An Offer, Rejected

“Can you get the past five Pike Dreamgirls to have sex with me?” Sam asked only semi-sarcastically. Paul rolled his eyes in response before tucking into the peach scone sitting in front of him.

“I can’t get anyone to do anything at the end of the semester and I run the damn place.” Max said. The social composition of their core friend group blew the stereotypical precedents set by movies out of the water. Who would have thought that fraternity presidents could have friends outside of the fraternity? It was nice having someone with such considerable social influence nearly on call, though Sam rarely ever spoke with Max about pike business.

In an alternate world, their paths would never have crossed. From the outset, Sam was more inclined to plant his fist between Max’s eyes than he ever was to befriend him. The two’s relationship had blossomed, ironically, out of a mutual hatred for their freshman year RA. After Max rushed, it was no surprise that his eloquence and padded pockets afforded the third-generation legacy child a meteoric rise to the upper echelons of the embedded Pi Kappa Alpha chapter. By second semester of sophomore year he was the social chair and by the end of his junior year he was elected president by unanimous vote, a historic event in the fraternity’s history, though not before a rigorous, and very public vetting process beforehand that put most actual political elections to shame.

“I can tell. You guys are practically public enemy number one right now. The fuckery at the Christmas party didn’t help did it?” Paul added, wiping the few disparate remains of the scone from his beard.

“Can we not talk about _my _fuckery? Let’s just focus on the more immediate and literal fuckery, please.” Max responded, his eyes betraying the **** need to escape the sword of Damocles hanging over him. Sam knew that there was genuine concern mixed in with the remark but for the most part, it was meant to dodge discussion surrounding the alleged sexual **** that implicated a brother Max was a direct superior of. It was a sad reality that there were some people who joined frats for the wrong reasons, and it appeared that this year’s freshman class had brought its fair share of bad apples.

“I’ll be fine. Thank you for being there, though.” Sam said in a futile attempt to assuage the outpouring concern.

“How did you find out, by the way?” Max asked, directing his gaze at Paul.

“I mean… it wasn’t hard,” He said through a shrug, “I live on Arcadia three so when Sera started popping up in our common room, I got suspicious. Asked around and found out she was hooking up with some dude up there.”

“Well at least the guy didn’t know she was taken, right?” Sam interjected his question as a morbid curiosity filled him.

“I didn’t find out. At first, I thought she was fucking around on my floor until I remembered it’s basically a fucking wasteland, so I asked the RA above me too keep an eye out.” Paul said.

“Good looks. Thanks man, seriously.” Sam said through a suddenly dry mouth. He wanted to tell them about the note, but what would that do? The sentiment her final words shared was not cryptic and broadcasting it would serve only to further demonize his ex in the eyes of his friends. Paul nodded solemnly in response.

“I can’t promise you Neelie, but the doors are open for you any time. We’re gonna try to keep it pretty tame until break smooths things over, but you’re welcome to stop by and have a few drinks.” Max said, patting Sam on the shoulder. It was a tempting offer, a night of booze and bass music to assuage the doubts and pain but fraternity socials were rarely Sam’s speed. A Pike’s definition of tame and a normal individual’s definition of tame were in two very different stratospheres and though the event reeked of pragmatism, he appreciated the sentiment.

“I guess I can go just fuck myself then?” Paul said in a gesture of feigned exasperation, his eyes widening behind his glasses.

“Well when you walk in on your girlfriend having sex with someone else, the offer is open to you as well.” Max responded with only the slightest hint of actual derision. It wasn’t that the two didn’t get along, moreso that each found the others respective walk of life so utterly alien that there was often disconnect.

Paul often regarded Max with a layer of hesitance when it came to genuine trust, though he did his best to battle past his presuppositions. Given where he was coming from, it was not hard to see why a sheen of icy, standoffish calm pervaded any interaction Paul had. To say he was the ‘quiet one’ did not quite hit the mark. When he was in the company of friends, he was just as if not more raucous as the rest of them. It was just that he really didn’t conform to what most people believed a college senior in the prime of is his life. On the other side of that coin, Max found Paul’s soft-spoken nature and often week-long periods of radio silence to be an aggravating bulwark obstructing any attempt at maintaining group cohesion, constantly peppering Sam with invalid worries and unnecessarily pessimistic premonitions presaging the collapse of their friend group due to a few unread texts. Then again, that is what made the trio so great. Paul’s reservation was balanced by Max’s outgoing charisma. Sam often found himself falling in the sensitive middle ground between the two, acting at once as both a binding agent and a fulcrum which the pair used to play off one another freely, so long as they never transgressed their mediator. It was a role Sam happily played given that neither of the two was ever truly interested in starting drama, after all this was college and save for recent events, most people took social faux pas in stride; though that stride was often towards the door or over to another, more appealing group of potential friends. The conversation wound and wandered through various topics ranging from classes to asses, until finally, the uncomfortable crux that Sam was anticipating arrived in the form of a question.