That made complete sense.
I followed her in, and sure enough, the living room was full of guys playing a video game. Across the hall two other guys stood around the pool table. The girl yelled out a greeting. The guys gave her distracted hellos before she disappeared down the hallway and up the stairs.
I stood in the foyer.
And no one cared.
The pool game finished, and both guys walked past me, into the kitchen. The video game ended, so the guys rotated. One of the players who’d finished sat down on the couch to watch, and the other started to walk past me.
“Hey!” I stood in front of him.
“Hey.” He looked me up and down. A second, and much warmer, “Hey” came out, and he stepped closer to me. “Who are you here for?”
I scratched my chin. Kevin or Caden? “Is Kevin Matthews here?”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, and he pointed to the basement. “If he’s not in his room down there, who knows. He got his ass kicked last night. You’re the new chick already?”
“New chick?”
“He and the old one split yesterday, in a nasty way. He got his ass handed to him last night, so if you’re going down for a quick poke, expect to be on top.”
“I’m not here for that.” I frowned. “And not with him.”
“Oh?” Interest bloomed in his eyes.
“Not with you either.” Then, screw it. “Is Caden here?”
His shoulders dropped completely. “Him too?”
“No.” Everyone just assumed sex all the time. Was that normal? “We’re kind of friends, I think.”
“I don’t know if Matthews is here, but I know Caden isn’t.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
He headed down the hallway, shaking his head. “Caden doesn’t really answer to anyone.”
Kevin’s door was slightly ajar, and I pushed it open to see him putting clothes into a box. With his back to me, he was flinging shirts, pants, socks, and shoes across the room. I wasn’t sure what to say. I could tell he was upset, but this wasn’t a situation where he would want my opinion. Support. That was my purpose here. I was here in the family capacity, because that’s where our relationship needed to go.
“Hey.”
He whipped around, instantly tense, but when he saw me his shoulders dropped back down, loosening. “Oh. It’s you. Hey.” He turned back and grabbed a pair of shoes, tossing them into the box on the floor. “What are you doing here?”
I circled around him. “Stop.”
He had two massive black eyes, half his face was swollen and bruised, and he had a cracked lip. I checked his knuckles. They were split open as well, dried blood covering them. “When did you clean these last?”
He snorted, tucking them back by his side. “Right. It’d be nice if someone helped me with that.”
“No one did?” I sat on his bed as he went back to his closet, pulling out more clothes. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think? I’m moving out. This fucking fraternity isn’t a brotherhood. Loyalty, my ass. They all chose him.”
“They kicked you out?”
“No.” He whipped a sandal at the box, but it hit the side and fell to the floor. “I’m leaving. I’m not staying here, not when they take his side over mine.”
“Okay.” Pressure built behind my temples. I felt a headache forming. “What happened? Avery told me Caden beat you up last night?”
“Avery?” He shifted back to me, going still.
I gulped. “Yeah.”
“She hates Maggie. You know that, right?”
I was confused. “No, they’re friends. But wait—are you still with Maggie?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? She’s my girlfriend now.”
My mind whirled. “Didn’t you get in a fight because of Maggie?”
“What?”
“Wait. Back up. What happened yesterday? I saw you in the parking lot. Then you took off, and the next time I saw you, you were kissing Maggie behind a palm tree at the country club.”
“You were there?”
I nodded. No thanks to you. “Caden and Marcus were talking, and I was on my way to tell you to stop, you were going to get caught, but then—” I caught myself. I’d been about to tell him Avery stopped me. “I got distracted. I had to find the bathroom.”
“What then?”
He remained uncharacteristically still.
Alarms were going off in my head. I had to tread lightly, but I didn’t know why. “I, uh, ended up just getting a ride home.”
“That was it?”
“Uh-huh.” I blinked a few times. “Why? Did something happen at the country club?”
He regarded me for another beat, then he tossed a pair of socks into the box. “You could say that again. Caden ratted us out. My own fraternity brother. Can you believe that? What a piece of shit.”
“Yeah,” I remarked. “Your fraternity brother told his real brother…that sucks.”
Kevin collapsed in his desk chair. He bent forward to rest his elbows on his knees and cradled his head. “I know, but whatever. It happened. Yes, Maggie and I were making out, and yes, we should’ve been more discreet, but Caden Banks is a huge asshole.”
I almost couldn’t take it. I had to actually sit on my hands. Kevin was a dipshit. My sarcasm went over his head. Support, Summer. Support. You’re here to support him, whether you agree with what he’s doing or not. S-u-p-p-o-r-t.