The Change Up

MICKEY

“Really, Em? I have an exam in the morning! I can’t wait out here all night!” I shout to the door knowing that it’s useless. Em has been hitting the bars and bringing random guys back to our dorm a lot since she broke up with her ex. I understand that this is a part of her moving on from a relationship she’s been in for years and normally I would just go hang out in the common room but I really need to get some sleep before my history exam tomorrow. It’s the first one and I’m really nervous because everyone says Dr. Johnson’s exams are extremely difficult. I make my way down the hallway to the common room where, as I expected, the girls who stay up all night talking and watching old seasons of the bachelor are loudly debating on who was the best bachelor ever.

“Mickey! Nick Viall’s journey from villain to misunderstood hottie with a heart of gold totally makes him the best right?” Olivia asked as soon as she spotted me rounding the corner, her eyes begging me to agree with her.

“Hmmm… He’s definitely a contender” I muse, “I’ve only seen a handful of seasons, so I can’t really say for sure.”

“Right! Exactly why you should join us! Emily busy in your room again?” Observes Katie.

“Yep. And I really need to be asleep because I’ve got my first exam with Johnson at 8.” I reply with an obvious tone of annoyance.

“I would offer to let you crash in our room, but Jack’s staying the night with Hope apparently, so we’re stuck crashing on the couches out here tonight.” Liv explains.

I settle myself on the armchair and turn towards the tv, trying to distract myself from my worries that a late night will definitely result in a less than satisfactory grade on tomorrow’s exam while my friends continue their rambling about the show.

The next episode has just started when Katie cries out, “We should totally try to a bachelor themed philanthropy event! Like, each sorority could enter a girl into a pageant style contest and at the end the winner gets a date with the most eligible bachelor on campus!”

“There could be different rounds like talent and questions like normal pageants but with eliminations at every round!” Liv agrees. They’re both on the philanthropy committee and have been struggling to come up with an exciting new event for this year. They continue rambling on about different ideas when Liv says “Who should we ask to be our bachelor? Too bad it needs to be a senior or else Mickey could get her hottie of a brother to do it for us.” Liv teases.

I stick my tongue out at her in response. My friends love to tease me about my “hot baseball player” twin brother, Will. I’ve grown used to it though, seeing as all of the girls I grew up with also had very obvious crushes on him.

“Wait! That’s it!” I mumble excitedly to myself.

“What’s that?” Katie asks.

“I can go stay in my parents’ room at the house tonight.” I reply. My parents bought a townhouse downtown over the summer so that my brother would have a place to live that they could also use as a place to stay when they come for games. They learned the hard way last year that being the supportive parents who come to every single home game racks up a rather large total of hotel bills. They didn’t miss a single game last year, even though as a freshman Will hardly got any playing time during games. Will and two of his friends live there but they have a room that’s always free for our parents. I definitely would’ve lived there with Will this year if it weren’t for Zeta Pi Chi’s stupid rule requiring sophomore members to live in the sorority’s dorm.

Before the girls can object, I’m walking down the hall while texting Will a heads up that I’m coming over. I know that he won’t mind, I’m not sure about his roommates. They’re two of his friends from the team and I don’t think I’ve ever had a real conversation with them, just quick exchanges of “Hi! How are you” and “Good Game” after games last spring.

As I walk to my car, I’m suddenly excited to see my brother tonight. I had to move into the dorms early because of rush which dictated all of my time for the weeks leading up to the start of classes. Once school started, any time that wasn’t already reserved for classes or my afternoon babysitting gig has been spent in the Zeta chapter room. I’m the Assistant Vice President of New Member Education which means my fall semester is pretty much full of welcome activities and pre-initiation meetings for all of the freshmen members. I’ve always been a busy body though, so I love having a full calendar, but I’ve only seen my brother a few times in almost a month which is really unusual for us. We’re really close, but not in the freaky co-dependent way most people think of twins.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m knocking on the door of the townhouse when I hear my brother grumbling from the other side. He opens it and pulls me into a hug while groaning, “You have a key, Moo. You didn’t have to make me get up and let you in.” The hint of mischief in his eye tells me that he’s only teasing though; he doesn’t really mind.

“I know, but I haven’t even been here yet so it feels weird just letting myself in.” I retort.

“Oh shit, I forgot you haven’t seen the place yet. Come on I’ll give you a tour.” He smiles as he leads me through the foyer into what looks like the living room. One of his roommates is sitting on the couch while the other is sitting at a counter that seems to separate the kitchen from the living room. Will stops near the couch. “Moo, you know Colt and Mack.” He began; “Boys you’ve met…”

“Moo?” The boy at the counter interrupts inquisitively as he turns to look at us. It’s Colton Brady, one of the team’s outfielders and Will’s best friend on the team. He smiles mischievously as we make eye contact and says, “I thought you’re name is Mary?”

“It is.” I reply quickly, “Mary Michael actually. But everyone calls me Mickey. Everyone except for this idiot.” I say as I turn to look sharply to look back towards my brother. “Really, William it’s bad enough that you still insist on calling me that but do you really have to do it in front of other people? I could embarrass you by calling you Barnie in front of your friends, but I don’t do I?”

“Don’t you dare.” He growls just as John MacKenzie chortles from the couch, “Barnie? Oh, Mickey you really have to explain that one.”

Before I can reply, Will snaps, “My middle name is Barnes. Moo here didn’t think it was fair that she had an embarrassing nickname and I didn’t. Not really much to explain.”

“I’m totally going to bribe the announcers to introduce you as Barnie from now on” Mack laughs.

“Not that I’m glad to see you and all, but why exactly are you here so late again?” Will asks me.

“It’s not that late is it? And I came back from the library to find that Emily was um, entertaining tonight and locked me out.” I complain before adding, “And normally I would just hang out on the hall, but I have my first exam for Dr. Johnson tomorrow morning and I’m already nervous about it. You now how I am with tests, I don’t need to add sleep deprived to the mix.”

“I had Johnson last year” Colton begins, “She asked a lot of short essay questions, but as long as you pay attention in class you should be fine. They’re more general concept type stuff. The dates and tedious detail type questions are multiple choice. I wouldn’t stress too much over it.”

“She’s a nerd, Colt so she’s probably memorized every word of the lectures and the book by now.” Will teases me.

“Wait, go back,” Mack interrupts “Is this Emily cute? And do you think she would be interested in, what did you say, entertaining me?”

I laugh as Will replies, “Seriously Mack, are you really desperate enough to have my sister set you up with girls you’ve never even seen?”

“So you’re saying you’ve never tried to have your sister hook you up with her hot friends?” Mack asks incredulously.

“Absolutely not.” I interject “Dating each other’s friends is against the rules.”

“You have rules?” He asks amused.

“Yep. Will caught his friend Jack kissing me at a party when we were fourteen and freaked out. After that he insisted that it was against the ‘twin code of conduct’” I explained.

The boys laugh as I turn back to Will. “How about the rest of that tour? You know I’ve missed you, but I really should be going to bed.”

“Right.” He replies as he starts walking towards the stairs.

Before following him I say, “It’s nice to see you guys. I’m sure I’ll be seeing y’all a lot more in the future.”

“Looking forward to it, Sweetheart” Mack quips mischievously as Colton quietly turns to say “Goodnight” and gives a subtle nod.

I rush to follow Will before they can see me blushing. Dating my brother’s friends may be off limits but I can’t deny that they’re both attractive. Mack is a total hunk with a chiseled jaw line and a perfectly trimmed beard. Colton however has more of a boyish look that I’m totally a sucker for. I can already tell that if he wasn’t totally off limits I would be majorly crushing on him.

Will leads me upstairs as stops as we reach the end of the hall. “That’s my room and the bathroom there,” he points across the hall. “Mom and Dad’s room has it’s own bathroom though.” He says as he opens the door and my eyes immediately fall upon the queen sized bed.

“Oh my God, I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able sleep on the lumpy twin sized mattress in the dorm after this.” I squeal as I throw myself onto the fluffy white bed that only be described as heavenly.

Will laughs before asking “You need to borrow a charger or pajamas or anything?”

“I’ve got a charger in my backpack and I can sleep in this” I say as I look down to my oversized t-shirt and Nike shorts, “But, hey, if I can borrow a clean shirt for tomorrow I won’t have to go back to the dorm before class.”

“Sure.” He walks to his room before coming back with an old homecoming shirt from high school in his hands. He hands to me before pulling me into a big hug. “Goodnight, Moo. I missed you. Want to get lunch tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll text you after my test. I missed you too, Bubba.” I say before shutting the door and throwing myself back onto the bed. It’s so comfy, I know this will be the best sleep I’ve had since moving back to Mason.

“Nice shack shirt” Emily snickers when I walk into the dorm after my morning classes.

“Ew, gross. This is my brother’s” I corrected. A “shack shirt” is a guy’s shirt that a girl borrows after the spending the night. Some girls make a game of getting a shack shirt from every fraternity on campus. “First of all, how did you know this isn’t mine? It’s from my high school. And secondly, speaking of shacking, what time did your guest leave last night?”

“That one looks worn and all your shirts look brand new. And I don’t know; he was gone when I woke up this morning.” She says absently.

“Right.” I respond, the annoyance obvious in my voice. “You’re lucky I had somewhere to go. If I had to sleep in the hall, I would have murdered you as soon as he opened the door.”

“Sorry ’bout that. How was your test?” She says but I can tell she doesn’t really mean it.

“It’s fine, Em” I respond but I hope she can tell I don’t really mean it either. I hate confrontation, so passive aggressiveness is my go to. “I’m meeting Will at 1 so I’m just going to shower and change real quick.” I say as I walk towards our shared bathroom. The shower feels so nice. I don’t think I could have gone any longer without one. If I feel dirty or gross, I can’t really focus on anything else except when I can get cleaned off.

Half an hour later, I’m walking to the student center to meet Will at the sushi place. He’s already sitting at a table with an obscene amount of food in front of him when I get there.

“You don’t really a lot, so I guess I can share.” He says as I pull out a chair.

“I’d like to see you eat all of this without puking while running in the hot sun at practice this afternoon” I retort but I know he totally could and would eat all five rolls on the table.

“None of them have any cream cheese or anything that I know you hate. You’re so picky.” He scoffs while ignoring my comment.

“No. I just don’t like mayonnaise or anything mayonnaise adjacent.” He rolls his eyes at this. “You’re the one who cries and gags at the thought of eating any vegetables. And no, potatoes don’t count.”

He narrows his eyes and says, “Touche” before digging in to the roll closest to him. We catch up on what’s been going on the past few weeks and talk about our plans for the next few weeks. I update him on the kids of our parent’s friends that I pick up from school an babysit every day until their dad gets home. I’m complaining about having to bake cookies in the chapter room’s teeny tiny kitchen for tomorrow night’s new member meeting when he insists that I should just use the kitchen at the townhouse.

“I don’t want to intrude. It’s not really my place, you know, and I don’t want to be in the way and annoy your friends by making a mess in the kitchen. I don’t want them to think I plan on just stopping by whenever I want to. I already invited myself to spend the night last night.”

“They won’t care, I promise. They’re cool guys. And even if they did mind for some reason, all you have to do is give them a cookie to win them over.”

“If you’re sure… I’ll be over around seven. Don’t eat dinner. I’ll bring pizza.”