I’m heading to the Subway on the edge of campus to grab dinner after a day packed with classes when my mom’s number appears on the screen of my phone.

“Hey, Ma,” I answer.

“Aaron! How’s my favourite son?”

“Favourite by default,” I answer. “I’m your only son. If you actually wanted to boost my confidence, you could call me your favourite child.”

“I love you and Meghan equally,” she says with a laugh. “Now answer the question. How are you?”

“I’m...good?” I respond. “Is this just a call to see how I am?”

“Well, yes.” She sounds hesitant. “Is that alright?”

“Of course. It’s just a little weird.”

She sighs into the phone. “I wanted to check up on you. I know it’s been just over a year. The anniversary must have been—”

“I’m fine.” I grit my teeth as I continue up the sidewalk, my whole body tensing. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know it’s...hard, Aaron, but we’ve never talked about it, and I don’t—”

“I’m fine,” I repeat. “I’m getting dinner now. I have to go.”

“Alright, alright.” I can picture her rubbing little circles into her temples, the way she does when she’s tired or stressed. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Ma.”

Sliding my phone into my pocket, I notice that my other hand has gathered into a fist at my side. I remind myself that my mom’s just trying to be helpful, but the urge to push her out, to cut every tie with anything that reminds me of what happened, just won’t go away.

I thought I’d managed to get through the anniversary without anyone bringing it up. It’s been more than a year now; I’m tired of wearing the Guy With a Dead Girlfriend label.

I open the door of Subway, trying to wipe the scowl off my face before I subject any innocent sandwich makers to an unwarranted death glare. The bell overhead rings and I step into the near-empty dining area. Two girls are eating subs in a corner of the room. The one facing me is wearing a Subway shirt and visor. Her eyes widen at the sight of me and she taps her friend on the shoulder.

“Yo!” I hear her say. “It’s Aaron Penn.”

The second girl turns around, and I don’t know how I didn’t recognize Christina from the back. Her mass of hair is a dead giveaway.

“So it is,” she replies, looking me up and down. “We were just talking about you. Us, rather. The project.”

I cross the room to stand next to them. “What about it?”

I watch as the smile I’m getting way too addicted to spreads across her face. “Gary just put the results up on the class portal. We’re in.”

“For the showcase?”

“Duh, for the showcase.” She reaches over me and punches me in the arm, hard enough that I have to stop myself from reaching up to rub it. “We did it, Penn! We get to present in front of all those firms. I’m going to get to talk to Epsilon Media reps...”

She lapses off into silence, her eyes shining with some golden vision of the future.

“Right. I’ll leave you to your Epsilon-induced lady boner now. Congratulations, Dominguez. I always knew there was no way we weren’t getting a spot.”

She grimaces at the term ‘lady boner’ and I make my way over to the counter.

“I’ll help you!” offers her friend, getting up from the table and dumping her sandwich wrapper in the trash. “I’ve been on a very extended break.”

I order a meatball sub and she gets to work on making it.

“I’m Alice, by the way,” she offers.

“Aaron,” I respond.

“Yeah, I know. Most people do. If I have to hear one more girl going crazy over your beanie, I might just grab it off your head and burn it.”

“Or keep it and auction it off to one of his fangirls!” Christina calls from across the room. They both snicker.

“What is this? The Aaron Penn roast?” I demand.

“Nah,” Christina answers. “You would be way too easy to roast. I prefer a challenge.”

Alice interrupts before I can fire off a comeback. “Beanies aside, you should totally join us at Christina’s place tonight. We’re celebrating you guys getting into the showcase once I’m done my shift. Seems only fair we invite the other half of the project.”

“Seriously, Alice?” Christina groans. “Since when do you have permission to invite people to my home?”

Alice shrugs and turns back to me. “I mean, we were going to have a dance party in our underwear, you know, given the whole lingerie theme, but we can change our plans.”

I raise my eyebrows and deliver my next line to Christina. “No need. I’ll just suck it up and force myself to watch you two dance in your underwear. I wouldn’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“You’re the definition of an inconvenience,” she replies smoothly, not missing a beat.

“So you’ll be there, right?” Alice urges, as I hand her the money for my sandwich and take the bag out of her hands.

I look back and forth between the two of them. “Am I actually invited?”

“I guess Alice is right,” Christina concedes. “You are half the project. Also we need to re-work a few things for the showcase, so this will give us a chance to start.”

“No!” Alice bursts out. “No working. This is a celebration, Christina. The only thing you’re going to be working on tonight is a bottle of whiskey.”

“I like how this one thinks,” I say, jerking my thumb at Alice. “You should listen to her more often. Text me your address, Dominguez, and I’ll think about gracing you with my presence.”

“You disgust me,” she deadpans.

“I disgust you with how much you adore me,” I deadpan right back.

* * *

I’m standing outside the door of Christina’s apartment, wondering if I should just turn around and leave.

The fact that she might not actually want me here isn’t what has me ready to bolt down the hall; it’s how much I want to be here that sets alarm bells off in my head. The thought that I’m about to see where she lives, to sit on her couch and look around at a whole new side of her life, ignites the sparks of curiosity I’ve been making it my mission to put out.

Before I can do anything stupid, the door opens up and Christina stands there in a pair of jeans and a loose t-shirt.

“You actually showed up,” she greets me.

“Didn’t want to miss you dancing in your underwear,” I reply, “not that it’s anything I haven’t seen before.”

“I hope you brought some kind of alcohol for me to dull my irritation with.”

She steps back and lets me into the room. There’s a tiny entryway with a kitchen to the left, and beyond that a living room just big enough for a dining area, couch, coffee table, and TV. I set the whiskey bottle I brought with me down on the coffee table.

“Alice mentioned whiskey, so I thought I’d go with the trend.”

“Perfect!” exclaims a voice from behind me. I turn to find Alice walking out of what I assume is a bedroom. “Let’s get turnt.”

“Ugh, Alice,” Christina groans as she throws herself down on the couch. “Please don’t say things like ‘turnt.’ It reminds me of how young you are.”

“Or how old you are,” Alice retorts, taking a seat next to her.

I pull up a chair from the dining table and ask Alice how old she is.

“I’m twenty, but Christina sometimes acts like that makes me a child. How old are you, anyways?”

“Twenty-four,” I reply.

Alice looks between Christina and I with a sly grin. “So if you guys dated Christina would be a total cougar. She’s a whole year older than you. The scandal!”

“She’s only seven months older than me, actually.” Christina and I have already had this discussion, and she’s lorded her supposed ‘added maturity’ over me several times.

“Also, that’s one cradle I will never be robbing,” Christina adds, nodding in my direction.

“Well you guys are a fun bunch. I’m getting coke and glasses for us. Christina, put some music on.”

The two of them get up to complete their tasks.

“Sometimes I forget that this is my house, not hers,” Christina mutters, as she hooks her phone up to a sound system.

“Do you have roommates?” I ask.

“One. Well, one and a boyfriend of hers that basically lives here. You’ll probably...meet them at some point tonight.” She glances down the hall towards the bedrooms with a wary expression, and I decide to drop the subject.

Alice makes us each a whiskey and coke, and we sip them while making awkward small talk. I steal glances around the apartment, taking in the decor. There’s a framed map of Portugal taking up one of the walls, and the windowsill is lined with houseplants in glazed blue pots.

I excuse myself to the bathroom. The colour scheme inside is way too teal and pink to have been picked out by Christina. Even though I know it’s rude, I open up the medicine cabinet and scan its contents, not really knowing why seeing her toothbrush gives me such a thrill.

I walk back into the living room just in time to hear Alice shout, “Oh, Christina! Let’s play the truth or dare Jenga game you have in your room.”

“Oh my god no,” Christina groans. “I haven’t played that since college. I don’t even know why I still have it.”

“I mean, technically you are in college now,” Alice answers, “and we are so playing.”

She hops off the couch and trots over to Christina’s room.

“Is she always this...peppy?” I ask.

“Kind of. I think the end of term relief is hitting her hard.”

I sit down in my chair again. “So am I about to learn all your deepest, darkest secrets?”

She scoffs. “This game was invented for drunk people and horny teenagers. You’re more likely to get dared to give a lap dance than hear any revealing truths.”

Alice comes back with the game and we spend a few minutes getting it all set up. When we’re ready to start, Alice holds up her glass and calls for a toast.

“To thongs and negligees and boss advertising strategies. You guys are going to kill it at the showcase.”

We clink our glasses together.

“Right, so,” Alice continues, “black tiles are truth, red tiles are dare. You can skip your turn if you really don’t want to do what your tile says, but if you do that you have to take two shots. If you skip more than three tiles, you have to strip down to your underwear and play the rest of the game like that.”

“What happens if you knock the tower over?” I ask.

“You take three shots and the rest of the group gets to make up a dare for you. So don’t knock it over.”

“Or do,” Christina grins.

“You’re going to lose so hard, Dominguez.”

“I don’t think so,” she retorts. “Winning is kind of my thing.”

“Enough witty banter,” Alice interrupts. “Let’s do this.”

The first few rounds are easy. I learn that Alice had her first orgasm at the age of fifteen and that Christina had a childhood crush on Bon Jovi. I’m dared to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon, and Alice has to lick Christina’s ear.

The drinks continue to flow, despite no one skipping a turn yet. Then Christina takes a look at the words on her tile and puts it face down on the table.

“Nope,” she says. “Not happening. Pour me some shots.”

“What is it?” Alice demands. “You have to tell us what it says!”

“It says to kiss the person on my left.”

Alice throws her head back and laughs. “Seriously, Christina? You’re going to waste one of your skips on that? It’s only a kiss.”

From the way she’s looking at Christina though, I can tell she’s just trying to urge her on. The whiskey’s getting to my head and I join in.

“Yeah, Dominguez. I saw some of those tiles when we were stacking them up. There are way worse things in there. Plus, I know you’ve been dying to kiss me.”

“More like kill you.”

“Love and hate can be very similar emotions,” Alice chimes in.

Christina shoots her a look and then turns back to me. “Maybe it’s you that wants to kiss me.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, Peaches. My lips are ready and waiting.”

I lean forward, playing it cool and hoping she won’t hear the thumping of my pulse. I spent so long editing photos of her that I’ve got her features memorized, but having them this close to me, warm and soft and flushed from the whiskey, is doing things to me that a bunch of pixels never could.

She leans in to meet me and I can feel her breath on my skin, can feel the heat as the air thickens between us and her brown eyes seem to swallow me up.

Then she’s pulling away, slamming down a shot glass in front of Alice.

“Yeah, nah. Pour me the shots.”

She downs the liquor and we keep playing, but my focus is no longer on the game. As I sip on yet another whiskey and coke, my focus isn’t really on anything. I stare at Christina’s thigh just inches away from my own. The denim of her jeans stretches tight over toned muscle, and I think of gripping her hip in the studio, twisting her body, shaping it into whatever I wanted.

“Yo, Penn!” Alice’s voice snaps me out of my daze. “Your turn.”

I pick out a truth tile and swallow down a lump when I read the question.

What’s your worst memory?

“I’m going to need that shot glass.” I cough to clear my throat, which suddenly feels dry.

“Skipping out on a truth?” Christina questions. “How bad could it be?”

She grabs the tile before I can stop her and her eyes scan over the question before flicking up to meet mine.

“Deepest, darkest secrets, huh?” she asks in a low voice.

Alice is already several drinks ahead of us and doesn’t seem to notice the exchange. She sits perched on the edge of the couch, swaying to the music as she squints at the Jenga tower and strategizes over which tile to pick next.

“Something like that,” I mutter.

Christina raises her eyebrows but doesn’t ask any more questions, just grabs the whiskey bottle and pours me two shots. We continue with the game.

Twenty minutes, several embarrassing truths, and one girl-on-girl lap dance later, the whiskey bottle is almost empty and what’s left of the tower balances on a single tile, trembling so much we’ve moved our glasses to the floor to keep from knocking it over. Alice has her head cocked sideways and one eye squinted as she works out the best move to make.

“Mais rápido!” Christina shouts. “It’s going to fall anyways. Just pick one.”

“This isn’t fair, guys,” whines Alice. “I’m totally the drunkey-est right now. Why do I have to pick?”

“Drunkey-est?” I laugh way harder than I should. “Hey Christina, Alice is so drunkey right now!”

She just shakes her head at us. “I think you’re both a little drunkey.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not drunkey too,” I accuse.

“Can we please stop saying drunkey?”

Alice interrupts us with a scream as the Jenga tower comes crashing down. Tiles scatter across the surface of the coffee table. One narrowly avoids falling into my drink.

“Well, that means three more shots for me!” Alice cries gleefully. “And you guys get to give me a dare.”

“You can probably think of a better way to embarrass her than I can,” I tell Christina.

We eventually settle on making Alice drunk text some guy she likes. We sit around waiting to see if he’ll reply until Alice’s eyes start to droop and Christina offers to let her crash in the apartment for the night. She just nods and zombie-walks to Christina’s room, pulling the door closed behind her.

“Well she went from one hundred to zero pretty fast,” I remark.

“Yeah, that’s drunk Alice for you.” Christina shrugs. “One minute she’s climbing up on a table, next minute she’s lying under it, fast asleep.”

“Did you guys meet at school?”

She nods. “First day of class. She’s one of my best friends now. We do kickboxing together.”

I’ve slipped into the dull, end-of-the-night kind of drunkenness that makes everything feel heavy. A Jenga piece lies between my feet and I lean down to pick it up.

“Want to play?” I ask with a slow grin.

She glances at the whiskey bottle. “I don’t think we have enough liquor left.”

I risk getting up from my chair and taking Alice’s spot on the couch. “Well then, no skips. And no towers. No Jenga, in fact. We’re doing this the old fashioned way.”

Her leg is just an inch away from mine, both our feet propped up on the coffee table. I feel my pulse quicken when she shifts her body so that it’s leaning towards mine. I should be pushing her away right now— not with my hands, but with my words, with my dickhead comments and unquenchable ego. I should fill the inch of space between us with jokes so immature and irritating she’ll never want to close the gap.

Instead I lean towards her and murmur, “Truth or dare?”

Her eyes find mine, our faces closer than they ever have been before. “Truth.”

I crack a smile. “Truth is for wimps.”

“Oh yeah? Then why’d you skip one?”

My grin fades as quickly as it appeared. “I’m asking the question right now, not you.”

I pause to consider what I’ll ask. My gaze travels down to the line of smooth skin visible between the edge of her t-shirt and her jeans. I want to run my fingers along it, hook my thumb into her belt loop and pull her into me, onto me, falling back on the couch and taking her with me as I slide my hands around to grip her ass.

“When did you lose your virginity?” I blurt out.

Well, looks like I don’t even have to try to be immature.

I expect her to get offended, but she just laughs. “When I was seventeen. I had a boyfriend who was nineteen. My parents didn’t know about him.”

“Teenage rebel, huh?”

“I guess. Looking back, I don’t even think I really liked him all that much.”

“Did you like the sex?”

Something flashes in her eyes. “Yeah, I liked the sex.”

She says the last word low, almost husky, lingering on the sound. Something’s pulling us closer together, and I don’t know if it’s gravity, or whiskey, or just the magnetism of skin on skin, but she doesn’t seem to want to stop it and I don’t know if I can. Her nearness is somehow making me feel hot and cold at the same time. When she pulls her lip between her teeth, I have to stifle a groan.

I need a distraction.

“Dare.” My voice is rushed, urgent. “I pick dare.”

She blinks, her eyes hooded, lashes impossibly thick.

“Kiss me.”

I could laugh. I could look down at her chest and say, ‘You didn’t specify where,’ or make some other asshole remark. I could break this tension and walk out the door.

She runs her tongue along her bottom lip and then my hands are in her hair, her mouth is on my mouth, and the gap between us is gone, obliterated, filled with her curves and the smell of her skin. She parts her lips and I taste her on my tongue, feel her hands fisting themselves in my shirt.

I stop thinking. My doubts fall away and the only thing my brain seems to be capable of right now is asking for more. Demanding it. I wrap my hand around her thigh and pull her leg over me so she straddles my lap on the couch. My lips don’t leave hers for a second as my grip slides up her hip and under the hem of her shirt, fingers tracing the path of her spine.

She wraps her arms around my neck, kissing me even harder and grinding herself against me. The pressure makes us both frantic, reaching for every inch of skin we can find. When we break apart to gasp for air, she presses her forehead to mine, her eyes closed.

“I didn’t know I wanted this,” she breathes. “Then that day, in the studio, I...I’d never seen you like that, and it made me feel...”

I can’t help it. The opportunity is just too perfect.

“Christina,” I say, in the lowest voice I can manage, “do I give you that...favourite bra feeling?”

Her head tilts back and for a moment she just stares, the beginnings of either a scowl or a laugh forming on her face. I wonder if she’s about to kiss me again or punch me in the arm.

She does both.

I feel her laughing against my lips and I pull her down on the couch so she’s resting on top of me, her hair falling around us. The only thing separating her chest from mine is a few thin layers of fabric. She braces herself with one hand while reaching down to tug at my shirt with the other.

Then the door of the apartment flies open, crashing into the wall, and a tangle of arms and legs lurches inside, accompanied by heavy breathing and moans. A guy and a girl are now crushed up against the wall of the entryway, going at each other like it’s their last five minutes on earth. The dude doesn’t even have a shirt on.

“Foda-se!” shouts Christina, sitting up and jumping off the couch before I can even register what’s going on.

She keeps yelling in Portuguese until there’s a noise like a suction cup and the female half of the intertwined duo turns her head towards the living room.

I catch the words “Desculpe, Chrissy,” before they’re trading phrases back and forth so fast that keeping up with who’s speaking feels like following a ping pong match. My brain is still reeling from the past few minutes, and I don’t even wonder who these people are or what they’re doing here. All I can think about is how hot Christina sounds speaking Portuguese, and how soon it will be until I have her back on top of me.

After some more rapid fire dialogue, the girl separates herself from the guy and pulls him by the hand towards the bedrooms. They both glance at me as they pass, and I lift my hand in a wave, still lying on my back on the couch. The girl giggles and her eyes drop to my jeans. I look down and realize I’m still basically pitching a tent in them.

Christina notices too.

“Subtle,” she says in a flat tone.

“Hey, they’re the ones who burst into the room half naked already.”

She sits down in the chair I was using earlier and sighs. “They are always having sex. I honestly don’t know how they find time to go to work. Or sleep. Meu Deus.”

I sit up, noting the fact that she’s chosen not to join me on the couch again. The magnetism that drew us together just a few moments ago has shifted, pushing us apart instead of pulling us closer. We sit in silence, each waiting for the other to move first and decide what happens next.

“It’s late,” I say finally.

“Yeah.”

“I should go.”

She doesn’t move to stop me as I get up from the couch. I’m pulling my shoes on at the door when she walks over and leans against the wall.

“You didn’t drive, did you?”

“Nah. I’ll get an Uber.”

She nods, avoiding my eye. I pull the door open and feel her hand come to rest on my arm. When I look at her, her face is drawn, determined, like she’s trying to convince herself of something.

“We had a lot of whiskey tonight.” She says it in the tone of an explanation. It almost comes across as an apology.

“Yeah, Dominguez,” I agree. “We had a lot of whiskey.”