On Thursday, Jules carried herself to Kehi's frat house with apprehension. There was chance that Kehi would be home, which typically would never be an issue, but she did not want Kehi to witness her entering and leaving Knox's room. She wondered if she should've just texted Kehi and asked him if he was home, but perhaps that would have been too direct or suspicious.
So, on Thursday night, Jules found herself yet again at the front door of the frat house. She didn't bother knocking because she knew the door was never locked – also the doorbell was broken anyway.
Except the door was locked.
After a short mental eyeroll, Jules knocked on the door.
There was no answer, so she knocked again. And she waited. And waited.
But still, no answer. This was going spectacularly for her.
Without another thought, Jules edged to the backside of the house in search of the backdoor.
The backyard was very quaint and sad. The grass was a pale green with small patches of yellow scattered around. A lone soccer ball was left at the center. They did have a small charcoal barbecue, which was nice and cute, but Jules couldn't help but think that it was a fire hazard for a place like this.
At last, she spotted the backdoor and tried the handle. Unlocked! It was very strange how they locked the front door but didn't bother locking the backdoor, but Jules just shrugged and figured that frat boys were just plain stupid.
The state of the kitchen shocked her even more than it did on Monday. It was clean! Actually clean! Someone had actually bothered to wash everything. There weren't piles of dishes all over the counters, nor was there moldy pizza or traces of peanut butter on the ceiling. There was even a faint scent of seashells and ocean waves.
Sure, it wasn't sparkling clean, but it was liveable clean. Maybe the start of the semester had the boys scurrying out of their gamer depression mode, but whatever it was, Jules was thankful for it.
But Jules didn't know how much time she had before she would be noticed by someone. Maybe there were people home, they just hadn't heard her. Or maybe the boys were on their way back any minute now. Anyway, she had to be swift.
Finding Knox's room upstairs was an easy feat. His room was exactly where he described it to be via text: down the hall and with his name on the door.
Immediately, when she opened the door, she was greeted by a bright light. Wincing, she walked further into the room and realized that Knox had left a lamp on and aimed it directly at the door. She momentarily wondered why before getting completely distracted with the state of his room.
Kehi's room was white and pristine and clean, while Knox's room was warm and dim and comfortable. While Kehi's room reminded Jules of a hospital room, Knox's room reminded her of that really fun cabin she slept in with her friends at summer camp. The walls were painted beige, and there were brown bookshelves lining one wall with an equally brown desk at its center. Knox's bed frame was a dark brown, but his covers were pale green, matching the equally pale green sheer curtains. There were a few house plants around, namely a vine-y and spirally one and what Jules recognized to be a snake plant. There was also a nice, green-patterned rug on the floor.
Knox fortunately did not have any roommates, which made sense because his room was much smaller than Kehi's.
Jules grabbed the history textbook from her bag and placed it on Knox's desk, right onto his laptop, though she felt like something was missing. After a quick look behind her, she opened the first drawing of the desk. There were pens and sticky notes and highlighters, along with wideout and page-markers.
Jules took a sticky note and pasted it onto the textbook cover. She grabbed one of the pens and wrote in black ink:
Hi Knox.
Here is the textbook. I think you'll like the part on page 15 where the author mentions Frida Kahlo, haha.
There wasn't any more space to sign her name, so Jules just left it at that. Knox would know who it was from anyway.
The next two days went by in a blur. Jules was preoccupied with school, but also with her thoughts. She couldn't wait for history class on Monday. And it was certainly just because she liked history and not because she was looking forward to seeing Knox again. No, that would be ridiculous, I mean, she met him less than a week ago, right?
On Saturday night, however, she got a text that completely removed her from her thoughts. She nearly jumped on her bed as she noticed the text pop up on her notification feed.
Knox
Frat party tonight. You're invited.
Jules barely had time to register Knox's text message before Kehi called.
"Hello?" she answered rather quickly.
"Jules? You have to save me. They just announced another frat party, and I don't wanna go." Kehi's voice sounded absolutely desperate, like he was on the verge of fake crying.
"Then don't go?" Jules offered with a laugh, thinking that was so obvious.
"I can't not go. Joining this frat house includes aligning with all of their plans, even the ones I don't support."
"Well, what's so bad about this party? You always go to parties. What's so different about this one?"
Jules heard Kehi sigh through the phone.
"Because I don't know. I just wanna see you. We haven't hung out in a while."
"Ah, I see," Jules said almost mockingly. "You don't have to lie about me needing to save you just so we can hangout."
"Well, you do have a hero complex," Kehi said as-matter-of-factly. Jules snorted.
"Okay, I do not, thanks. You're just pathetic sometimes," she replied with a scoff.
"Ah. I'm pathetic… Yeah, anyway, you should come to the party, so I have an excuse to leave. We could get some chili dogs instead."
"What time does Chez Monique close?" she asked.
"At midnight. The party starts at like eight, so we've got plenty of time."
"Awesome, I'll see you soon, then."
After hanging up, Jules looked up to the mirror from where she was sitting on the bed and realized she had a goofy grin plastered on her face. She couldn't tell if she was looking forward to eating chili dogs with Kehi or accidentally bumping into Knox at the party.
Either way it was seven and Jules needed an outfit, so she plunged into her closet and pulled out nearly everything she could find that looked cute. It didn't usually take long for her to find an outfit as she typically didn't care about fashion all that much – that was more Michelle and Katrina's thing – but tonight, she felt like she had to look good.
After a full forty minutes had passed, Jules finally settled on something casual enough but not too casual: a mahogany lacey top with a black leather jacket along with wide-ankle denim jeans.
This looks acceptable enough, she thought to herself as she checked out her attire in front of the mirror. She looked at how her ass looked in those jeans and nodded in approval.
Thirty minutes later, when it was a quarter past eight, Jules had managed to put on a little bit of makeup and found a small taupe satchel to carry her phone, wallet and keys. It was taking her a twice as much time to get ready than usual, so without another moment to waste, Jules grabbed her phone to text Kehi.
Jules
I'm on my way now.
After a few seconds he replied to her message, except it wasn't Kehi that replied, it was Knox – she had accidentally texted Knox instead of Kehi!
Knox
Awesome. I'll be in the basement. We're playing poker.
Poker? Was that what Kehi was trying to avoid? This definitely sounded like a unique type of party. Now, she hoped that Kehi would allow her to stick around a little longer before going for chili dogs.
With newfound excitement, Jules nearly skipped out of her house, kissing her parents goodbye on her way out. Tonight was going to be fun!