Even Chastity, I realize with a start. Hell. She never drinks. I hustle over there and look down at where she and my roommate are sprawled out on the giant beanbag chair. “Chastity!” I shout. “Are you okay?”

She lifts her head a little unsteadily. “I’m FIIIIIIINE,” she yells. “Did you know there’s people having sex on your couch?”

Rickie giggles. “They are, aren’t they? Better be using condoms!” He shouts. “No messes!”

I’m afraid to look, but I do anyway. And, yup. Rickie’s friend Igor is thrusting lazily into our friend Gretchen, who’s making out with a woman I haven’t met. Although now I’ve seen her bare tits, because she’s caressing them as they kiss.

Right. “Time to go home, Chass,” I say, offering a hand to my friend.

“Why?” she whines. “It’s really comfortable here. Although I kind of have to pee.” She burps.

“Up you go.” I lean down even farther and take her hand. “Hit the bathroom and find your backpack. I’m walking you home.”

“My backpack?” she slurs. “That does sound familiar.” She sways a little as she turns her head to look around.

Uh-oh. I don’t know if she’s ever had anything stronger than the wine we drink at Thursday Dinner, the rotating party my family and hers share. “Bathroom is that way,” I say, pointing toward the kitchen.

“Right.” She toddles off.

I haul Rickie to his feet next. “What were you thinking?” I yell over Green Day’s heavy drum beat.

“I can’t hear you!”

Ugh. I tow Rickie toward the kitchen. “You can’t give Chastity rum! She doesn’t drink at all.”

“Everybody starts somewhere,” he says with a shrug.

“Not Chastity,” I insist. To say that she grew up sheltered is like saying that Mussolini was a little pushy. Chastity didn’t cut her hair until she was nineteen. Before then, she never even wore jeans or swore or used makeup.

“She’s fine, Dyl,” Rickie insists. “I would never hurt your friend. She had, like, three drinks.”

“What’s the problem?” Kaitlyn demands, a glass of wine in one hand and a corn chip in the other.

“Chastity got a little tipsy, and Dylan wants to call the paramedics.” Rickie rolls his eyes and leaves the kitchen.

“I didn’t say we needed the paramedics,” I grunt. “But I have to make sure she gets home safe.” I pat my pocket, finding my keys there. “Let me grab a jacket.”

“Wait, why?” Kaitlyn whines. “She’s a drunk college student. This town is full of them. She’ll either find her way home, or she’ll wake up on someone else’s floor. Just like anyone else.”

“She’s not just like anyone else,” I point out. “I mean, every freshman gets drunk. But they go home to a roommate who makes sure they don’t die. And that’s you, right?”

Kaitlyn makes a face. “My drunk freshman days are long past.”

Right. That’s why it’s going to be me.

I go to the back hall and grab my jean jacket. Kaitlyn sips her wine and watches me. She’s already a junior. Her family shipped her to Moo U after some kind of scandal in New York City. That’s how she ended up in the dorms with Chastity.