“You could move in with me. I have this double to myself. There’s no reason that you should be so unhappy.” What am I doing? Why can’t I stop talking?
“Really? Really?”
“That’s awesome of you,” Eric says.
“Yes! Yes! I accept your freaking amazing offer! Let’s do it now! Let’s move me!”
“Now? Like, right now?”
“No time like the present to make positive changes, right? Right?” Estelle is already on her phone. “You’re rockin’ my world right now, B.”
It doesn’t take long for Estelle to orchestrate things. It seems like only an hour passes before we’ve loaded most of her things into a pickup truck. The plan is for Eric and me to head back to my dorm room while she stays behind to clean up. The pickup’s wheels skid dangerously as we come to a stop sign.
“Of all the days to move, Estelle has to choose this sloppy one. She couldn’t have waited a few days for this weather to clear up?” Eric’s cheeks are slightly rosy from the chill, and he turns up the heat.
“Estelle wouldn’t be moving for another six months then,” I point out. “You know how it is here. Matthews College is a bag of frozen peas in the giant Wisconsin freezer.”
“True.” Eric checks for traffic and then crosses the intersection. “Thanks for helping us move her stuff out of her dorm room. You didn’t have to. You’re doing plenty already by letting her move in.”
“No problem.” It was certainly uncharacteristic of me to invite her to room with me, but I surprisingly don’t have a hint of regret. “It’s a good thing you have this truck, considering that she lives on the far end of campus. Lugging this shit by hand would’ve sucked.”
“Actually, this is Chris’s truck. It may be old as dirt, but it runs great. The rest of us have newer cars, but he said that he wanted to go with something used. Something that has stood the test of time, which he thinks bodes well for the future or something.” Eric pats the dashboard. “At least Sabin put in a killer sound system.”
“Wait, so all of you have cars?”
“I know. It seems a little excessive, huh?” Eric turns on the wipers. “Chris insisted.”
“Chrisinsisted? Wouldn’t that be up to your dad?”
“Theoretically. I guess we think of Chris as the head of the household.” We turn a corner, and hear a box in the back slide across the truck bed.
“Your father must love that.”
“Chris is just much better at handling things. He researched safety and performance and then informed us what we were getting.” Eric points ahead. “Hey, is this part of your regular running route? I saw you here one morning.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Show me your route and we’ll map it out. See how far you’re going.”
“Why? So I can tell everyone that I run a whopping one and a half miles? Besides, everyone is waiting for us so they can help unload Estelle’s stuff.”
“They can wait a few more minutes. C’mon. You should know. And now I want to know.”
“Okay, well, I usually come out of campus there.” I motion to the now snow-topped iron gate by one of the dorms. “And then I go all the way down Stanton Street toward the river and head left.”
I watch as Eric resets the odometer to zero. “Here we go!”
“So Chris is an interesting guy, huh? What with making car assignments and whatnot.” I brace my elbow against the window frame and lean my head into my hand.
Eric glances my way briefly, clearly trying to hide a smile. “Smooth. Is there something going on between you two?”
I clear my throat. “No.”
“Oh,” he says, shifting gears. “We all thought maybe—”
“Nope,” I say, cutting him off. I think about seeing Chris half naked, and the way he pinned me up against the door and made me come in what was by far the most erotic moment of my life. “No, we’re just friends. Friendly. He’s… I don’t know… He’s helped me feel better. But that’s it.”
“We were hoping it was something more.”
