Greek Life

Noelle’s short brown hair blew in the wind as she drove towards the main campus to class in her white Mustang, windows rolled down and some old school rap blaring making her dance a little in her seat as she rapped along. She was pretty excited starting her junior year and University of Georgia and even more about her classes for the first semester. She hated to admit it out loud but she was a bit of a public relations nerd. Not to mention, she was taking a magazine article writing class for her journalism major that she was sure would be a lot of fun.

She waved as she passed the girls at the Kappa Alpha Tau house as she passed it, some of them lounging around on the large front porch. The Kappa house was one of the biggest on campus – girls flocked to it mainly from athletics and a lot of Noelle’s teammates on the cheer squad were in the house with her including her Little, Erin. The two-story white house had a large wraparound porch and a matching balcony on the second floor. The arches made the house seem elegant and chic, which it was, and the yard was perfectly manicured with expensive landscaping and big, beautiful trees.

One of the girls out on the front porch was the president of their sorority, Delphie Moreau. The senior soccer player was an obvious choice for president when elections rolled round – she was a hard worker and a total sweetheart to everyone, even the girls that didn’t make the sorority. Plus, everyone loved hearing her Louisiana accent. When Noelle saw her and waved, Delphie’s face broke out into her gorgeous smile and she waved back wildly. Delphie was the type of beautiful that could stop someone in their tracks – her dark skin was flawless, her eyes a vivid green, a smile so perfectly white, straight, and sweet it was utterly disarming. She was fit from years of soccer and incredibly articulate, studying classic literature. Yes, she was certainly the best pick for president and Noelle could not have been happier about it.

Noelle drove the rest of the way to main campus, parking in a lot on South Herty Drive, directly across from the Candler building where her class was. Shockingly, there were still spots open even though campus was filling up for the day with everyone running to their first day of classes trying desperately to be on time. The Georgia air was hot and humid as she stepped out of her car, happy to be in a light, linen dress and sandals. Especially happy that she had chopped her hair off ages ago because it made the world of difference when it came to the ruthless Georgia summers.

Not surprisingly was the fact that she noticed a few familiar faces standing outside of the building. A lot of the athletes majored in sports media relations and one of those happened to be the quarterback she cheered on for every game – the one and only, Tyler Seguin. The second he saw her, standing with a couple of the other players on the team he smiled and waved. Being quarterback and Noelle being named captain of the squad had pushed their friendship even closer. The cheerleaders and the football players were close but closer still when those football players were members of her brother Jonathan’s fraternity, Sigma Alpha Beta.

“Pipsqueak!” He shouted, dropping his bag and wrapping a massive muscled arm around her and lifting her in the air. “The only reason I showed up for first day was knowing you were going to come to class.” He teased, squishing her ribs infinitesimally. He was in a cutoff tee shirt revealing his large arms, black athletic shorts and a backwards baseball cap with Ray Bans covering his eyes.

“Put me down, Seguin! I’m in a dress!” She squeak, trying to cover herself up to no avail.

“I know and I’m so delighted.” He continued to joke.

“I will tell my brother!” She warned, the quarterback setting her down with a roguish grin, completely unapologetic or worried. Though Jonathan Toews was very explicit about hands off his sister, Tyler had never touched her that way and even saved her a few times at parties. “You’re a caveman.” She scoffed, walking into the building with him hot on her heels.

“Me no understand.” He said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Tyler Seguin was beautiful. Noelle would be lying if she said she hadn’t had a crush on him when they first met. Most girls fell under the Seguin charm. Her brother was adamant about no guy in his fraternity touching his sister. Being that Jonathan was tall and played on the hockey team at the school, no one had tested him. Noelle had wanted Tyler to until he proved to be a rather big playboy. The former Bostonian was wanted by most girls for more than just his football abilities. He was tall, fit with large muscles and tattoos covering both arms, a great and devious grin, dark and deep eyes that could turn a girl to mush, and that adorable thick east coast accent that had the southern belles swooning in their petticoats. He was desired by many, loved by quite a few, and for Noelle he was now just a close friend she sometimes fantasized about.

She wouldn’t tell anyone that, though. Especially not her big, Harley Daniels, who slept with Tyler on numerous occasions. It was no wonder that everyone called her ‘Harley the Harlot’ behind her back. But, despite all of that, Noelle was pretty happy she got the Big she had because Harley was a lot of fun. Although her having that fun with Tyler was the main reason why she would never go there – even more so than her brother’s threats.

The one class she had with Tyler was her sports media relations class and she knew he would be often asking her for help or for notes throughout the semester. She prepared herself so she wouldn’t get too angry at him. He actually did alleviate some stress when they studied together on occasion and almost always brought her coffee, just how she loved it, so she couldn’t stay mad at him for long. After all, he was a huge dork. Plus, she was excited for the class and to work more with sports media.

Her suspicions were confirmed when Tyler texted or doodled the entire class as he sat next to her, nudging her on occasion to show her a drawing of something either crude or ridiculous to which she would roll her eyes and growl at him under her breath. She did not like being disturbed in class. The second they were dismissed, she told him just that. “The next time you interrupt my notetaking, Seguin, I’ll chop your throwing hand off with a machete.”

“For someone so tiny and lovely, you are very mean and aggressive.”

“Only when you test me.”

“I test you often.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You’re coming to the Back in Black party, right?”

“Of course I am – do I ever miss those parties? How did you talk Jonathan into that theme?”

“The guys ganged up on him. Actually, I don’t think he minds much though he may have to borrow one of my cutoffs for it.”

“You have plenty of those.” She teased, pointing to the Guns N’ Roses cutoff he was currently sporting.

“Excuse me, I know for a fact you love this band. You drunkenly sang “Sweet Child of Mine” last year at the Boats and Hoes party.”

“First of all, Jon is still pissed you threw that party while he was away. Second of all, I know you still have that video and if it ever gets uploaded anywhere, see my previous threat to your hand.”

“You’re feisty today. I love it.”

“Stop it. Go to your next class.”

“I’m done for the day, Jon’s got me doing some frat errands.”

“I am quite certain I’m not on your to-do list so stop bugging me.” She smiled at him as he moved to hug her and lifted her off the ground.

“Maybe someday, Pipsqueak. See you around!”



The first day of class also included one of Noelle’s favorite parts about being at Georgia, though granted there were a lot of things she loved, and that was cheer practice. She had of course met all the girls over the summer during cheer camp – her first as captain – but today was the first actual day of practice at the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall. The building was modern and sleek, nearly completely glass walls, and housed training fields inside and outside and gyms for the football team and cheer squad. They always practiced together so, luckily for her, she got to watch Tyler Seguin sweat it out with the guys without her brother’s watchful eye. Though, this year, she wouldn’t get much downtime. She was now the official captain of the squad which landed her new responsibilities.

It was a rarity that a junior got picked as captain but the girls were unanimous – when the previous captain graduated last year there was only one choice. That choice was the super organized, incredibly bossy, but ultra-qualified short and feisty southern belle Noelle. She had been gracious but not terribly surprised – most of the seniors left on the squad hadn’t really wanted the responsibility and the only one that did was now her co-captain, Scarlett Duncan.

The co-captain was already lumbering up with some of the girls, including Noelle’s Little, Erin, when Noelle arrived at the field. Since the weather was amazing, they were practicing outside that evening with the lights ready to come on when it got too dark. The boys were stretching, too, some of them mindlessly gawking at the cheerleaders as they did their stretches. Noelle rolled her pretty brown eyes and flicked Tyler off when he waved at her, dropping her bag to stretch with the girls.

Everyone was dressed the same – black or red UGA gym shorts, black Nike bras, white Nike cheer shoes, and their hair done up with bows to match. UGA gym bags and water bottles were strewn across the lawn, chatter about the first week festivities filling the evening air, and Noelle was feeling that rush – the one she got with each new year. Every year, starting school she felt a tingle of excitement for what the year would bring, and this year it was amplified. She didn’t know why – she still had a year left – but she felt the butterflies swarm in her stomach, a wave of excitement and curiosity for the new year, as she stretched out her hamstrings. She had a feeling it would be a year she would never forget, like most at UGA. These were sure to be some of the best times of her life, she knew that for a fact.

After stretches, Noelle walked over to Erin to see what was up because she was looking a little flushed. At first she thought that perhaps she was just feeling the same excitement as she was but Erin kept losing her balance in stretches (though she was clumsy on occasion) and seemed to be completely spaced out which was out of character. Usually the girl was hyper-focused in cheer practice. “You okay?” Noelle asked, lightly touching her friend on the shoulder. She hadn’t seen Erin when she was changing since the younger girl had come straight from class and wondered what could have happened. Perhaps it was a bad teacher or a rough afternoon, but she wasn’t sure.

“What? Yeah … why?” Erin was quick to respond, furrowing her eyebrows. It was always strange at first to see her without her glasses on but Noelle knew that, with Erin being a flyer, it was impossible to wear them when she cheered even though she wasn’t overly fond of contacts.

“You just seem off. Was drawing class awful?” At the mention of her introduction to figure painting class, Erin’s cheeks flushed dark red. “This ought to be good.” She teased, nudging her friend. Erin was so easy for her to read nowadays.

“Well … we were kind of thrown into figure drawing today. I mean, first day? What is up with that? It’s introduction. But no – first day – we had to just … do it and I mean like okay fine I get she wants to see what we can do, yeah that’s whatever, but really? Like … that?And I mean, no warning, either -”

“You are saying a lot, my friend, but not what really transpired.” Noelle was trying to bite back her laughter – her friend was really flustered. She always knew when that happened because she would start going on a rambling tangent to herself.

“One of the boys from your brother’s frat was dared to stand in for a figure drawing class.” Erin took a deep breath and looked around before whispering – “Naked.”

Noelle threw her head back in loud laughter. It was no wonder her friend was so flustered. Noelle was instantly curious as to who it was. She looked around for Tyler but he was already getting sweaty doing drills with some of his receivers. She would make a note to ask him after practice if he knew who it was. It was pretty obvious that Erin was too flustered to recall a name. Noelle grabbed Erin’s hand away from her mouth where she had started to bite her nails. “How was it?” Noelle asked, making Erin flush darker still and shove her lightly.

“It’s not funny! I think I’m scarred! Now I understand what your brother was referencing this morning about my class being interesting. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind!”

“You do that, Little Bit.” Noelle teased, patting her head to which Erin swatted her arm away.

“You Toews kids are a handful.”

“Don’t we know it.” Noelle winked and clapped her hands together to get all the cheerleaders’ attentions. “All right, girls, let’s get started!”