CHAPTER FOUR
A TEN DOLLAR BET
“That guy is a psycho.”
Since I was a beer man who rarely drank liquor, I knew it was going to be an ugly night when Danny broke out the vodka. Forty minutes, three beers, and five shots later, I was ready to leave for KEN’S Tavern. Danny wasn’t.
“Come on, Bryce,” he urged. “Let’s do one more.”
“I’ve done five already.”
“Don’t be a pussy.”
“Do you want me to puke?”
“Allison and I did six. Are you really gonna let your girlfriend do more than you?”
“Yes.”
“Come on. You can chase it with the lime juice.”
I glared at my fraternity brother. “That shit tastes worse than the vodka.”
“Just do one more and then we’ll go to KEN’S.”
“Fine. Give me the fucking bottle.”
I poured the shot, downed it, slurped the lime juice, and we were out the door.
It was a hot summer night in
“Baby, I’m fucked up,” I said to Allison and squeezed her hand in excitement.
“Me too,” Allison replied with a laugh. “This is gonna be a fun night.”
I affectionately kissed the top of her head and we continued to follow Danny through the parking lot. Allison and I had been living together for the past ten weeks and the quality of our relationship had grown immensely from likable playmates to loving companions. We spent nearly all of our free time together and a great deal of that time was spent having sex in our cozy little fraternity house apartment. Like a couple of newlyweds who could not keep their hands off each other, we had sex every day, multiple times a day, whenever we could.
When we reached the staircase, I slowed down to let Allison walk up in front of me and was instantly reminded why I could not keep my hands off her. She was wearing tight little jean shorts that were very flattering to her beautiful ass and her killer set of tan legs. My girlfriend also had a pretty face, perky B-cup breasts, long brunette hair, and aqua blue eyes that could be filled with passionate love, shrewd intelligence, or fiery anger.
“Mark’s working,” she whispered back to me.
I nodded and continued trudging up the stairs. Mark was a fraternity brother of mine which meant our fake IDs would be accepted.
“What’s going on, guys?” the red-haired bouncer greeted us with a friendly nod.
I gave him a firm hand shake. “What’s up, Mark?”
“You know me, dude. Just flexing for the ladies.”
I laughed and pulled out my fake ID.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You guys are good.”
“Thanks,” Allison replied.
Danny peered over the bouncer’s shoulder. “How is it in there tonight?” he asked.
“Not bad. A bunch of hot blondes just walked in two minutes ago. Go grab a beer and come talk to me later.”
I nodded in appreciation and we entered the small bar. It was packed, it was hot, and a country song twanged from the jukebox. The floor, tables, and most of the interior walls were rustically wooden which suited the laidback atmosphere of the bar perfectly. Scribblings of names, fraternity letters, obscene phrases, and couple’s “4evers” tagged up the walls like the pages of a High School yearbook.
Danny swerved to the left of the pool tables and headed straight for the bar. Allison and I veered right and slowly made our way through the crowded tavern to a row of booths where we found Mendez, Dave, and Cindy. Multiple pitchers of beer were sitting on their table.
“What’s up!” I yelled above the noises of a busy bar. “I see you’re not fooling around tonight!”
Dave’s face lit up with pleasure when he saw us and he motioned for Allison and me to sit down. We slid into the booth next to Mendez and Dave handed us two beer cups.
“Thanks, man,” I said. “I’ll get the next round.”
Dave filled the cups and smiled. “What’s going on, Bryce?” he asked. “We’ve been here for about two hours.”
“Allison and I were drinking with Danny. We had some beers and did vodka shots.”
“Darren didn’t want to drink anymore,” Allison said with a teasing voice. “He thought he was gonna puke.”
“Whatever,” I replied with a grin. “The lemon-lime shit we were chasing with was foul and that vodka tasted like ass.”
Dave chuckled. “I’m not a big fan of vodka either.”
I glanced at the pitchers of beer and said, “It looks like you guys are drinking your asses off tonight.”
“Hell yeah. I’ve been hitting the gym harder than the bottle lately, but tonight I’m getting trashed.”
Dave backed up this bold statement by chugging a full cup of beer. My upperclassman fraternity brother was a pretty boy Floridian with an urban edge. He had a thin athletic build, spiky blonde hair worn in a tight fade, and small silver hoop earrings in both his ears.
His trophy girlfriend Cindy was a Drama major, aspiring actress type with a sweet personality. She had long blonde hair and huge breasts that were on full display tonight in a stylish, low-cut pink top. The thought of motorboating those things had fueled me through more than one jack-off session.
I smiled at the pretty blonde and asked, “How are you tonight, sweetheart?”
“I’m wonderful,” Cindy replied. “I’m glad you two are here.”
“You look great,” Allison said. “I love that top.”
Allison leaned forward to talk to Cindy and I leaned back to greet the young man sitting on the other side of my girlfriend.
“Mendez, what’s up, man?”
“What’s up, Bryce?” Mendez replied cheerfully. “Your boy Rivera is selling out tonight.”
“Are you serious? He told me he was coming up here.”
“Nope. He went to his old lady’s house to watch a movie.”
“Pussy,” I said bitterly. “Is Sketchy Mike here?”
“Nah, but he said he might show up for the 2 AM spill out again.”
“What does he do, talk to girls that come out of the clubs and pretend like he was at one of the other bars?”
“Yup. Last week he brought home some drunk slut with huge sloppy tits.”
I chuckled. “That’s awesome. Did you and Dave hit up the
“Twice,” Mendez replied with a cocky smile. “Morning cardio and shoulders this afternoon.”
“Nice. I knocked out arms today after Rivera and I finished a morning move-in job.”
“How’s that been going lately? Rivera says you guys have been slowing down.”
“Yeah, the busy moving season is definitely over, but I’ve been making deliveries for Seminole Pizza to pull in some extra cash.”
“You’re a pizza boy?” Mendez laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s easy fucking money, I get free pizza, and I don’t have to wear a uniform.” I leaned in closer to my fraternity brother and whispered, “A lot of our deliveries are going to the dorms right now which are filled with summer freshman girls.”
“Freshmen pussy and free pizza,” Mendez said as he raised his beer cup in salute. “What more does a growing college boy need to eat?”
I laughed and toasted my friend’s drink. The buzz-cut, chubby-faced Latino from
As Mendez and I continued to talk, Dave lifted one of the pitchers to top off my beer cup.
“Trying to get me drunk tonight?” I asked him facetiously.
“Hell yeah!” he exclaimed. “You don’t have any classes tomorrow, do you?”
“Nah, man. I’m not taking classes right now.”
Dave nodded. “That’s right. I forgot. You’re just working this summer.”
“Point-five-six!” Mendez screamed, which caused Allison and me to laugh.
Confused expressions formed on the faces of Dave and his girlfriend. I shook my head with a smile before offering an explanation.
“The real reason I’m not taking classes right now is because I’m on academic probation. I got a 0.56 GPA last fall when I was pledging.”
Dave laughed. “0.56? Nice fucking work, Bryce! You gotta love pledge semester grades!”
Allison squeezed my arm. “Tell them what you did.”
I nodded and said, “When the spring semester started, I wrote a big .56 on my dorm room wall to remind myself to get out of bed and drag my ass to class every day.”
“Did it work?” Cindy asked with a giggle.
“Yeah, I pulled a 3.0, but they still put me on academic probation this summer.”
Mendez grinned. “Don’t feel bad, Bryce. 0.56 ain’t so bad. At least you did better than our pledge class president who pulled a 0.0.”
I laughed at this rationalization and chugged the rest of my beer. We continued to drink heavily until the pitchers were empty and it was time to make good on my promise to buy the next round.
“I have to pee,” Allison whispered to me as we slid out of the booth.
“Cool,” I said. “I gotta drain the sea beast.”
There was a long line for the men’s room, so I sped things up by using the alternate toilet. Yellow stains in the sink indicated this was frequently done by others.
When I exited the bathroom, Allison and I strolled through the crowds towards the bar. Several of my redneck fraternity brothers were engaged in a fierce battle of darts and we stopped to mingle.
“What’s going on, gentlemen?” I asked.
“Bryce!” Coleman exclaimed. “Have you seen my new mug yet?”
I stared at the large KEN’S mug he proudly thrust in my face. It was one of the personalized drinking mugs stored on the shelves behind the bar like trophies.
“Nice,” I replied. “How’d you get that?”
“I came here last Saturday and drank beer from 11 AM to 2 AM. Now it’ll always be here for me anytime I want.”
Bill approached us. He was a dark-haired, burly young man from
“Hey, Bryce,” he slurred, “those guys we got into it with at Kronic’s party were definitely football players.”
“How do you know that?” Allison asked.
“Jill looked them up online. That tall black dude was Terrance Howard, our third string quarterback.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I figured they must play ball. I appreciate you and Corbin backing me up. The rest of our pussy ass brothers were about to shit themselves.”
“Fuck that big jig!” Bill slurred. “Him and his fucking goon squad.”
A redneck named Clayton chuckled and said, “If you were fighting football players, you should’ve brought Stucco.”
“Why?” Allison asked.
“Last year that dumb ass was hanging outside Salley Hall and he yelled at some truck to turn down the country music.” Clayton’s grin grew wider. “The door popped open and Romanowski stepped out.”
Romanowski was the Seminoles’ 255 pound kicker from
“Uh oh,” Allison said, her blue eyes widening. “Did Romo fuck him up?”
“More like roughed him up,” Bill answered.
I nodded. “Supposedly he choked Stucco for like twenty seconds and then threw his ass on the ground and drove off.”
Clayton grinned. “We got the meanest damn kicker in the NCAA. That crazy fucker got booted out of KEN’S last week for smashing shit up and breaking pool sticks.”
Allison and I laughed and resumed our journey to the bar. It was a busy night which meant I had to dip my shoulder and nudge our way through to grab some wood. The bartenders were all serving other customers, so I pulled out a twenty and waited for service.
“What the fuck!” a girl standing next to me suddenly yelled. “Are you gonna let him get away with that shit?”
I stared down at the petite blonde in confusion. I didn’t know who she was and I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Although my vision seemed clear, my mind was hazy from the large quantities of liquor and beer I had consumed. I glanced back at Allison and was surprised to see a scowl on my girlfriend’s face. Something was wrong.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Allison replied a little too quickly.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked more forcefully.
Again she refused to answer me, but the short little blonde was more than helpful.
“That guy just grabbed your girlfriend’s ass! Are you gonna let him get away with that shit?”
There are times when the body is so drunk that it incapacitates the brain’s ability to respond. This was not one of those times because my mind was instantly sobered by my anger. I stuffed the twenty dollar bill into my jeans pocket and turned completely around to face Allison.
“Who did it?” I demanded, nostrils flaring.
“It’s not a big deal. Let’s just have fun. You don’t need to get into a fight right now.”
My anger was quickly turning into fury. I grabbed Allison’s hand and led her on a circular path around the main bar area, pointing and snarling at every guy we passed.
“Is this him? What about these kids right here? Is this the asshole? What about this fucker right here?”
Allison shook her head no with each and every guy that I asked about. When I pointed at three young men standing near the front entrance, again she shook her head, but when we walked away, my fraternity brother Corbin overheard the trio laughing about grabbing her ass.
“You guys should leave,” Corbin warned them. “That guy is a psycho.”
“Fuck him,” replied one of the guys. “Tell him to bring that shit.”
His friend laughed. “Best ten dollars I ever earned.”
“What do you mean?” Corbin asked. “Grabbing her ass was some sort of bet?”
“Yup.”
“You boys fucked up tonight,” Corbin said with a knowing chuckle and walked away.
Meanwhile, I was arguing with Allison near the pool tables.
“Just forget about it, Darren,” she said. “They aren’t even here anymore. Can we just have fun?”
“You’re fucking pissing me off right now! Just tell me who the fuck they are so I can fuck them the fuck up!”
Once again, the little blonde appeared and was more than eager to help. She pointed her small finger across the bar.
“Those guys over there did it,” she said. “That tall shaved head kid and his friends.”
My eyes followed her finger to the three guys standing near the front entrance. They were all laughing and sneaking glances at me. I started towards them, but my path was immediately blocked by a huge, barrel-chested bouncer with a lumberjack beard.
“You’re out of here!” he exclaimed in a gruff voice.
I pointed at the shaved head kid and snarled, “Then why’d this motherfucker over here grab my girlfriend’s ass?”
“Who?” he growled.
“Those fuckers right there!” I pointed again.
The large bouncer and I had never been formally introduced, but I knew he recognized me as a summer regular. He was also good friends with several of the older brothers in my fraternity who frequented KEN’S every night. He thus accepted my words at truth value, turned around, and shuffled the three guys out the front door.
As I watched the bouncer kick them out, Corbin approached me and said, “I can’t believe those idiots were talking shit.”
“What do you mean? What’d they say?”
“Uhhh…nothing,” he mumbled.
“Fuck that! Tell me what they said, Corbin!”
He glanced nervously at Allison. “Uhmm…just that it was a ten dollar bet to grab her ass and that they’d kick your ass if you started shit with them.”
“Fuck those motherfuckers!” I cursed before whirling around and marching towards the back door.
