Page 12 of Notorious Man on Campus

“Because SPU is on their college beat and guess who’s on the list?” Shit. This is the exact kind of publicity Coach hates, mostly because he takes shit from Dean Lassiter for it, and then he passes that shit down to us.

“SPU?” Roman says. Dylan rolls his eyes, but doesn’t bother kicking him again.

Coach Radz slams the paper down on his desk. “You’re damn right. St. Paul University, a Catholic university may I remind you, is fucking number three on the list for wild football schools. Let me assure you the distinction is not flattering. The criteria includes the number of drunken parties, the number of trashy videos on TikTok, and other assorted social media foolishness.” He stops and stares us down as if we’re personally responsible for posting the videos. Not that it’s never happened, but if he’s accusing us, I know I’ll need to take responsibility.

“And just so you know I’m not picking on you three for no good reason. BMOC House was mentioned specifically.” Fuck. “Needless to say, I’ve already had a call from Dean Lassiter about that and other social media gossip about our football team. He’s had a complaint from a prominent supporter about a very salacious TikTok video that happened to go viral. I agree with him that this is out of hand and is unbecoming of the school’s reputation.

“He’s issued a directive for me to crack down on you because there’s more than one donor who’s uncomfortable with it.” He pauses and stares at each of us in turn. Roman flinches. Dylan holds his breath. When Coach Radz looks at me, I meet his eyes with a steely stare and nod.

“This is a new year and we will turn that reputation around. We need to be off that list altogether by next year.”

“No disrespect sir, but how are we supposed to stop kids from taking vids at our parties?” Roman’s brow furrows in genuine perplexity. I might be thinking the same thing, but I know better than to say it out loud to Coach. I don’t want to give him the opening to ban all parties, something I bet Dean Lassiter would push for.

“We’ll find a way, Coach,” I say. He returns his gaze to me and nods. Dylan lets out his breath.

* * *

Pushing through the door with determination, my mind spins with possible solutions to the social media problem, in particular TikTok. I’ve seen a few of the vids myself, the ones that went viral on the college sports and college life hashtags. Amusing, but not pretty, from last semester. Dylan and Roman are behind me trying to keep up because I’m in fast mode, everything in me churning. We get to Dylan’s Jeep and I take shotgun.

“Don’t tell me we’re canceling the party Saturday night,” Roman says as soon as he slams his door.

“We can’t do that,” Dylan says. “The word’s out. Half the campus is going to show up no matter what.”

“We’re not canceling the first-game-of-the-year party,” I say. “We’re not breaking BMOC House tradition on my watch.”

“Then what? How are we supposed to stop TikTok vids?”

“We collect phones at the door.” It’s the only thing that makes sense in all the possibilities I turned over in my head between the field house and the parking lot. “Roman, you’re in charge of recruiting the D-line to play door bouncers.”

“Sure boss. But we’ll need to make it worth their while.”

“I’ll think of something,” I say. “I’ll introduce them to whatever girl they pick.”

Dylan scoffs. “They’re on the football team. They can get whatever girl they want without your help.”

“Not Tony and Sam,” I say. “They’re both seriously lacking in pickup skills. I’ve witnessed some painful attempts.”

“They’re shy is all,” Roman says. “But it’s a decent bribe. Tony and Sam’ll do it for a couple of hours, then what?”

“Then we’ll get the O-line to take over.” I smirk at him. Dylan laughs. I add, “Ozzie and Winston will be drunk by then, but effective. No one comes in after midnight.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dylan says. “A plan full of holes, but a plan.”

“I’ll spread it around that anyone who posts anything from the party on TikTok will answer to me.”

“What are you going to do about it? Beat them up?” Roman snickers.

“You questioning my toughness?” I punch his arm. I know he’s not because he’s seen me take care of problems before. “Seriously. This isn’t anything we want to solve with fists. We’ll trade a bad rep for being horny fucks and end up with a bad rep for being fucking bullies.”

“Then what are you going to do?” Dylan asks, taking his eyes off the road for a sec to give me a curious glance. I grab the wheel to keep him on track without missing a beat. It’s not the first time I’ve taken over the steering from the passenger seat of his Jeep. Probably won’t be the last.

“You suck as a chauffeur, you know that?”

“Answer the question.” He brushes my hand from the wheel as we pull onto our street.

“For starters, we can ban anyone from all future parties if they post to TikTok or any social media anything having to do with our parties.”

“That’s a start. You going to be monitoring social media 24/7?” Dylan pulls into our driveway, taking his prime parking spot courtesy of me because he does more driving duty than either me or Roman. Best wheels wins that privilege.