Like A.M. Radio

“Are you sure you want to come to this thing?” he had asked Kendall on the walk over. James and Carlos were partying at another frat house on the Row, and Logan had a feeling that he really wasn’t wanted at Pike.

“Come on Logan, loosen up for once in your life!” Kendall yelled, throwing his arms into the night sky.

Logan rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. It wasn’t like he had any other option besides going to the party. What would he do, just hang out in Thomas’s dorm room by himself?

“”Why are you so into this? The whole frat scene just doesn’t seem like you, Kendall.”

“I just want to have fun, what’s so wrong with that?” he flashed him his infamous smirk before ruffling Logan’s hair and dashing off towards the Pike house.

Logan could do nothing but trudge slowly behind him.

As soon as he walked through the door, Logan could feel the bass pounding from the subwoofers, causing his heart to pulse against his chest.

While Kendall was out in the middle of the main room dancing, Logan sat on a beaten up couch against the wall. Everyone was drunk off their asses and babbling incoherently, and the strobe lights and disco balls made Logan’s brain throb against his skull.

Genevieve strolled over towards him in a whirlwind of perfume and strawberry-blonde waves.

“Please don’t tell me you’re drunk,” he asked, squinting up at her with his big brown eyes.

Genevieve waved him away. “Pssht, no. I don’t drink. Where’s…what are you doing sitting in the back by yourself anyway?”

He stared at her blankly. “I have a migraine.”

She smirked. “Shoot! Get off your ass and do something. Quit being such a bitch.”

“You’re beginning to sound just like Kandi. You know that, right?”

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Where’s Kendall at?”

“He’s out there dancing or something. Since we’ve gotten here, he’s been acting completely different.” Logan wished he could take it back as soon as the words slipped past his lips. He didn’t know Gen, and he couldn’t say why he had decided to confide in her in that moment.

“It’s probably just this atmosphere,” she sighed, and her eyes wandered off to some distant point on the water-stained ceiling. She suddenly snapped from her trance, her eyes lighting up and connecting with his. “Well good luck, Logan. I’m off to go find Kendall,” she declared as she adjusted her zebra print tube top. She was soon just a bobbing red head in the crowd.

Logan decided to take her advice and see what was going on at the party. After all, it was his very first college party. He needed to make the most of it.

He passed by Kendall, who was now dancing with Genevieve to some hip-hop song, as he pushed his way through the dance floor. The disco ball hanging from the ceiling was throwing off light that kept blinding Logan sporadically, causing him to squint up his eyes and bump into people.

Logan spotted Kandi and Thomas hanging out by the DJ booth behind the dance floor. It was dark, but their faces were illuminated by the black light hanging on the wall. Thomas was chatting with the DJ (whose stage name was apparently DJ Prince-L because the guy’s last name was Princell) while Kandi was leaning up against the booth, looking bored and sipping some sort of mixed drink from a red plastic Solo cup.

As he made his way into the frat house’s dingy kitchen, Logan noticed a somewhat familiar face. Kandi’s lab partner, Alex, was making red, blue, and green Jello shots along the kitchen counter.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked awkwardly.

Her ice blue eyes looked up at him, surprised. He squirmed as she tried to place his face.

“Oh hey, Logan! Enjoying the party?” she asked, tucking a strand of long auburn hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, it’s great,” he lied through his teeth.

She glanced around quickly before offering him a shot glass. “Here, drink this before Campus Safety comes through.”

He took the glass from her and stared at its contents for a moment before letting the alcohol-soaked Jello slide down his throat. The vodka burned, but the Jello soothed the sensation.

“Thanks,” he smiled as he turned to leave.

“Hey! Wanna dance?” Alex asked, smilingly warmly at him. He knew she was just trying to be nice since he so obviously was alone.

He mulled it over for a second before replying. “Sure.”

He followed Alex out to the dance floor, and they bounced around to some Lady Gaga/Kanye mixed by the DJ. While they were dancing, Logan heard a group of guys in the kitchen yell, “SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!” He looked over to see Kandi downing shot after shot along the counter, raising each empty glass over her head triumphantly after finishing it.

“WOOOOO!” she screamed as she tossed the final glass to the floor, raising her arms above her head and thrashing to the beat.

Logan glanced around, looking for Thomas, hoping that he was at least looking after his wasted date, but he was still at the booth, laughing with the DJ. Alex had gotten bored after he’d stopped dancing with her and had left with some football player type guy, so he pushed through the dance floor over to where Kandi was leaning up against the wall. The crowd of rowdy frat guys had dispersed, so it was just Kandi dancing alone off in the corner.

“Hey Kandi, are you okay?” he asked, leaning towards her so she could hear him over the music.
“Yeah! Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” she yelled into his ear, her breath stinking of liquor.

Logan backed up and looked at her. “Really? You have?”

She reached out and slapped her hand onto his shoulder, stumbling over in the process. “YES!” she squealed, her brown eyes widened in drunk exaggeration.

“Um okay…having fun?” he asked awkwardly, the words seemed to stumble out of his mouth.

“Duh,” she replied, trying to roll her eyes despite her drooping eyelids. “Hey, come here, I have to tell you something,” she snickered and pulled him off into the next room.

The room was dark, and Logan felt Kandi move beside him as she felt around for the light switch. The room was suddenly filled with harsh fluorescent lighting, giving everything a slightly sickish green glow. From the Pike paddles and photographs of different pledge classes lined up on the walls, Logan guessed they were in the president’s bedroom.

Before he was aware of what was happening, Kandi had pinned him against the wall and shoved her tongue down his throat. Logan felt like he was going to choke as her wet lips engulfed his and her tongue practically took up his entire mouth.

He quickly turned his head slightly, both to catch his breath and to figure out what the hell was going on. “What are you doing?” he asked as she hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans, pulling his body closer to hers.

Kandi cocked her head to the side and mumbled something about the perfect height. Logan guessed she was beyond coherency as she tried to fumble around with his belt buckle. She soon gave up, and her lips collided into his again. This time she was a little less sloppy, but she still tasted like vodka and fifty different flavors of Jello.

This is wrong. This is wrong. This is so wrong… Logan could hear his voice echo over and over in his head, but he just couldn’t stop.

Kandi suddenly stopped and looked at Logan with a brief moment of sanity before saying, “Walk me back to my dorm.”

Logan just nodded as she grabbed his hand, tugging him along out the back door and down the lamp-lit sidewalk towards Greene Residence Hall.