Staring into Faith's intense brown eyes, Tara slowly nodded. "Th-thank you." She'd half expected Faith and Willow to use the generosity with their living arrangements to attempt to convince her that Buffy wasn't like she'd been in high school.
"Welcome." Faith's grin seemed to say she didn't consider her 'non-interference' policy to be a big deal. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe Tara was making more of the situation that it called for. "Now, grab us some drinks. Breakfast's about ready." She poured the scrambled eggs out of the skillet, dividing them unequally onto two plates.
"Faith, I can't eat that much!" The mound of eggs on the first plate resembled a fluffy yellow mountain. Tara paused in the middle of the kitchen. "Give yourself some of those."
A pained sigh answered Tara's command. "Get…the…drinks," Faith enunciated slowly.
Feet stomping on the linoleum, Tara finished her journey and pulled open the refrigerator door. She was surprised none of the food inside came spewing out. "I wouldn't w-want your grocery bill," she said as she retrieved a gallon-jug of orange juice and a carton of milk. "Do you and Wil-Willow have people over a lot?"
"Fuck no. Red don't trust me around other people," Faith snorted.
Remembering a comment along those lines from her first conversation with Willow, Tara smiled. "Why not? Do you scare people off with your bad girl act?"
Eyes narrowed, Faith scowled in response. "It ain't an act."
"Of course it isn't," Tara agreed with mock solemnity. "You really are a mean and evil b-bitch." She carried the drinks to the counter and set them down. "Look how you tr-treated me. I'm t-terrified of you. R-Really."
"Why don't we go somewhere else?" Parker said softly. "Making out in the Quad seems…I don't know. Uncool?"
Buffy then noticed they were drawing some attention, Buffy noticed. People stared at them as they walked by and Buffy was sure she heard one, "Get a room," comment.
"Sure. Sorry." Wiping the back of her right hand over her mouth, Buffy stood up. She found it hard to believe that she was doing this out in the open with a guy she had just met.
Parker followed her up and stood so they were pressed together. "Hey, that wasn't a complaint. I didn't think you'd want to get a reputation, though. Being a freshman is bad enough without having to deal with rumors."
He was right. Stepping away, Buffy tried to smile. "I've had enough of people talking about me to last a lifetime. Thanks for protecting my honor." Smiling got easier as Parker wrapped an arm around her and started them down the path. She didn't remember smiling since this whole thing with Tara had started. "Where are we going?"
"How about I introduce you to some friends of mine? Nice guys, I promise." They left the path and started across the grass, heading past the library. "I pledged Wolf House; we're having a big party tonight. We can check in on the set up, say hello to my pledge brothers, and find someplace to do lunch."
"Sure." What else did she have to do? It wasn't like she had any friends to spend time with right now. Buffy leaned her head on Parker's shoulder during the walk to Greek Row. "You don't seem like a frat boy."
His arm shifted. "You mean because I haven't had a drink the entire time we've been walking?"
Buffy giggled. "Something like that. And you didn't take advantage of me." She looked up at him, seeing him watching her. "You could have," she confessed shyly. "Most men would have."
"I'm not most men, Buffy." Parker lightly poked the tip of her nose with his finger. "Don't just lump me in with the knuckle-draggers, OK?" Letting her go, he jogged up a set of cracked concrete stairs. "Welcome to Wolfhouse." With a flourish, he yanked open the door.
"Where the men howl at the moon and the women run for their lives?" Buffy joked. She stepped around him and stopped just inside the doorway. A quartet of pool players glanced up their game. A battered table and empty couches took up the rest of the main room.
Parker scowled good-naturedly. "I don't howl. I'm one of the good guys. Geeze. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
Skipping ahead, Buffy called out, "Over and over until it sinks in. Remember that ex?" she reminded him. "Well, he wasn't a good guy." Far, far from it. "I may need a while to make the adjustment."
"As long as it takes, Buffy." Parker chased after her and pulled her into his arms. "There's no hurry. This isn't a race. We'll go slow, if that's what you want."
A laugh badly disguised as a cough drove them apart. "Parker, you gonna introduce us to your new girl?"
Parker never looked away from Buffy. "Guys, this is Buffy. Buffy, the guys."
Slowly turning in Parker's arms, Buffy waved at the four young men. "Hi."
"Hi, Buffy." They managed a ragged chorus with their welcome. The tallest moved forward and held out a hand. "Chad. Parker and I pledged together."
"Nice to meet you." Buffy repeated the handshaking ceremony with Paul, Mike, and Sam.
Although he'd mentioned spending time with his friends when they'd been on campus, Parker didn't seem too interested in that. Buffy felt him attempting to push her toward the stairs at the back of the room.
She held her ground. "Slow, remember?" Buffy asked pleadingly.
Parker stiffened for a second and then nodded. "Slow," he agreed. When he pushed again, it was to maneuver them both to one of the leather couches.
Sighting along the cue, Buffy reminded herself not to shove the wooden tool through the ball. Slayer strength and pool playing mixed badly. With a gentle motion, she pulled back on the cue and snapped it forward. "Shit!" She hadn't broken the striped ball – just sent it careening off the table.
"I got it." Chad chased it down and set it back on the table.
Buffy handed her cue to Mike. "Here. I give up. I'm not meant to play this game." In the last thirty minutes, she'd managed to knock a dozen balls onto the floor and had actually broken Chad's custom-made pool cue.
No one disagreed with her comment.
"Don't worry about it, Buffy. I didn't bring you here for a pool tournament." Parker put his cue away on the wall rack. "Come upstairs while I grab a few things. Then we'll head out for some lunch."
"Hey, can we…" Paul started to say.
Parker was quick to interrupt. "No. I am not taking you bottomless pits out for food." He guided Buffy toward the stairs with a hand in the small of her back. "My room's the first one on the right. It isn't locked. Make yourself comfortable and I'll be right there. Just give me a minute alone with these guys."
"Sure." Feeling every eye in the room on her, Buffy slowly climbed the stairs. The quiet from the main room was stilted, as if Parker and his friends were waiting for her to get out of earshot.
It was a relief to open the door to Parker's room and step inside. Buffy sighed and rolled her head to loosen the taut muscles of her neck before doing a little scouting. The room was cluttered but cleaner than she'd expected. Weren't all college students supposed to be slobs? Buffy knew her own cleaning skills were suspect.
Unlike Tara. Buffy winced at the memory of Tara's belongings neatly displayed on the other side of their dorm room.
Tara had moved out. Maybe her next new roommate would be different.
Buffy wandered to the desk on the far side of the room. A cork bulletin board hung on the wall over the cluttered surface. Photos, notes, and mementos were pinned haphazardly to the board. Brushing her fingers over the items, Buffy zeroed in on a group shot of Parker and Chad and several other young men. "Pledge Class 127, Wolf House, Fall 1999."
Everybody in the shot was smiling.
Their smiles reminded Buffy of the photo of her, Willow, and Xander that sat on the nightstand next to her bed. They'd all been smiling, too. Smiling and happy and together.
The urge to run was back. Buffy couldn't just take off, though. Parker was downstairs, planning on taking her to lunch. Striding across the room, Buffy opened the door and stepped into the hallway. She'd offer Parker a rain check.
As she stood at the top of the stairs, Parker's voice drifted up. Her Slayer hearing kicked in. "Give it a rest, Chad. It isn't like I'm not going to make the deadline."
"The hell you won't! Look, Parker, the contest ends tomorrow night at midnight, and we're way behind in the points. Why are you dragging this out?" Chad sounded angry, and Buffy took a step back, not wanting to interrupt the conversation. "I know you. You're like magic with the chicks. I bet you had this newest one eating out of your hand in minutes."
Newest one? Were they talking about her? The hair on the back of Buffy's neck prickled and she automatically smoothed a hand over it.
Parker laughed. It wasn't the warm and friendly laugh Buffy had heard in the Quad. "She was so into me we nearly got it on in public. Buffy's a firecracker."
"And you brought her back here?" Chad shouted.
The words faded in and out as Buffy fought off the nausea swirling in her stomach
She glimpsed Chad as he strode into her line of sight at the bottom of the stairs. "We're counting on you, brother. No more going slow and taking your time. You need to score and move on. Buffy only brings our point total to a hundred and eighty. Last year's pledges scored two hundred and forty by the Halloween Bash."
Score…point total…Buffy… The words echoed in her head.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, Buffy bolted back into the room and straight for the trashcan by the desk. When the heaving stopped, she fumbled through the pile of clothing on the floor for something to use to clean up. A T-shirt wiped the clammy sweat from her skin and the traces of vomit from her mouth.
Buffy tossed it back onto the bed and staggered to the window. It slid up with a screech. Staring out into the perfect Southern California afternoon, Buffy shivered and rubbed her arms.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs – probably Parker's.
Driven into action, Buffy straddled the windowsill. The two-story drop was the only way out. Dragging her left foot outside, she pushed away from the building and plummeted to the ground.
.