I’m wearing my blue dress again because it’s the only cute outfit I have, but the neck is a bit slack; it doesn’t sit on my collar bones quite the way it should. I remember how it got that way and feel an uncomfortable ache between my legs.

“This isn’t right,” Daphne says. She’s scrutinizing the drooping neckline of my dress, picking at it with her fingertips. “You should return this. It shouldn’t get worn out so quickly.”

“I think it…maybe got twisted in the wash or something. Some of my underwear got messed up too.” Or I left them crumpled on the floor of Garrett’s kitchen.

Daphne pulls a slinky black dress from her closet and holds it up to me. “We’re close to the same size. I think this would work on you.”

Is she for real? “I think you’re like two sizes smaller than I am. What do you eat, anyway?”

She pulls the dress off the hanger. “I eat plenty. My whole family just has stupid-high metabolisms. You should have seen my sister. Here.” She hands me the dress.

I strip down to my underwear and bra and slide the dress over my head. It’s a little less ‘slinky’ and more ‘clingy’ on my body, but it definitely does something for me.

“Jesus, Malory, you are one hot chick. I think I’m going to have to give you that dress. You fill it out way better than I do.”

The party is in Garrett’s neighborhood, several houses past his and on the opposite side of the street. When I realize how close we are, my heartrate jacks up a few notches and stays there. I’m supposed to see him tomorrow night—he messaged me yesterday, and just seeing his name on my phone made the hairs on my arms stand up—but I can’t stop peering over the heads of the other party goers, hoping to catch sight of him here. Every time I see someone around his height with near-black hair, my knees almost give out.

I distract myself by taking shots from the bottle of tequila being passed around. Music blares from a speaker on the wall, a thick hip-hop bass beat rattling my insides and urging me to move as the tequila washes away my stiffness. Daphne and I have downed three shots and a beer each, and we’re dancing in the center of the darkened living room among a throng of writhing bodies.

“Malory! Hey!” I turn to the sound of my name and see Rome waving at me over top of the crowd. I wave back, and he pushes his way through toward us.

“This is Rome!” I shout at Daphne. “And this is my roommate Daphne!”

They nod at each other, but I can see the subtle condescension in Daphne’s normally cheerful face as she scans his baggy jeans and too-large T-shirt. I’d almost stopped noticing how low his pants hang on his hips. I’m about to say something else to Rome, but the crowd jostles us, and he’s carried away with the current. Daphne and I resume dancing on our own.

A popular song comes on, with a jerking bass beat and hypnotic sound effects. Suddenly the floor is clearing, people are backing away, and Rome is there in the empty space left by the receding crowd. The crowd is whooping, and I hear someone say, “Sick!” I put a hand on Daphne’s arm to get her to look. Rome is popping and locking to the music like a dancer in a hip-hop video.

Daphne and I step back too as he drops into a gravity-defying move that has him balancing on just one palm with his legs kicked up in the air, his forearm muscles flexing, the rest of his body frozen and rotating slowly. And he’s impressed by my cello playing?

The song ends, and Rome hops up. I’m grinning—I can’t help myself—but the crowd closes in again and people are slapping Rome on the shoulder. He adjusts his pants with a little jerk of the waistband and tips his hat at his new friends before making his way back over to Daphne and me. “You guys wanna get a drink? That made me thirsty!” He’s beaming at me, practically glittering with pride.

“Fucking show-off,” I tell him.

His smile deepens, making his eyes crinkle until they almost shut. “You should be more of a show-off,” he says. “Hiding all your talent in your dorm room like a music thief. Shit’s criminal.”

Daphne gapes at me, pretend-offended. “You played for him and not for me?”

“Rome likes barging in on people,” I say.

“Well, okay, but you still owe me a concert!” Daphne says.

We stay until the early morning, drinking until Daphne is leaning on me for support (again) and Rome has cleared the dance floor a couple more times, once with a girl almost as good as he is.

The three of us stumble back to the dorm together, and as we pass Garrett’s house I instinctively move to the other side of Daphne and Rome, shielding myself with their bodies just in case Garrett happens to be peeking out the window. The idea of him seeing me tripping through the streets drunk at three in the morning feels too…dirty.

---

I’m a can of soda, all shook up and ready to bust.

Garrett is probably already waiting downstairs, and I’m standing here trembling in front of my dorm room mirror in my trademark denim shorts and white T-shirt, terrified. My skin breaks out in goose bumps every time I think of him. How ridiculous will I act in person? I cannot go out there.

I woke up with a hangover this morning but forced myself to practice and study anyway. I also played downtown for a couple of hours to replenish my languishing bank account, and stopped by one of the boutiques to splurge on a few thongs. The underwear is just as unwelcome in my ass crack as I suspected it would be, though hopefully it won’t be there for long. The thought makes me blush furiously, and I pull a brush through my hair one more time, tug at the edges of my T-shirt, and lean in to the mirror, trying to find something else I can fix.

“Malory, you are like, so nervous that you’re giving me anxiety. Would you chill?” Over my shoulder in the mirror, Daphne’s laughing at me from behind her laptop.

“I’m trying. I just…shit, I can’t even explain it. He’s not…I’ve never met anyone like him.” I see myself in the water with him, sinking beneath the surface while the manatees circle. And then at his house, on his counter, Come on, Garrett, fuck me, please…Did I seriously say that to him?

“Last week you barely seemed like you cared.”

Last week I hadn’t been destroyed by a couple of fingers and the nasty sound of my own begging. I pick at a strand of hair, tucking it behind my ear, untucking it so it hangs along my cheek, then tucking it behind my ear again.

“Oh…” Daphne’s face lights up with understanding. “Are you guys going to have sex for the first time tonight?”

I visibly convulse at the thought, at the image of Garrett between my legs, sinking into me, and she giggles back.

“Oh, you’ve got it bad.”

“Ugh. Fucking hell.” I grab my purse from my bed and sling it over my shoulder, smooth my T-shirt again, adjust the hem of my shorts.

Daphne tilts her head down and gives me a knowing, almost flirtatious smile. “Look, Garrett is probably just more mature than what you’re used to. He’s older. He’s got his shit together. I can understand why that might be a little…intimidating.”

I want to tell her that the way I feel has nothing to do with any of that—it’s what he does to me, it’s the dichotomy of healing and humiliating, of suturing and tearing, how somehow he manages to do both at the same time. She wouldn’t understand. “I’d better go. I don’t want to be rude and make him wait.”

She rolls her eyes and looks back down at her laptop. “Shit, make him wait a little. You don’t have to bend over backward to please him.”

I think bending over for Garrett is precisely what I want to do, but I keep that to myself.

He’s waiting under the oak like the first time we met, when he took me to see the manatees. I’m unsure if I should hug him this time or just take his hand or keep my distance, but he takes charge and slides a hand around my neck, pulling me toward him for a soft kiss. It’s only a peck, so quick, but his lips are parted a little, and behind the gesture there is a subtle suggestion of something…more. Or maybe I just want there to be.

On our way to his house, we chat about the week. He tells me about his Contracts Law course and the mountain of case files he has to read through, and I confess my abysmal grade in Twentieth-Century Europe and the resulting formation of the study group. The contrast in our coursework makes me feel like an idiot.

“I was so sure you’d done better than you thought. Didn’t you study?” he asks.

Yes, but apparently I’m too dumb to absorb it. “I thought I did.” We’re almost to his driveway now. “I’ve heard college can be a rude awakening for some people who had it easy in high school. I guess I’m one of those people.”

“High school was easy for you?”

High school fucking sucked. “The making good grades part was. After my mom died, all I did was study. Well, and practice. I guess it was a distraction. Liza went the other way, reading a lot by herself and rebelling against the institution kind of stuff.”

“Liza is your sister?”

“Yeah, two years younger.”

Garrett unlocks his front door and pushes it open for me. The place is as spotless and freezing as the last time I was here, but my heart accelerates as I step over the threshold. On the other side of the living room wall is the kitchen where I had the most incredible non-sex of my life.

“I wasn’t planning on making a big deal of dinner tonight. Do you mind eating light?” I follow him into the kitchen. “I made a white wine sangria—it’s chilling in the fridge.”

I stupidly scan the floor for the underwear I left behind when I was here last. Garrett peeks back at me, watches my eyes, and I swear he’s reading my mind, trying to see how affected I am. I straighten my shoulders and smile. “Sangria sounds great!”

As if I even know what sangria is.

“Excellent.” He opens the refrigerator door and pulls out a pitcher of sparkling liquid filled with a rainbow of fruits and herbs, then a serving tray covered in Saran Wrap. The tray is loaded with thin cuts of what looks like mozzarella, along with slices of bright, juicy-looking tomatoes, thin-sliced ham, and leaves of some herb I don’t recognize but am too embarrassed to ask Garrett about.

“Do you always eat this well?” I ask instead, leaning against the counter and picking at my cuticles. I have no idea where to put my hands, but I don’t want to cross my arms because I read somewhere that in body language it means “I don’t want to be here.”

Garrett produces two wine glasses and fills them halfway. He is so modest with his pouring—I never get the feeling he’s trying to make me drunk. “How do you normally eat?” He holds out one of the glasses.

“Oh, I usually…it’s kind of sad compared to this.” I accept the wine glass but hold off on sipping.

He takes a sip. His dimple appears with his grin, and he raises an eyebrow, encouraging me to go on.

“I eat a lot of ramen noodles. And cereal. And boxed macaroni and cheese.”

He chuckles. “Hang out with me and I’ll make sure you eat well.” He lifts his glass and I do the same with mine, clinking it against his before taking a sip.

Now that I think of it, he lives a fairly lavish lifestyle for a student. I remember the FJ Cruiser under the carport. “Do you work?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“I sell insurance.”

I laugh, because I’m sure he’s joking, but when his face remains serious, I say, “Oh, really? I guess that’s…good? You mean like life insurance? How does one go about that?”

He leans against the counter. “Licensing is as easy as taking an exam. I sell life insurance, long-term care, annuities…do you know what those are?”

“Not really,” I admit. I try to remember the little I’ve learned so far in my macroeconomics class, but we’ve only covered more general functions of the market. “I think my mother had an annuity; I remember looking through the statements. Are they kind of like…mutual funds?”

Garrett smiles like he’s impressed. “That’s basically it. Very much like mutual funds, but you typically hold them longer.”

He opens a drawer and pulls out two forks. “Let’s take this food to the living room.”

I wish I’d thought to bring a hoodie or something to wear over my T-shirt—my arms are covered in goose bumps. I follow him to the other room and sit next to him on the couch, sliding my feet out of my flip-flops and tucking my legs underneath me to try to get warm. He sets the tray on the coffee table and hands me a fork.

“God,” I say around a bite of mozzarella. “This is like heaven on my tongue.”

He snickers. “Taste the prosciutto.”

He means the stuff that looks like ham. I taste it, and it’s delicious—everything is. We chat while we eat and sip, bantering about the differences between growing up in New York and growing up in Florida. “Summers would have been easier if we’d had air conditioning, I guess,” I say, finishing my sangria.

“You didn’t have AC? In Florida?” He sets his empty glass on the coffee table.

“Well, until I was…hmm, maybe ten, we did. It was around then that things started to go bad.”

“What happened?”

I rub at the gooseflesh on my arms. “My dad lost his job. He blamed his bosses, said there was a conspiracy to get rid of him, that the management was laundering money and they were mad that my dad was trying to expose it.”

Garrett frowns, waits for me to continue.

“And…well, I don’t know the whole truth because I was just a kid and it’s been so long, but now I sort of suspect that it was my dad who was laundering money. Or trying to.”

“Damn.” He settles back into the couch.

“We lost our house, and my dad just…got depressed, I guess, and was angry a lot. It sucked.” I shrug and smile, trying to lighten the moment. I hate even thinking about these things. It makes me hear the sounds again—my dad yelling, the crash of something thrown against the wall, the bump bump bump of Liza and I scooting backward under the bed.

“And your mom?”

My throat tightens again. I can’t seem to maintain control of my emotions when I’m around Garrett. I shake my head and hug my arms around myself, the cold suddenly too much. She never yelled. She took the blows and never yelled. “I’d…rather not…” I feel stiff, like I’m petrifying.

“That’s all right, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry. Why don’t we watch a movie? It’s still early.”

I inhale a deep breath and let it out slowly, grateful he took the hint. “A movie would be great. I haven’t watched anything since I got to school.”

“What do you like? Romance? Drama? Action?”

I smile coyly, still trying to lighten the mood. “What do you think?”

He considers me a moment. “Sci-fi?”

“You’re good,” I say. “I also like superhero movies.” I’ll watch anything that’s not a reproduction of reality.

“Got a thing for Superman, do you?”

I blush.

“I actually have the latest Superman. Or would you prefer Avengers?”

“Ah, yeah,” I say, wriggling in my seat like an excited kid. “I haven’t seen the new Avengers movie.”

“Perfect. I’ll make popcorn.”

“Awesome. But can I just ask one little favor?” I’ve been hugging myself since I got here—has he honestly not noticed?

He leans in close with that smooth-faced smirk. “Anything.”

“Can I have a blanket?”