“Not entirely. The last year and a half, but—”
“And you’re done? Not trying the long-distance thing?”
What was the tone in his voice? It was beyond mere curiosity, but I couldn’t quite place it. Surely not hope. These guys weren’t looking to be boyfriend replacements. Philly had said it, and Ches had proven it.
“No. We actually broke up—mutually—before we started freshman year last fall. Didn’t want to have something heavy around us when we were both about to have new… adventures.” New people. New partners. We hadn’t said it like that, though we both were thinking it.
“And then something heavy happened anyway. Or at least to you,” he said.
The reason why we were sitting here together, that we were in a grief study because we’d both lost someone very dear to us, came rushing back.
“And not a lot of time to explore new-to-you hookup culture last year, I’m guessing,” he said softly. His hands, currently food-free, were on the table between us, and—though it could have been my imagination—looked like they were moving toward mine.
I didn’t want sympathy from Logan Fields. Not him. Not when he, as well as anyone, would know how suffocating someone meaning well could be.
As if he’d read my mind, he shifted his hands, grabbed a fresh napkin from the dispenser, and dabbed at nonexistent food on his face.
“No. None. No opportunity. No…”
“Desire,” he said.
A loaded word. It was an all-encompassing blanket that had rested heavily on my shoulders all last year. Was still wrapped around me, although not as tightly. There was some wiggle room now. And the longer I sat and ate a burger with Logan Fields and playfully rehashed the night that wasn’t, I felt the shifting of the blanket even more. It felt like more of a shawl now.
“Right. No desire to explore that avenue. Or opportunity.”
He nodded. “Yeah, hard to be horny when everybody’s in black and bringing casseroles.”
I almost did a spit take with my beer, but managed to swallow before saying, “Oh God, the casseroles. I’d forgotten about them. Though I shouldn’t have—there’s a bunch in Tupperware in our chest freezer in the garage.”
“That’s what everybody kept saying to my mom—‘Freeze this, Tricia, for when you need something later.’”
“Right? We had to go out and buy more storage containers.” I had portioned out the casseroles into family-size servings (though for a smaller family now) before I labeled them and put them in the deep chest freezer in the garage, usually reserved for gallons of ice cream and Costco finds.
“Yeah, divvying up cheddar turkey broccoli kind of kills the ‘I’m free to have sex whenever I want, with whomever I want’ vibe,” he said.
There actuallyhadbeen a cheddar turkey broccoli one. “It definitely does,” I said.
“So what luck—wait, let’s call it fate—that one of your first nights back in the hookup saddle, you ended up in my house. In my bed.”
The grin was back, and I was relieved that casserole and mourning talk hadn’t sucked all the play out of us.
“But not for long,” I reminded him.
He waved away our being interrupted Friday night. By Ches. Waved away the thought of the poor girl, or the fact that I’d left his house?
Either one reminded me that Logan Fields waved away a lot.
And that was fine with me. I had set out to be a waver too. Looked forward to it. Desperatelyneededit.
But that couldn’t be with Logan now.
“And that was a one-time shot. And we missed it,” I said.
“Why? Who’s to say? Why make up rules to a no-rules year? We could definitely take a do-over.”
A do-over. A mulligan. My freshman year, which was supposed to be about fun, boys, classes, friends, and more fun.
“Not a good idea to have a hookup and then see each other every Wednesday night. I mean, this campus is small enough, and you—you—can run into past hookups all the time, but to have to sit in a small circle talking about your feelings?”
