“Han-nah is slum-ming,” Caitlin singsonged at me from across the rack of clothes.

I ducked my head and blushed. “Hush, Caitlin, it’s not like that.” My friend had dragged me to the mall, where we were drinking coffee frappes and checking out the new offerings at Nordstrom. And I’d just confessed to her that I’d been hooking up with a handyman named Boone.

“Oh, really?” Caitlin crossed her arms. “Because I’m sure you two have so much in common?”

“Well…” We both liked having sex with each other. That was something.

“Let me try again. Han-nah has a boy-toy.” Caitlin preened. “Better?”

I rolled my eyes at her and pulled out an apricot-colored shell top. Would this wash me out? “He’s no more my boy-toy than I’m his girl-toy.”

“Girl-toy sounds like you’re a blow up doll, hon.”

But boy-toy didn’t? “I don’t like the implication that I’m using him just because he’s not as rich as I am.”

“‘Not as rich as you are?’” Caitlin echoed. “I think that’s putting it mildly.”

“You know what I mean.” I moved down toward the jeans.

“And you know what I mean,” Caitlin said. “It’s not like you’re dating some scholarship student at Canton, Hannah. This guy isn’t just poor. He’s like, a day laborer.”

“So what?”

“So you’re honestly going to say that’s not part of the appeal?” Caitlin eyed me. “You know I’m not some classist snob, but honestly…”

I checked out a pair of dark wash skinny jeans. “A bit of rough.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what they call it in England when you hook up with someone…” Of a lower class. “Someone who isn’t in the same social circles. That you’re going after ‘a bit of rough.’”

Caitlin shrugged. “That sounds better than ‘slumming,’ I guess.”

“It’s also more accurate,” I admitted, blushing. “Boone really isn’t like any other guy I’ve been with.”

Caitlin let out a strangled squeal and crowded around to my side of the display. “Do tell!”

“Well, there’s the truck, to start with.”

“You did it in the truck?”

“On the truck.”

“Holy shit.” Caitlin’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a guitar player and a leather jacket away from an 80’s hair band video.”

“Yeah.” I lowered my voice even more. “And he kind of…talks dirty. During.”

“Ooh, like what?”

I moved away again, suddenly sheepish. Maybe I shouldn’t be sharing this stuff. “I don’t know. He says he’s going to do stuff to me, and then he does.”

“Like what?” Caitlin frowned. “Like he’s giving you advanced warning?”

“No. Just like…it’s hard to explain. But it’s really hot.”

“It must be,” Caitlin said. “You’re as red as a lobster.”

I covered my flushed cheeks with my hands. And I hadn’t even told her the other parts. Like how last night, he took my fears and turned them into some kind of sex fantasy. Or the part where he’d almost made me come just by feeling me up. Or the part where he promised me another orgasm, whenever I wanted.

“Plus, you know, he’s literally rough.”

Caitlin smiled wickedly. “Like he makes it hurt so good?”

I dropped my face into my hands and shook my head vigorously. “No, like his hands are rough. Callused. It feels…nice.”

“Nice?”

“Well, Dylan’s hands had no calluses, I can tell you that much.” You didn’t get calluses from handling beakers in a Canton bioengineering lab.

“Yeah, well, I hope Dylan goes impotent with his skanky new bitch,” said Caitlin, and sailed off to the scarf section. “They have it coming.”

I sighed and followed. Okay, I had to nip this in the bud. They were coming home soon. “You know I appreciate your support, Caitlin, but it’s hard for me when you say stuff like that. I’m trying to be friends with him.”

“Why?” she asked, incredulous. “You should write that loser off. He doesn’t deserve anything from you. You were so great for that boy, and he cheated on you.”

“It’s…complicated,” I said. “You know they were together years ago? Him and—”

“The slutbitchskank?”

“Her name is Tess.” If Caitlin couldn’t imagine why I’d ever talk to Dylan again, I was going to have a hell of a time explaining why I’d ever hang out with Tess when she got back from Colorado.

“Whatever.”

“He lost his virginity to her.”

“Who gives a shit? He was with you.”

“But he wasn’t in love with me,” I pointed out. “He loves her.” I shrugged. “I think he’s going to marry her.” Because Tess and Dylan, they had plans. Real plans, not stupid schedules like Jeffrey Connell.

Caitlin was silent for a moment. “You’re a saint, Hannah, you know that?”

I tossed my hair behind my shoulder. “Duh.”

“And I don’t want to see you get hurt again, the way Dylan hurt you.” Caitlin put a hand on my shoulder. “The last time some guy hurt you, you quit school and ran away to Europe.”

She wasn’t wrong, but it hadn’t been Dylan who’d done that. It had been Dad.

“And I can’t bear another semester without you.”

“Really?” I looked at her skeptically.

“Well, yeah,” she said. “I mean, I’m still not going to that stupid Halloween horror thing at Busch Gardens with you, but yeah. Of course.”

Dylan had hated it too, and had totally made fun of me for dressing up like the girl from The Ring when we’d gone. I bet Tess wore sexy devil costumes or something cute and normal for Halloween.

“That’s sweet,” I replied.

“And so you go, and you enjoy your bit of rough or whatever—God knows you deserve it—but don’t fool yourself that this Boone guy is something he’s not.”

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I know exactly what Boone is.”

But I didn’t. At all.

---

I stared at the text. If I were a proper lady, I would have said yes, even though I didn’t have plans. After all, as my mother and my cotillion instructors had said, gentlemen who have good intentions toward a lady make their plans several days in advance. They act the way Jeffrey Connell did, making advanced plans and reservations and informing the lady of her clothing requirements and showing up at the house and chatting with the parents and bringing flowers. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

For nearly a full minute, my instincts warred with my desires. Finally, I capitulated, and texted back.

That was less than three hours from now. I tried to imagine breaking the news to my mother that I had another date tonight, and this one would not be bringing me flowers or driving a Lexus or taking me to a country club. I’d been…less than forthcoming about the disaster that was Jeffrey Connell. This morning, she asked me if I’d had a good evening. I’d told her I had, which was true. The end of it, with Boone, had been quite nice, even if we hadn’t actually had sex again.

A date. With Boone. How much did I suck at one-night stands?

I walked into the living room and peeked out through the sliding glass doors that led to the deck. Boone was not on the roof, but he was on the Gardners’ back patio, stripping paint off the railing. He looked up and waved. I waved back, then started typing.

A moment later, I saw him check his phone and break into a wide smile.

I looked up. He pulled his shirt over his head and struck a few mock poses for me. Then he put his shirt back on and picked up his phone.

I worried my bottom lip with my teeth and peered through the glass at my date. Even from here I could see wet patches on his T-shirt, and smears of dirt on his face and arms. My bit of rough.

“There you are!” Mom said as she came in from the kitchen. “Did you and Caitlin have fun at the mall?”

“Yeah,” I said, backing away from the door as if she could somehow tell I’d just ordered a man on the other side to start stripping. “I got a new pair of jeans.”

“That’s nice.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “Hannah—”

Uh-oh. I did not like that tone.

“I ran into Mandy Whitman at the grocery store earlier and she asked if you were all right. Seems she was at the country club last night, too. She said you got sick?”

Got sick? Did she mean hid in the bathroom after I found out my own mother thought I was good for nothing but getting married off to a boor?

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It passed.” After all, I’d spent eight months being a total disappointment to my father. It’s time I learned Mom felt the same way.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, sweetie. Maybe you should call Jeffrey and apologize for leaving him there. Mandy said he seemed quite disappointed afterward.”

I came over to the table and sank down on a seat. “Do you mean to tell me that Jeffrey Connell told a bunch of strangers in the restaurant that I’d left because I was sick?”

Mom blinked at me. “You’re right. That wasn’t very polite of him. He should probably have driven you home.”

“It’s also a lie!” I cried. “I left him there, Mom, because he was a complete jerkwad and if I had to spend another minute sitting with him, I was probably going to do something that would get the whole country club really talking. If I was sick, it was because he was the most nauseating boy I’ve ever been out with.”

She just looked sad. “Hannah, I don’t understand your taste in men, I really don’t.”

“No, you don’t,” I said. “But that’s not the problem.” The problem was that her taste in men seemed to focus on guys who didn’t know how to respect the women they were with. Jeffrey and his job interview of a date, Dad and his mistress… “Can we maybe just accept the idea that your setups aren’t going to work for me and give it a rest?”

“Hannah, I’m just trying to help…”

I snorted. It was either that or sob. “You want to help because you don’t think I’m good for anything else.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she snapped back, affronted.

“You told Jeffrey’s mother that I would be the perfect match for him because I had no aspirations of my own.”

At least she had the decency to look shocked. “Hannah, I may have said—”

“Do you know he had our whole lives planned out? How I’d decorate his house, how many kids we’d have, where we’d get married? And he told me the whole thing like it was some kind of business plan and he was just hiring an assistant.”

“That seems remarkably crude for—”

“For what, Mom? A Yale man? A member of the country club? A guy who brings me a rose and drives a Lexus and wears blue blazers with gold buttons?”

“I was going to say a first date,” she replied, folding her hands primly on the tabletop.

“So you’d prefer he waited to trot out his master scheme until date number three?”

“Hannah—”

But I’d heard enough. I rose from the table. “Tell me right now,” I said. “Do you think my best option is to just find a rich guy to marry?”

“I don’t think you should marry someone just because he’s rich,” she replied carefully.

“That’s not what I asked. What do you see for my future, Mom? What is it you see?”

She looked up at me, confusion and fear warring on her smooth, perfect features. “I don’t know. How can I, when you haven’t figured it out?”

“So you think I’ll figure it out if I just marry the right guy?” I whispered.

“No!” She stood up. “I think maybe socializing with people who have some sort of direction in their life will make you find yours. I don’t want you to find meaning through a man! Look what happened the last time you tried that—you styled that boy like it was your job, you acted like you cared about his stupid seaweed, and then Dylan dumped you and you dropped out of school.”

“Not because of Dylan. Because I didn’t have any direction then, either. Not like—” Tess. “Dylan, or my other friends. I was spinning my wheels in college. I needed to take some time off.” And I needed to get away from my father.

“So you took some time off,” she said snidely. “You spent thousands of dollars taking time off. Now what?”

“I don’t know!” I screamed. Shit. Could Boone hear us? Mom would just die.

“Exactly,” Mom said, as if I hadn’t yelled. She turned and started busying herself rearranging the fruit in the bowl on our marble island. “You still don’t know. And that’s what I told Mary Beth Connell. You have no particular aspirations. You have no plans.” She faced me and I saw raw hurt shining in her eyes. “Perhaps I should have been more discreet. But is that a fate worse than death to you, Hannah? To marry a man and raise a child? Is my life such a nightmare in your eyes?”

Silence hung heavy as smoke in the kitchen. Everything I wanted to say was too tangled up with truths I couldn’t share. Growing up, I thought her life was perfect—that we three Swifts were the perfect little family. But now I knew the ugly truth behind all that perfection. How could I want her life, when I knew its price?

And maybe when I’d dated Dylan, I’d let myself get caught up in his passions. After all, he was so enthusiastic about his own scientific ambitions—wasn’t it better to play support staff to someone who had real dreams than waste time spinning your wheels on your own? But all it had meant is that I wasted time on Dylan. He hadn’t loved me. I was an ornamental shell, good for advising him on a new wardrobe but not for sharing his life.

Even when he’d broken up with me, there were no complaints. I was “nice,” I was “sweet,” we’d had “a lot of fun together,” but he didn’t see a future for us. Of course not. He’d seen a future for him and Tess.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Mom,” I said softly, “you know I love you, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But I can respect your choices without wanting to make the same ones.”

“Well, that’s fine, Hannah,” she said coldly. “But you do have to make some kind of choice.”

Didn’t I know it. The only problem was that every option seemed like the wrong one.