to a smattering of applause.

The minute I’m out of sight, I pull out my phone and text James:
I’m sorry. I think you have a nice nose.

He responds:
Might need therapy now.

No! I like your hair and your eyes too. And your ideas. You’re right. I need to face my problems.

Him:
Hopefully that helped a bit with the rumors about us.

Me:
I’m guessing it did. What now?

Him:
What now what?

Me;
Between us.

Him:
Pretend to keep hating each other, I guess.

Me:
But when nobody’s looking, how about we be friends?

Him:
It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those. Might be rusty.

Me:
It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.

I press send and excuse my personal sense of decorum from the universe for a moment so I can hold my phone to my chest and giggle. The very next thing I do is text Iris.

Find out what Phi Delta Chi is doing for parties this weekend. Fiona’s back, baby.

~11~

“I used to do all the costumes for my high school’s drama department. This is so nostalgic,” says Mags excitedly as she glues another feather to my butt.

Iris circles behind me, pointing critically. “You missed a spot.”

Mags proceeds to slap a wad of feathers on a place that has never, and will never, need feathers. I wince. “Ow! If a bird tries to mate with me on the way to the party, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“It’s sexiest Halloween costume contest,” Iris says, dropping back on her bed and observing me with way more satisfaction than necessary. “So the more feathers, the better. Feathers are a distinct antidote to sexiness.”

“That doesn’t explain why the only chicken costume we could find in the women’s section of Amazon was ‘Sexy Fowl’,” Mags pipes, patting one of my crotch feathers into place.

“That, Mags, is because the female body is commodified in such a way that even something as simple as a chicken Halloween costume cannot exist if not sexualized and ornamental,” says Iris archly. “Now glue more feathers to her tits.”

“No! No more tit feathers.” I wave them away and stand up. It’s sort of like being encased in a feather mattress, if it were from Wal-Mart and the feathers were actually branches of poison ivy. I moan. “Oh God. Itchy. Itchy itchy itchy. Help me!”

I lurch toward Iris, who retracts into the corner of the room. “Get away from me, you nasty chicken-looking zombie.”

So much for her newfound Care Bear side. I reach for Mags, who shrieks and leaps away. I understand why when I glance in the mirror. I look like a first grade class project that the mom couldn’t be bothered to help out with.

“You know what?” I squint at myself in the mirror. “I could still win. My natural sexiness shines through.”

“Fiona, I’m glad your confidence is back, but that doesn’t mean it’s not annoying as hell sometimes.”

We head out together—well, they head out and I waddle out. Iris is dressed as Elvira, her ample boobs attracting more than a few eyeballers on the way out the door. Mags is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. We couldn’t get her to go for Sexy Dorothy, so she bought the biggest child’s size. With her petticoat and my feathered ass, we could form an army blockade.

“Remember the rules we went over,” says Iris as we pile into Mags’s car. “No looking at James. No speaking to James, unless it sounds like you’re fighting. No flirting with James. No having sex with James. No going into any coat closets and no damaging the walls—”

“All right,” I snap. Mags hasn’t heard all the details of my concert hookup, and she doesn’t need to. “I get it.”

Iris steps on it. Halloween is actually two weekends from now, and Phi Delta Chi is doing a haunted house, but the houses nearby are covered with pumpkins and blow-up ghosts and black cat decorations and the occasional real black cat. Nobody gets into Halloween like college kids.

The house isn’t the same one as the one where the last party was held, but it looks similar enough that I have the fleeting urge to hide out in Iris’s car for the whole night as she parallel parks on the street. “I don’t know, guys. I think there’s a feather in my rectum, I should probably get that checked out.”

“Don’t be a baby. Worst case scenario, we can use you as the world’s shittiest furniture,” Iris smirks.

Mags rubs my cheek, the only part of me not covered in feathers. “You’ll be fine! Damien’s not here and you’re not naked. You’re kind of the opposite of naked, actually! It’ll be fun and we can leave early if we want to.

The lawn is swarming with sexy pirates, sexy devils, sexy vampires, even a sexy Hilary Clinton. Barely half the guys dressed up. I roll my eyes as we pass one dork trying to explain his non-costume to a sexy werewolf. “I’m a white guy! See? Salmon shorts.”

“You already
were
a white guy,” the sexy werewolf points out.

He looks down at himself, realization dawning. “Oh, yeah.”

I do my best to stride into the house like it’s a gathering of birds and I’m the hottest chick here, but I walk straight into a bunch of fake spider webs and have to wait while Iris and Mags unwrap me. While I’m caught in the web, the real spider appears.

She’s got a halo on and a pair of tiny white wings pinned to her back. They’re far from the tiniest thing she’s wearing. I hate her and all, but even I have to admit that she looks damn good. That appreciation, however, fades as she scans me and lets out a loud, unhurried laugh. Amber and Ellie—a sexy Elvira to rival Iris’s and a sexy zombie, respectively—join in.

“Well, well, well—” Sigrid starts.

“Are you really about to say ‘well well well, look who it is’? Because you’re not a Disney villain,” I interrupt. “At least, I think you’re not.”

She smiles sweetly. “I’m just glad to see that you’re here. I love it when people have the courage to come to a place where nobody wants them. It’s commendable.”

“Who are you?” asks Amber, acid dripping.

“A chicken. Duh.”

“No.
Her.”

“Elvira.” Iris crosses her arms defensively.

“Sure you are. That’s cute.” Amber’s eyes flick downward. Her chest is about half a centimeter bigger than Iris’s.

I return to my own battle. “I couldn’t stay away. I just missed seeing you so much, Sigrid.”

“Same. I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing this.” She stares meaningfully again at my bulbous feathered body. “It’s a sexy Halloween costume contest, you know, not a contest to see who can be the most hideous.”

“Thank God, right? I’d definitely have lost that one.” I smile.

“Just don’t get any feathers on the floor,” she snaps and storms off, Amber following her with one last scathing glance at Iris. Ellie, who was texting the whole time, takes a full thirty seconds to realize they left before hurrying after them.

“She probably just saw a picture of Elvira on the internet and thought it would be a good excuse to have her boobs out,” Iris seethes. “She has no idea what Elvira stands for.”

“Who’s judging this contest, anyway?” I ask. Mags holds out a beer, but I wave it away. I’ve had enough of drinking.

Mags gestures to the back of the room, past the sexy werewolf and the white guy, who are now making out on the couch. “There’s a box and slips of paper. Each guy is supposed to cast a vote. The girl with the most votes wins.”

“That is unbelievably sexist and stupid,” hisses Iris.

“The winner also gets a fifty-dollar Starbucks gift certificate.”

Iris turns. “Mags, can you make my bra strap shorter? I think I can hoist these babies up another inch.”

After a while, I wander away, leaving Iris to fiddle with her cleavage and Mags to blush at a Batman who apparently has a thing for petticoats. A few people scowl at me, but more people laugh, making drunk bird puns. But my head’s somewhere else. I don’t even realize how often I’m scanning the room until my neck gets sore from constant swiveling.

“Fiona! Is that you under all those feathers?”

I turn. Brooklyn is an utterly gorgeous Catwoman, black latex clinging to every athletic inch of her. It’s enough to make a girl question her sexuality. “Yup. I think the feathers are actually controlling me now. If I lay an egg, don’t eat it. I could be a good bird mom.”

She lays a black-gloved hand on my shoulder. “It’s good to see you up on your feet again.”

“It’s good to be up.” I grin. “I’m sorry I haven’t been that active lately. I promise I will be. I definitely don’t want to leave Phi Delta Chi.”

“I’m glad. You’re a fun girl to have around.” She smoothes an errant feather on my elbow. “Doing your best to lose this challenge, I see.”

“Yeah. Sorry, it’s not that I don’t like what Phi Delta Chi stands for, it’s just that I think the Games are stupid.”

“You’re not alone in that.” Brooklyn sips her wine. Where in the world she found wine at a frat party is a mystery for the gods.

“I’m not?” I blink. “You think it’s stupid too?”

“More than a little.”

“But you’re…”

“It’s been a Phi Delta Chi tradition for the past three years,” Brooklyn sighs, lowering her voice. “It’s true that I got James to agree to the terms when I was a freshman, but only because Sigrid begged me to. I thought it’d die out. Instead it’s made us the most popular sorority on campus. If I suddenly announced the James Games were off, there would have been a riot. Besides, I think it helps the younger girls bond.”

“James said he owed you a favor and that’s why he agreed.”

She lifts the glass to her lips. “You’re digging.”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“I’m not the kind of person who goes around handing out bits of other people’s lives, Fiona.” Her voice gets steely.

“Right. Sorry.”

“Speak of the devil,” she says, and I look around for the sexy devil I saw earlier, but instead my eyes land on James, who’s just walked through the door.

“Funny,” Brooklyn murmurs. “He rarely comes to more than one party a semester…I wonder why he’s here?”

But I’m too busy mildly freaking out to respond. Act cool, Fiona. No, don’t act cool, there is no cool when you’re in a giant chicken suit. Act casual. You’re just a casual chicken who’s here for some Halloween fun and who definitely does not care if a certain boy did or did not just walk through that door.