Page 16 of Cross My Heart

I look between them and have to laugh.

“What?” Jia asks.

“Nothing,” I smile. “You guys just aren’t what I expected, that’s all. I thought Oxford students would all be, you know—”

“Nerdy academics who do nothing but sit around, having stimulating intellectual debate?” Jia replies with a smirk.

“Well… Yeah!” I laugh.

“We contain multitudes,” Kris jokes. “But no, that’s just the reputation. The truth is, there’s nothing hornier than a bunch of grad students.”

“It’s like an arrested adolescence,” Jia agrees. “I was too busy being a perfect student to ever really date or have fun in school, and then undergrad was just all study, all the time. So now…?”

“Now we’re making up for lost time.” Kris declares.

“Well, I’ll toast to that,” I say, raising my glass. “Vicariously.”

“Just you wait,” Jia says. “Some hot British man will sweep you off your feet.”

I snort. “I’m not looking for anything right now,” I reassure them. “I can barely keep up with my studies, I don’t need any distractions.”

“You say that now…!”

They return to their scorecards, and I idly watch the crowds, but then the conversation turns to outrageous Oxford traditions.

“You know the Bullingdon Club members fuck a pig?”

“What?” I nearly choke on my beer.

“It was a pig’s head,” Jia corrects him, laughing. “At some formal banquet. Allegedly, the old Prime Minister had to, you know, penetrate it. For a dare.”

“Is this why he just resigned?” I ask, blinking.

“No, this one groped some Parliamentary intern,” Kris says, rolling his eyes. “But it’s typical, all these old-school boys, doing whatever the fuck they like.”

I pause. “So, it’s like a secret society?” I ask, remembering Wren’s extracurricular research.

“Bullingdon isn’t exactly secret, it’s like the most famous drinking club around,” Jia replies. "But there are a bunch of others, sure. Piers Galveston, The Nocturnes…”

“What do they do?” I ask.

“What does any group of rich assholes do?” she says, taking a gulp of beer. “Play dress up, get their cocks out, and lord it over the rest of us.”

“It’s all about money and power,” Kris agrees, sighing. “Just another way to feel special and scratch each other’s backs.”

“That’s all?” I ask, disappointed. “I mean, they must be hidingsomething, right, or else it wouldn’t be secret?”

“You mean like sacrificial rituals and blood oaths?” Jia giggles. “You’re giving these people way too much credit.”

“The inbreeding gets out all their imagination,” Kris adds cheerfully. “Trust me, there’s nothing so boring as a man named Frederick Scottsworthy the Fourth after too much tipple. Barely capable of missionary, at best.”

They howl with laughter. Clearly, they’re way ahead of me in the drinks department. “Want another?” I ask, getting to my feet. “My round.”

“Yes please!”

I head for the bar and have to elbow my way in to get near the bartender. “Ouch,” a guy curses beside me.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” I exclaim. He’s got sandy hair and wire-rimmed glasses and gives me a friendly smile.

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