We spend the entire morning going back and forth about this date I supposedly owe him. My argument, of course, is that the omelet at my place was the date—because it was. But he says it wasn’t because we didn’t order any food, and he didn’t take me anywhere but home.

His voice gets further away from the kitchen doorway as he announces, “I’m taking out my phone to figure this out…all right, got it: Date,” he reads aloud as his voice returns to the kitchen’s open doorway. “A social or romantic appointment or engagement. Last night wasn’t either of those.”

“It was social! We talked,” I insist, placing the cup of coffee I made him on the sliver of tile Naima had the nerve to call counter space when she helped me set up the kitchen.

“Yeah, for like five minutes and then you jumped on top of me—you call that a date? Wasn’t romantic neither.” He takes the coffee from me with a chuff. “I think you can do better than that, Reynolds.”

“What are you talking about? I gave you what you wanted! Now you can cross me off your list.”

I hear the slurp of his first sip of coffee before he asks, “What list?”

“You know, your bang list. Blind girl’s probably worth like 10 or 15 points.”

Silence…then comes the muted clink of ceramic being placed back on the counter. The next thing I know, Jake’s right in front of me, his voice low and quiet as he says, “You’ve either got real low self-esteem or accidentally hooked up with one of those douchebags who has a bang list.”

He gets his answer in my silence. “Ah, hell,” he says. “Was he Italian? Tell me he wasn’t Italian.”

“I don’t date Italians,” I remind him.

“So he wasn’t Italian. Thank fuck. Like I need another thing working against me with you.” He kisses me on the forehead like that’s all settled, and says, “Alright, we can talk about the rest over breakfast.”

“I’m not going to breakfast with you.”

“You wanna make it here? That’s cool. Could go for another one of those omelets…”

“Sorry, I used all my eggs yesterday—you know, for our dinner date.”

“But see, that wasn’t a date.”

We end up arguing about this over breakfast at Tom’s Restaurant, which Talia told me was once an iconic diner because it was the setting for some TV show I’ve never seen and some song I’ve never heard from the 90s. And we keep arguing about whether last night was a date or not as we walk to school.

Then at 8:30 P.M. when I leave my Civil Rights Lawyering in the Modern Era seminar, the first thing I smell is his cologne. He’s there, waiting outside the door.

“So what you wanna do?” he asks me. “Go to your place for dinner or get that date you owe me out of the way?”

In the months that follow, we argue about whether I still owe him a date over several meals—at my place and out and about in the city. During the intermissions of the special TDF Accessibility Broadway show performances which I try to attend at least once or twice a month. While he’s hanging spare suits in my closet, so he doesn’t have to schlep over to his Upper East Side condo to get dressed for class every morning. Sometimes he even brings it up when we’re trying to decide what music to play via Alexa. He likes Sinatra, like all day and every day, while I usually listen to current music made by people who aren’t dead. “We should go to a jazz bar on that date you owe me,” he argues like he’s cashing in a token. “Then you’d learn to have some appreciation for the greats.”

In late April when we make the rounds of end-of-the-school-year parties together, we drag our fellow law students into the argument, asking them to take a side. Only to band together against the one friend who points out, “Um, aren’t you pretty much already dating? What does it matter?”

Okay, it matters. Yeah, maybe we are kind of together. Like, technically. But keep in mind, Talia, my best friend go-to guide, is currently planning the wedding of the decade. So I guess you could sort of call Jake a fill-in. Who I happen to have sex with—lots and lots of hot sex.

And it should be pointed out he’s never kept his promise to let me be in control when we have sex, even though he’d said, “Next time.” According to him, he meant next time after our date. Which I don’t owe him, so cue another argument whenever I try to get on top.

Though the arguments have lessened as the weeks have gone by. I don’t want to say Jake has tamed me. It’s more like I feel a little less prickly every week I spend with him. I mean, he’s all right. He’s always doing stuff he doesn’t have to do for me, like coming over to my place to study, even if it’s for a class we’re not in together. Like, just in case I need anything. He’s great at navigation, and listens to the specially trained describer at the Broadway shows we go to so he can get better at describing things. He says it’s a good skill for a lawyer to have, but still…it warms my heart more than I’m comfortable with, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy spending time with him.

He can be so stubborn and irritating. I almost never laugh at any of his jokes, but it feels like I’m always smiling whenever we talk.

I mean, we’re not officially together. We haven’t had any conversations about it or changed our Facebook statuses or anything like that. It just that we’re always, like, not not together. To the point that when we attend the b-school’s end-of-the-school-year party, one of his classmates asks Jake, “You and your girlfriend have plans for the summer?”

Jake answers. “Haven’t decided yet. I have to start back up with business classes at the end of May, and Amber’s got to start studying for the bar after she’s done with final exams. What’re you and Heather doing?”

“Why didn’t you correct that guy when he called me your girlfriend?” I ask later when we’re walking back to my place on what feels and smells like a beautiful spring New York City evening. Warm flower scented air with cool breezes carrying faint whiffs of concrete pee.

“Because that would’ve been stupid,” Jake answers.

So I guess I’m his girlfriend now? I write to Talia the next afternoon. Jake goes down to New Jersey to spend every Sunday with his parents and their large extended family, so he’s not there to overhear.

Even though it’s late at night on her side of the world, the voiceover on my computer notifies me I have a reply message, like, seconds later.

Of course, you’re his girlfriend! He’s over there all the time. He’s probably over there now!

Yeah, all the time except now. He spends Sundays with his family.

Have you met them yet?

No!

That’s weird.

Not really. Jake and I talk a lot. But not about our families. And not about my past. Which I’m totally fine with. Saves me the trouble of an awkward conversation where I have to claim I don’t talk about my family or my past because I’m still so traumatized about the car accident. Almost the truth, but not quite, and another consequence of inadvertently becoming his girlfriend—I’ve been feeling worse and worse about lying to him.

I don’t know. I guess. I type back to Talia.

Have you been to his place yet?

My place is closer and set up exactly to my specifications, I type back in lieu of a no.

But you like him, right? Even though the Voiceover reads the words in a completely neutral monotone, I can sense Talia trying to put a cheery spin on what looks like a couple of huge red flags.

Do I like him? It’s a question I’ve never had to think about before.

But I answer honestly. I don’t know. It’s like my wall’s still up. But instead of knocking it down, he crawled over it and made himself right at home. Without permission. In my apartment. Just about every night except Sundays.

Sounds like you like him, she types back.

Yeah, it totally does, I admit to myself.

We text our goodbyes. And since Jake’s not here to crow about it, I cave and tell Alexa to put on the Come Fly with Me album by Frank Sinatra. Then Frank takes me on a romantic tour of the world, from “Autumn in New York” to “April in Paris.”

Listening to Sinatra sing his worldly songs, I think of my father…the real one who’s still out there somewhere in the world, not the fake one who died in a car accident.

I will myself not to do it. I’ve resisted doing it for weeks now. Months. Ever since that morning when Jake took me out to breakfast.

But by the time Frank starts singing about the “Isle of Capri,” the computer’s male voiceover informs me that I’ve opened a new Incognito window in Google Chrome. And then that I’m signing into a Yahoo account.

I take a deep breath…and start typing as Frank tells me about the moonlight in Vermont.

The Voiceover literally spells it out as I type, “D-e-a-r SPACE D-a-d-d-y, SPACE I SPACE m-e-t SPACE a SPACE b-o-y.”