And suddenly I didn’t want him to think of me as a stuck-up Bribury Basic. (Which I knew was what the townies called us co-eds. I learned that, like, my second day here, though I wasn’t sure what it meant.)
“You can stay. Do your work. Just stay over there.”
“Will do,” he said. I started to change, quickly at first, then more slowly, as if daring—willing?—him to impatiently see what was taking me so long.
Yeah, pretty passive-aggressive, but I wasn’t above a little p/a behavior. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was passive, with minimal aggressive.
“You about done?” he said loudly. “I’ve got what I needed.”
I pulled my dry hoodie over my tee, shoving the wet-ish hoodie and yoga pants in my backpack. I wished there was a full-length mirror on this side of the room, but I knew what I looked like—typical college girl in jeans, tee, and sweatshirt. I put my long black hair up into a messy bun, fastening the wet mass with a band.
Typically I would have taken a long shower, but I wasn’t feeling like my typical self.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, and walked around the aisle.
He was writing something onto a small tablet, and he was holding a tape measure, which he slid into his back pocket. The door to the steam room stood open. “Me too,” he said. “I got what I need.” He looked me up and down. I swear to God I almost felt as naked before him as when I’d been wearing nothing but a towel.
“Well…almosteverything I need,” he added, and the words burned through me.
“Why did you need to measure the steam room?” I asked, ashamed at how rough my voice sounded.
“I’m retiling it. Starting next week, but I needed to get measurements for materials.”
“Will it be usable while you’re doing it?”
He shook his head, that silky black hair moving with him. I wondered if it would feel as soft as it looked. “No. I’ll work during the nights, so the locker room will still be in use, but the steam room will be closed.”
“For how long?”
He shrugged, looked at the figures he’d written down. “At least two weeks. Maybe longer. Depends how many hours I can put in on it each night.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. I really loved that steam room.
“The sauna will still be available.”
I’d used the sauna, on the other side of the locker room, twice. But once I’d discovered the steam room, it just wasn’t the same.
“But it’s not the same,” Lucas said, echoing my thoughts.
“I’ll survive,” I said. I hoisted my backpack up higher. “Well…um…good to meet you. Andy’s a great kid.” He nodded at that. There was nothing left to say. And yet I couldn’t leave.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“In Creyts. It’s by—”
“I know where it is,” he said, a tiny bit defensively.
“So…okay…”
“You’re going to walk there by yourself? Across campus? At this time of night?”
“Yes.” I did it a few nights a week, when I’d swum late, and steamed even later. I even studied here at times, in one of the classrooms in the old women’s IM building. “It’s fine. I do it all the time.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said, and moved from where he stood to come and stand beside me. He effortlessly took my backpack from me and slid it across one of his broad shoulders.
“It’s perfectly safe,” I said, following him now as he started moving on without me. “What are you doing?”
He turned around and looked at me. “I’m walking you home,” he said, then turned and kept walking.
