“Follow me,” my own personal tour guide then said, leading me off the grass and onto the stone walkway. Luke stopped in front of a black door whose gold placard read: SYDNEYBLAIR. Outside sat a rocking chair, along with a small trough full of wood. I too had done some research, learning that each lawn room had a fireplace. “This is it,” Luke said. “This was my dad’s room.” His throat bobbed. “He was a Jefferson Scholar.”
GRAHAMMORRISSEY, I imagined embossed on the nameplate, and four years from now: LUKEMORRISSEY.It seemed inevitable.
We stood there in silence for a minute. “How do you remember this?” I asked eventually. “Weren’t you only ten the last time you were here?”
One side of Luke’s mouth quirked up. “Charlie, I remember everything,” he said, knocking his hip against mine. “Everything.”
I waited a second, but then leaned over to quickly kiss his cheek, not bothering to check if people were watching.You can do it,I’d realized earlier, at breakfast surrounded by strangers.You can be anyone here, nobody knows you here. You can beyouhere. This is what college is for, and you can start right now.
Iwantedto start right now.
So I took Luke’s hand and threaded our fingers together.
Luke grinned. “Let’s go,” he said, tugging me. “Plenty to see.”
And he was right—therewasplenty to see, and we somehow saw it all. We roamed through the various buildings, ran whoopingthrough the outdoor amphitheater (the students passing by looked at us like we were nuts), found the football stadium, and spiraled down the library steps to see the school’s Hogwarts-esque reading room. Lights dimmed, it looked exactly like the Gryffindor common room, with its warm oriental rugs and furniture, old-fashioned lamps and bookcases everywhere. Some students were studying, some stretched out and sleeping.
“You go ahead,” Luke whispered, the two of us standing in the doorway. “I don’t think I should.” He shrugged. “Being a Ravenclaw and all.”
“Well then, Nick’s the only one allowed in,” I whispered back. “Because Sage is a Hufflepuff, and I’m pretty sure I’m a Slytherin.”
“What?” Luke shook his head. “C, no.” He reached to ruffle my hair. “BothWeasley twins are Gryffindors, remember?”
I rolled my eyes, and he cracked up. A few people looked up from their laptops to shoot us glares. Which only made Luke laugh harder, so I crooked my arm around his neck to hide his face in my shoulder. “Stay cool, Ravenclaw,” I whispered. “Or else we can’t trespass…”
Our final campus destination was the famous rotunda, The Lawn’s beacon of light. It was modeled after Rome’s Pantheon, standing strong with its brick exterior, white Corinthian columns, and domed roof. “Will you take a picture of me?” Luke asked. “I promised my mom.”
He handed over his phone, but after snapping the shot, I pulled mine from my back pocket and took another one.Here we are, UVA,I captioned the photo and Snapchatted it to Sage…and, after some hesitation, also Nick.
He was the first to respond, Sage probably still on the slopes. There was no picture, only a message:Shouldn’t you be in that picture too?
Dinner was downtown, at an upscale steakhouse in the open-air mall. “We should go on a date,” I hadn’t forgotten Luke saying that night on FaceTime, right before Paddy and Nick had barged into the business center. “Arealdate.”
But instead of it being funded by his poker winnings, this dinner was all me. He had the Airbnb, I had the food. “Carmichael,” I told the hostess. “It’s under ‘Carmichael,’ for two.”
This is better than Bistro, I knew as soon as we were seated.And the Bluebird, no question. So much better.
Luke looked so handsome in dark jeans and a forest-green sweater, with the collar of his white T-shirt peeking out, and his hair perfectly imperfect. “What?” he said when he noticed me staring, glancing up from his menu. “You good?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I nodded, feeling my face warm. I took a sip from my water glass. “It’s just not fair how handsome you are.”
“Thanks,” Luke said, and tilted his head with a half-smile. “You’re not so bad yourself.” He laughed. “Even if I’ve seen a version of this lookhyakutimes already.”
I sighed. I didn’t know Japanese, but my guess washyakutranslated to something like a hundred. Since I was wearing my usual: blue blazer and striped tie. “Well, sorry,” I said. “Not my fault that I was raised in America’s preppiest state.”
Luke smirked and stretched out his hand, palm faceup.
I met him halfway, putting mine on top of his for a second before shifting so that our fingers could lock together.
“I like this,” he whispered.
“Me too,” I whispered back.
We didn’t let go until our food came.
“Okay, okay,” Luke said into the darkness. We were back in the apartment, under the covers in bed. “First crush, go.”
“First crush?” I asked, sort of smiling. We did this most nights—told each other things or stories about ourselves, sometimes from when we were kids, and sometimes from only a few years ago. “Really?”
