“Come with me, I’ll help you guys out,” he says. We follow him past the dance floor and toward the stairs, where a scene similar to the front door is playing out. A Sigma Alpha brother guards a mob of people trying to explain why they should be able to get upstairs.

The guy waves when he sees Connor, and tells people to let us through. We make our way up the stairs and down the hall to the door with his name on it.

Connor swings it open to reveal a room crammed with three beds—two bunked and one raised above a desk. The furniture is the standard-issue kind provided by housing, the kind finally picked up by my movers. On the desk are a few books about international relations and computer science as well as a bottle of Patrón with about a shot left and a collection of squished limes. There’s also a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose.

“Help yourself to any of that.” He gestures toward the desk. “Or we have this if you prefer.” He pulls a bottle of champagne from his mini fridge. I take a swig of the Goose and throw him a thumbs-up. “Here, you’ll need these.” He holds out a handful of wristbands.

I set down the bottle and grab them, shoving them in my pocket.

We bring the champagne with us as we head outside to load the party buses. The front lawn is chaos, as those heading from the house to the bus merge with the crowd that never made it inside.

“Sara!” someone yells from behind us.

I turn to see a redhead flying toward us and hug-tackling Sara in the classic drunk-girl way.

“Oh my god, how are you?” she asks, like she hasn’t seen Sara in years, rather than since, let’s be real, probably lecture this afternoon.

“Uh... I’m pretty good.” Sara stumbles back a bit, confirming my suspicion that this greeting was a bit overzealous.

“Can you believe this bullshit? They’re barely letting anyone on the buses! I tried to pay them but they wouldn’t take my money.”

“Pay them?” Sara looks confused. “You don’t need to do that. It’s a party for Warren students.”

“Yeah I know, but ‘it’s a private party though.’” She does a voice for the second half—Generic Dopey Drunk Dude, I think it is. “I guess the house rented the bus so they can pick who they invite.”

“Here.” I pull the colored wristbands Connor gave me from my pocket. I hand one of the orange strips of paper to her, and she squeals. Okaaay then. I give the other two to Sara and Robbie, who take them more calmly.

“Oh my god, thank you.” The girl stares at her wristband like it’s Cartier. “What was your name again?” Now she looks at me like I’m Cartier.

“Braden.”