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frats, but I thought you’d like some free booze and some dancing. Yeah!” Bud hopped around in a semblance of a dance that made him look like a spastic frog.
    “Well, Ang?” Pete ignored Bud’s flailing to focus on her. “Should we go to a frat party? You said you wanted something different to happen. It’s either that or Brian.”
    “Oh God. Might as well.”
    Bud did a fist pump. “Yesss!”
    She turned and pointed a finger at him. “Just don’t get any ideas.”
    “Me? Ideas?” Bud asked, all innocence.
    “Yeah,” Pete said. “You and the rest of your cretin frat brothers keep your hands off.” He said to Angie, “Remind me why we’re going to this again?”
    “Nothing else to do. I’m going to go get changed.”
    Bud grinned. “Knew you couldn’t resist me.” Angie socked him in the arm. “Ouch!” He watched her vanish down the hallway to her bedroom, rubbing his arm. “Damn, girl’s strong. That’s hot.”
     
     
    P ETE stood clutching a red plastic cup full of some deadly concoction involving grain alcohol and watched Angie and Bud dance. He could feel the thump of the bass all the way through his body. The frat house living room had high ceilings and wood floors and was jammed with people, most of them U.Va. students known at school as “the preppies,” sorority and fraternity types and jocks, and probably not another gay guy in the place.
    Bud had introduced them to some fellow rugby team players and a couple of his fraternity brothers, but Pete had soon abandoned any attempt at conversation. The noise level was unreal. Instead, he’d been drinking. He could barely taste the alcohol in this grain punch, although Bud had warned him it was pretty lethal. Maybe it was, because Pete couldn’t recall how many cups of it he’d drunk. When the music changed, Angie joined him, reaching for his drink and taking a sip.
    “Ew, this stuff is awful,” she said, making a face. “Let’s get out of here before I have to dance with Bud again.”
    “Gladly.”
    As they left, one of the rugby team guys whom Pete had talked to briefly gave them a wave, and Pete nodded back at him.
    “Who was that?” Angie asked.
    “No idea.”
    The sidewalks were almost as crowded as the frat house, especially when they got to Rugby Road. Groups of drunken revelers walked along, hooting and weaving and being generally obnoxious.
    “Want to go to The Virginian? I need something to eat.”
    “Sure,” Pete said. A moment later, he tripped over a rough patch on the sidewalk, almost knocking into someone walking toward them in a group of partiers.
    “Watch where you’re going, faggot!” one of the guys called out amid a swell of drunken laughter.
    “Fuck off!” Angie yelled back, steadying Pete with a hand on his arm.
    “Calm down,” Pete said, not interested in engaging with homophobic assholes tonight.
    “No. Nobody gets to call you that,” Angie said fiercely, then peered at him. “How much of that grain punch did you have?”
    “I—crap, I can’t remember now.” He felt dizzy, and way drunker than he had been at the party.
    “Hmm. Why don’t we go back to the apartment? I’m not sure you’re going to make it to the Corner at this rate.”
    “Yeah, okay.”
    Angie hooked her arm around his waist while he rested his over her shoulder, and they did an about-face, pushing their way through the crowd and ignoring the wolf whistles and catcalls from the bozo frat guys. Pete concentrated on staying on his feet. The warm, almost suffocating air wasn’t helping him feel any more sober.
    “Ang?”
    “Yeah?”
    “No more frat parties.”
    “No kidding.”
    “I wanna go to Matthew’s again for a party,” Pete said, remembering him and Aidan sitting on the quiet screen porch, watching fireflies. “That was bitchin’.”
    “Yeah, and more our kind of crowd. I hope he has another one.”
    They turned down their street, which was blessedly free of loud, partying throngs, and made it to their