For some background info, check the 1st part.
There was some confusion so I'll help you out: The story began in 2020 with Steve giving the commencement address at his alma mater. Then it goes back to Steve's graduation in 2000.
This next part is about the 1st time Steve and Andy meet.
On this (and other) stories in general: this is drawn from events in my life. Some of the people do vaguely resemble my friends in college, and me too to some extent. I also am going to try to make this as close to "real life" as I can. So I'm going to try to paint a picture of small-college life as I experienced it; in doing this I'm just going to make everything as plausible as possible. I really do think that those are the best stories that come out of this thing. And since some of my favorite series haven't been writing too regularly (with the exception of Collision, which is great) recently, I thought I'd try to fill the void. So, if the authors of RA Adventures and Fraternity Memoirs and Confusion ever feel like writing more to your stories, go for it, it'd be appreciated.
Chapter 1 --- MEETING ANDY
Normally, I hate rush. It does have some positives, you get to spend a week pretty much constantly drunk, and sometimes you even get to meet some pretty cool kids who want to be in the house. But for the most part its about 20-30 freshmen who are either using you for beer, are the biggest tools you'll ever meet, or the biggest kiss-asses you'd ever meet. It's for those reasons that I tend not to participate in rush too often. But this semester was special for me; spring '99, my junior year, and I was pledge master. I still couldn't psyche myself up for rush, but I at least was interested in meeting the guys. We were looking at a pledge class pushing 15 guys, which for Biltmore is pretty big. This was made possible because we took in some underground freshmen that fall, and that gave us the inside track to a lot of their friends.
Tonight was the last rush before interviews, thank God. The worst thing about BC is that rush is only one week long for both semesters. So in that week you basically have no rest, and your events have to be good. With 10 fraternities at Biltmore there was a lot of competition for a school with only 3000 students. Only 7 actually mattered because 3 were basically the loser houses. Of those 7 we mainly competed with two: Delta Sigma Phi and Sigma Nu. We were all about the same size, 40-50 guys at the end of the year, all had guys on multiple sport teams, guys on the dean's list, some dealers and users, and basically had no trouble attracting the ladies.
Every spring we had a big themed party as our invite rush. (Fall we had a semi-formal cocktail) This was typically our biggest party of the year. Each brother gets 3 invites, the invited rushes get to bring a date, and we invite a sorority (usually AOPi or Tri-Delt). That typically adds up to about 220 people. Which doesn't come close to the 350-400 that we typically get for the open parties, but considering these are all invited "friends of Beta", it's a good crowd.
This year's theme was Studio 54. We set up the basement like a club, strobe lights, lasers, all that. Music was strictly limited to house and techno all night. We also had tons of special party favors, beer and our famous electric punch. By this point we've pretty much sold the house to potential pledges, so it's all about getting fucked up and having fun.
I have to admit I was looking pretty hot when I made my entrance at 11, an hour after things kicked off. I went to H&M that day and picked out an outfit for the night. I think maybe now I should tell you what I look like and some other stuff about me. I'm 5'11", 170lbs, spikey blond hair and brown eyes. You know the look. I also spent 4 years as a backup point guard for the BC Black Knights, so I was pretty athletic, but not going to the NBA or anything. I also have a solid body, pretty thick, but not in a fat way. You know those guys with the nice pecs and thick chests where you can just barely make out the traces of a 6-pack? That was me. My body in general was pretty smooth. I did have that little line of hair that that started around my pecs and then went down right to my package. My package is a whole different story, but I'll spare you those details and save them for a more appropriate time. I looked good. And that night I had my hair up all crazy, and my sideburns were shaped pretty sweet. I wore this tight pink spandex shirt with no sleeves, and these tight black jeans with a studded belt. I also threw on these freaky pink tinted glasses and glitter. I have to admit I looked like a total fag, but it was 54, and that was the goal.
By the time I went downstairs things were rollin. You could just tell everyone was fucked up. It was a good scene. I stood at the top of the stairs and scoped shit out. I figured most of my friends were in the beirut room. [Note: Beirut's a game kind of like beer pong. Beta rules are a little bit different from most places I've partied. We play 2 ball, full contact. When a team sinks a ball they get both back. Pretty basic, but it moves the game a lot quicker when tons of kids are trying to play.] I looked around and saw some AOPi chicks. I love AOPi, they always make me feel like a rock star.
"Steve, oh my God! Where were you?"
"Stevie, I've been waiting for you all night!"
Ahhh. I went through the motions and entertained all the little girls swooning over me. Not that they weren't sweet girls or anything, quite the opposite actually. These chicks rocked, and provided many a good time for me, but I had more pressing business. See, even though my brothers and our rushes had one full week of constant partying, I didn't. It was early March and BC got a bid to the D3 tourney for the first time in 7 years. Unfortunately we lost in our 1st game that Thursday, but at least that meant I could party that weekend. To get to the point, this means that I hadn't met any of the rushes. I made my way through the crowd, said hi to some more friends, and eventually made it to the beirut room.
When I got to the B-room I saw a couple of my pledge bros and we gave each other our typical hearty greeting. After I said "Hi" to everyone I knew I scoped the scene a little. I gazed around the room and then stopped dead. There was this kid I'd never seen before standing there, with a cup of beer in his hand, looking like everything in the world was new to him. He had this sense of wonder and awe in his eyes, you could tell he was full of life, and I could tell he was someone I couldn't wait to be friends with. It didn't hurt that he was just beautiful to look at either.
I made my way across the room and introduced myself. I have to admit that normall I do portray a lot of confidence in how I present myself. I have every reason to be I guess. God has blessed me with a lot of positive things in my life, intelligence, character, a wonderful family with the financial resources to send me to a great college, athletic abiltiy, and looks. But despite all that self-confidence, it was all I could do to hold myself together as I approached the object of my affection.
"Wassup man, I'm Steve Carter."
"Oh...hey." He said it kind of nervously, and I just laughed.
"You having a good time kid?"
"Yeah, great party."
"So, what's your name bro?"
"Andy Mason."
"Nice to meet you."
"Yeah, its nice to meet you too."
Then we shook hands. Our handshake wasn't magical in that rockets red glare sense, but something was definitely up. I stared into his eyes and could just tell that we were going to be tight. That's how I met Andy.
All right, I know this chapter was kind of undirected and definitely like the intro a lot better. Hopefully I'll be able to get into that frame of mind again for the future. I definitely want to polish this all up and resubmit it, but I wanted to get some feedback before I put too much time into it. I'm going to try to get out a chapter every couple weeks or so. Depends. But I really like these characters, and I have a great story in my head for them. So hopefully I'll be able to get it all out. Some of you may not like it cause there probably wont be any sex for a while. Yeah, I know that kind of suck, but deal. The best stories on this thing build up.
A little bit about me: I really was in a fraternity. I really was pledge master. I really did hang with Tri-Delt and AOPi girls. But no, I wasn't in Beta. Sorry to any Beta Theta Pi bros, don't mean to offend you. Peace.