I’m breathing heavily, and my head finally drops forward, breaking my view of Quinn. “Fuck, Chaos. That was hot.”
Hot doesn’t begin to cover it. That was an out-of-body experience. The most erotic sexual interaction of my life, and she never even touched me.
“Yeah. But we can’t do it again,” she says, and my head pops back up. “We’re even now.”
I catch her eye through the glass, holding her gaze for a long second—one where I consider yanking the glass door open and tugging her in here with me, kissing her until she forgets about the lines she’s drawn. But in the end, I nod, and she slips out the door, leaving me with nothing but her scent hanging in the air.
I slump against the side of the shower as the adrenaline leaves my body. The contrast between the cold tile and hot water helps clear my head.
She’s right to call it off.
If she thinks sleeping together would ruin our relationship, I don’t want to take the risk. Her friendship’s the only thing I want more than a night with her.
So I’ll leave it be and let the memory of her taste on my lips sustain me for the next fifty to sixty years.
Fuck.
The next morning,I pace the living room, glancing at the clock every ten seconds. The minutes are ticking down, and Quinn’s door still hasn’t opened.
She doesn’t have to come with us this morning. None of the other faculty members chose to, but I thought she would. I’m hosting a tour of the Colosseum and Roman Forum for the students, open to the whole program, but elective for anyone who isn’t in my class.
Quinn sleeping in shouldn’t surprise me. She’s done this tour a dozen times between her dad and our study abroad. Why would she choose to stand out in the blistering heat for a couple of hours just because I’m the one leading it?
Inez pops her head around the corner. “We need to leave if we want to beat the students there.”
I send one last pathetic, longing glance at Quinn’s closed door before following Inez out.
The line for the Colosseum is already a mile long by the time we get there. Thank fuck for educational passes that let us hop the line. I try not to smirk at the glaring tourists as I lead about seventy-five students past them.
The words flow from me without a thought. I’ve done this tour enough that it’s a mindless task. My mouth talks about tunnels and pulley systems and gladiators fighting lions, but my mind’s on Quinn.
Is she hiding? Did she avoid coming this morning because she regrets last night? Did we already ruin our friendship?
By the time we finish the Colosseum, the students are already dragging. We still have the whole forum to tour, and it’ll be even hotter without any shade to give us a break from the brutal summer sun.
I let Inez take the lead, gathering, counting, and leading the students across the Piazza del Colosseo to the center of Roman life. The piazza’s packed, as usual. Massive tour groups, pop-up stalls selling kitschy souvenirs, Italian men in plastic gladiatorarmor charging ten euros for a picture, and I take up the rear to make sure we don’t lose anyone on the walk.
The Italian stone pines shoot up on either side of the path once we escape the main piazza, their high, wide canopies casting shade over the sidewalk. I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the way this bit of cover keeps the cement from heating like an oven. When I open my eyes again, the group’s a dozen feet away, and I heave out a sigh. We have another hour of this before I can escape into the air conditioning.
“I’m here. I’m here!” Quinn calls out, and I turn to find her rushing toward me. “Sorry! I fell back asleep after my alarm went off.”
I glance over at the students, who keep following Inez like good baby ducks. “If you were one of my students, I’d tell you to get lost if you can’t make it on time.”
She drops her voice, even though the students are far away. “If I were one of your students, you’d be fired for last night.”
I pull in a deep breath, fighting the urge to reach for her. “So we aren’t pretending it never happened, then?”
I watch her out of the corner of my eye as her teeth worry her bottom lip. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t fucking know. What do you want?”
She takes a deep breath, her hands clenched in resolve. “I’m not good at filtering myself, and I don’t want to start now. We’ve always been able to talk about everything. It happened. It was weird. One day, it’ll be a funny joke between us.”
I can’t swallow around the lump in my throat. “Weird?”
“I don’t mean weird like bad! I mean it was weird because we’re us, you know? But it was great. Like, really great. But weird. Right?”
A pessimistic scoff tears from my throat. “Don’t hurt yourself, Chaos. It’s fine.”
