Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

“Yeah!” they cry out.
“Then I need to hear it!” I move my feet, doing a little dance move.
“Omega Chi Kappa! Come on!”
“Omega Chi Kappa!” they shout. “Omega Chi Kappa!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Omega Chi Kappa!” they scream so loud their baby teeth damn-near
shake.
Oh my God. So adorbs. I hope I have daughters.
I throw them both an underhand toss and resume dancing to the music as
the truck pulls us at a crawl, our float in the middle of a long line of floats, all
celebrating the annual Founder’s Day.
“See you in a few years!” I tell them. “Be good and study!”
“Yeah, we only take the best!” Amy Chandler shouts next me.
Followed by Krisjen’s chirp at my other side, “Be best!”
I snort, turning around to grab some more shirts. Balloons dance in the air
along the sidewalks, and I toss some more bundles, the tingles in my head
helping me play my part as I dance our choreographed little number in sync
with Krisjen to “Swish, Swish”.
The rest of our girls walk in front of or alongside the float, dancing along
with us in the street, and every eye on us makes the hair on my arms rise. The
attention always feels good. Rolling my hips, arching my back, and shaking
my body, I know one thing for sure. I’m good at this.
Our sorority is the biggest in any high school in the state, and while it’s
service and academic-based, because that’s what gets us into college, we’re
popular for other reasons. We look good doing what we do.
Whether it’s washing cars to raise money for cat saliva research, hosting
the football team’s annual pancake breakfast, or helping clean Angelica
Hearst’s house and do her laundry, because she just had baby number four
from daddy number four and she’s overwhelmed—bless her heart—we get it
done Instagram-style.
Krisjen and I falter in our steps, laughing as we grab some more shirts
and toss them to our future little sisters out there in the crowd.
“You see how drunk they are?” Krisjen says under her breath.
I follow her gaze, seeing her boyfriend, Milo Price, smiley and sweaty in
his backwards baseball cap and flushed cheeks, which is his tell that he’d had
beer tonight.
Callum Ames stands next to him, grinning with his arms folded over his