By late October, Westmore had transformed. The air had that crisp edge that made bourbon taste sharper, and the trees along the quad glowed bronze and gold. Homecoming was the high mass of the Fall semester. It meant striped tents sprouting like mushrooms along the football field, alumni in bowties and laminated nametags shuffling in with their wives and children, and a sudden flood of women from every nearby college. For a school that had only recently gone coed, the weekend felt like a balancing act—three women for every guy, a spectacle the brothers treated as their birthright.
Ethan saw it differently. To him, it felt staged, a page torn from Southern Living: monogrammed cocktail cups, silver trays overflowing with country ham biscuits and barbecue flashing under white tents. He knew better. By midnight those trays would be sticky with beer and sweat, the hedges would be trashed, and the pledges would be on their knees, scrubbing it all away.
The first wave of women arrived Wednesday night. Carloads from Waverly, St. Margaret’s, and Kingston, loud and laughing before the doors even slammed. They clustered on the porches of fraternity row like they owned it, smoking cigarettes and calling to brothers by name. By Thursday afternoon the place had the thrum of a carnival, music echoing across the lawns, beer flowing before classes were even done.
That evening another car pulled up, headlights sweeping across Delta Chi’s lawn. The doors opened and a pack of Kingston girls spilled out—pearls flashing, Marlboro Lights in gold packs tucked against cans of beer, one or two managing the impossible grip of cup, pack, and cigarette in a single hand. In the other, designer handbags swung like pendulums. They were louder than the rest, laughing like they had been drinking since lunch.
In the middle of them was the girl in the green dress from weeks before.
Catherine Whitfield.
She was radiant in a way that seemed practiced but effortless—hair loose, boots muddy from the Virginia clay, voice carrying over everyone else. Eli met her at the edge of the porch, posture taut as a pulled string. Around her, he seemed to expand—smiling wider, talking louder, moving with a swagger Ethan hadn’t seen before. Catherine touched his arm, laughed at his stories, pulled him closer with every gesture.
Ethan stood off to the side, cooler in his arms, something burning low in his chest. She looked familiar, but why did Eli change the second she walked up? Before he could shrug it off, Mark appeared beside him, grin wide.
“You haven’t met her?” Mark said, nodding toward the porch. “That’s Catherine. Eli’s on-again, off-again.”
The words landed like a stone. Catherine wasn’t just another girl drifting through the party—she was the girl. Ethan’s stomach twisted as Eli leaned into her, hand brushing her waist like he had done it a hundred times.
Thursday night raged again. Brothers skipped class, pledges cleaned. Marco called it “bailing a sinking ship with a teaspoon.” Clay barked orders from behind his clipboard. Connor cracked jokes until Clay’s glare silenced him. Teddy hummed as he worked, eyes red but smiling. Tyler never stopped, unloading bag after bag in silence.
Friday was more of the same. By sunset Ethan’s arms ached from ferrying kegs, his hands cracked from the cleaning. Catherine and her friends drifted in and out of rooms, orbiting Eli. Ethan caught glimpses of them on the porch, smoking, laughing too loud, tugging at his sleeve, looking up at him with puppyish devotion. He tried not to watch, but his eyes betrayed him.
Saturday began with a voice.
Clay had programmed his phone to send an automatic message that rang each pledge’s room at 5:30 a.m. His voice came flat and merciless: “Wake up, pledges. Black shoes, coats and ties. Be at the house in ten.”
“How does he do that?” Mark called over his shoulder.
“Connor says he’s friends with the switchboard operator,” Ethan muttered. “Apparently she slipped him the manual.”
The pledges stumbled through the dew, jackets wrinkled, eyes bloodshot. Clay was waiting with his clipboard.
“Today,” he said, grinning. “We’re going to put lipstick on this pig. Clean enough for your mamas to use the facilities.”
They scrubbed the chapter room until the wood paneling gleamed, polished the composites until their arms shook—still not enough unbroken glass to fill a whole wall. Tables and chairs lined up with military precision. At the Annex, couches were dragged onto the lawn, Pine-Sol poured across the floors, windows cranked open against the stench. Marco muttered, wondering if it would ever be enough. Clay scribbled on his clipboard.
By mid-morning, striped tents rose along the football field. Pledges ferried trays of barbecue, stacked ham biscuits, and poured Brunswick stew into silver tureens. Bottles of bourbon, scotch, and vodka stood in military rows, catching the autumn sun. The Jäegermeister had been on ice since last night. No Bowman’s this weekend. Even Ethan had to admit, it looked pretty respectable.
By kickoff the crowds swelled, shoulder to shoulder. Alumni in bow ties, professors with their families, students in blazers, their girlfriends in pearls. Ethan spotted Mark and Eli’s parents by the tent. Their mother clasped his hand warmly, pride radiating as she pulled him into an embrace.
“You just missed Mom rattling off Eli’s high school exploits—top of his class, lacrosse captain, full-ride offers,” Mark said, rolling his eyes.
Eli stood stiff, face flushed, eyes briefly flickering toward Ethan before quickly pulling back. Ethan took it in quietly: Eli wasn’t like the others. He was sharper, brighter, loaded with expectations—and, Ethan realized, maybe just as trapped. He’d chosen Westmore to stay close, not because he had nowhere else to go. Ethan tucked it away like evidence.
Watching Eli with his parents, Ethan felt two things at once: pity at how his mother paraded him, and envy at how natural he still looked in the spotlight. Even embarrassed, Eli carried himself like someone who belonged. Something Ethan wished he could do as effortlessly.
The second half of the game blurred into chants and genteel drunkenness. Westmore won, the crowd swarmed the field, students tearing down the goalpost. The pledges didn’t rush the field—they were already ferrying trays back to the house.
No one remembered whose idea the oyster roast had been, but Travis had them delivered from Richmond. They looked to Clay for instructions. Clay only laughed.
“Ladies, we fry oysters where I’m from. You’re on your own.”
Ethan was the only one who had steamed oysters before. He’d grown up on the water, harvesting with his father, steaming until the shells hissed. Marco stared at the pot like witchcraft. Ethan moved with quiet competence, shucking and serving like he’d done it all his life. His father had taught him this—patiently, skillfully how to harvest them, how to steam them. For once, Ethan felt genuinely connected to home, proud even. But then the yard dissolved into noise, his one skill swallowed by chaos, fading to nothing.
By midnight the Row pulsed with bands at every house, students spilling across lawns like floodwater. The older alums had gone back to hotels, leaving brothers and a few new grads proving they still had it. Clay finally waved the pledges off, told them to have a good time. They had been “sober drivers” all weekend, shuttling alums back and forth to their hotels and the Annex.
Finally able to break from the circus, Ethan found Teddy leaning against a wall, bowl in hand.
“Here, man,” Teddy said, passing it to him. “Join me.”
They smoked, passing it back and forth. Teddy chuckled. “You know, was a lax star in high school too. Didn’t want to bother with it here. Being a star’s not my thing man. But honestly, can you even name one pro lax player?”
Ethan laughed, realizing he couldn’t. Until Eli, lacrosse had been an abstraction.
From their spot they watched the party unfold—Connor desperate for laughs, Travis shirtless, Tyler drawing every eye like he’d stepped out of a magazine. “Half-pint doesn’t stand a chance with those dudes around,” Teddy muttered.
It was true. Even Ethan, wary of Tyler, couldn’t deny it.
“These guys are all just trying to get their dicks wet. Let’s see what’s going on upstairs,” Teddy said.
Walking down the hall Ethan knew that each room contained its own private after-party. Brothers settling in with girlfriends or whoever they planned to hook up with, others preferring to quietly keep the party going. Some of the seniors were locked in Travis’s room doing God knows what. Tyler, catching him staring, wondering if Jason was in there, assured him it was best to leave it alone.
Across the hall Eli’s door was cracked open and they could hear Catherine’s voice.
The fan hummed in the window. Eli sat cross-legged on the rug, hoodie loose. Luke smoked beside him. Teddy leaned glassy-eyed against the bed. Catherine perched in a desk chair, bottle in hand, cheeks flushed. For just an instant, Ethan noticed a flicker of uncertainty cross her face as Eli turned away. But then she laughed again, louder than before, and the moment passed. An old head alum slouched in the corner with a plastic cup of bourbon balanced on his knee. A bong leaned against the wall, still warm.
Ethan dropped into the circle, finally handed a beer, finally included. The bong came his way; he coughed smoke, eyes watering.
“Remember the Robinson game?” Catherine asked, pointing her bottle at Eli. “Four goals in one half. You should’ve seen him.”
Eli grinned, cocky and modest at once. “They didn’t have a defense.”
“You loved it,” she teased. “The whole crowd chanting your name. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
Luke smirked. “Still loves the attention.”
“Please,” Eli said, rolling his eyes, but his grin widened.
Catherine’s hand landed on his knee. “He misses it,” she slurred. “He pretends he doesn’t, but he does.”
“You talk too much when you drink,” Eli said.
“Because it’s true.” She laughed, leaning closer. “God, you used to strut around like you owned this place. You still do.”
The old head raised his cup. “Once a killer, always a killer.”
Then Catherine turned toward Ethan. “You don’t know what it was like—he was a god back then. Girls lined up. Still are.”
Ethan froze, face hot, wishing he could disappear. She draped herself against Eli, giggling, brushing hair from his eyes. Eli grinned as if nothing was wrong.
For everyone else, it was an exaggerated story told during a late night session. For Ethan, it was unbearable. The boy who had whispered in the dark was gone, replaced by someone unreadable.
His chest felt hollow. Glued to the floor, not knowing what to do. Catherine continued to laugh as she told more stories. Ethan just listened, watching as Catherine’s hand landed on Eli’s knee. Ethan’s eyes locked onto Eli’s fingers—hesitant at first, before finally brushing against hers, accepting. Eli looked away, eyes briefly meeting Ethan’s in a silent apology or perhaps just acknowledgment. Ethan couldn’t tell anymore.
Finally Teddy broke the spell.
“Hey, what happened to those girls you were talking to? Did they all leave with Tyler, or are you the only one that struck out.”
Confused, everyone looked up to see who he was talking to. Connor appeared in the frame, grinning crooked. “Clay wants us downstairs. He says we’ll thank him later if we start cleaning now.”
Teddy jumped up to join him, nudging Ethan to do the same.
The laughter from Teddy’s joke hardly registered for Ethan. Downstairs, he was in a daze. “Are you OK?” Tyler asked.
“I’m good, just tired.”
Sensing something off, Tyler looked at him. “Go crash, man. We’ve got cleanup.” Marco lugged a trash bag. Connor and Teddy waved lazily. Unspoken solidarity.
Ethan stepped into the October night. The Row still throbbed with music, girls laughing as they crossed from house to house, bands howling their last sets. Oyster shells glittered in the grass, silver trays sticky, bourbon stains soaking the linens. Tomorrow at eight, they’d be back here cleaning it all up again. No reason to think Sunday would put an end to the celebration.
The farther he walked, the tighter his chest grew. The whole semester pressed down at once—the grind of pledging, the sleepless nights, the endless cleaning, the weight of classes piled on top. First time being on his own. He had endured it by telling himself it meant something, that Eli saw him, that the kiss had been proof. Tonight stripped that bare. Eli belonged to Catherine, to the applause, to everything Ethan wasn’t.
By the time he reached his dorm, his fists were shoved so deep into his pockets the quarter dug into his palm like punishment, an imprint he couldn’t shake. Just a token, he told himself. Not an anchor. Not a promise.
The hallways were silent. The bathroom was empty. Ethan stripped, turned the water hot, stepped under the spray. At first he stood there, letting it pound the back of his neck. Then it all came at once—the exhaustion, the fear, the shame, the gentle brush of Eli’s lips in the dark, the whispered promise he’d believed was real. The image of Eli with Catherine shattered everything he’d built inside his head.
His chest heaved. His breath caught. The sobs ripped through him, raw and loud. His knees buckled and he slid to the tile, curling forward as water poured over his back. He shook so hard his teeth rattled. Alone in the steam, he sobbed until his throat burned. Grateful no one was there to see him.
When it finally passed, he dragged himself up, skin raw, eyes swollen. Dressed quickly, stumbled back to his room, collapsed into bed.
He told himself Eli had only been playing. He told himself that whatever he thought had happened between them was already gone.
And he almost believed it.
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Hang in there Steve, Ethan has been through a lot but I'm sure he will be OK. Both characters are confused by their feelings but we only have Ethan's perspective. Eli clearly made a conscience choice to stop playing lacrosse before even meeting Ethan, if that gives you a sense of where his head is. Being in that world was a status symbol for Catherine, not Eli.
Yeah—I’d say more that this is *real*. That I really care for these guys. Excellent writing!