“He wants to be a thoracic surgeon,” I say. “He goes to Harvard.”
Wyn scoffs.
“Tickle in your throat?” I say.
“What’s he look like?” Wyn asks. As I consider, his grin twitches. “Can’t remember?”
“Dark hair, blue eyes,” I say.
“Like you,” he says.
“Identical.” I sit up too. “Side by side, you couldn’t tell us apart.”
Wyn’s eyes slink down me, then climb back to my face. “You’re a very lucky woman.”
“The luckiest,” I say. “Once, when I was sick, he went to class as me.”
“Can I see a picture?” Wyn asks.
“Seriously?”
“I’m curious,” he says.
I lean over the bed and feel around for my phone on the ground, then carry it over to him, swiping through my camera roll.
I choose a picture of Hudson that shows off his high cheekbones, his pointed chin, his glossy dark hair. When I hold it out, Wyn grabs my wrist to steady it and squints at the screen. Then he slides my phone from my hand and brings it closer to his eyes. “Why isn’t he smiling?”
“He is,” I say. “That’s how he smiles. It’s subtle.”
“This guy,” Wyn says, “only smiles when he’s looking in the mirror. Which is also how he masturbates. While wearing his Harvard sweatshirt.”
“Oh my god, Wyn. You are officially the snob among us.” I reach for my phone, but he rolls onto his stomach, taking it with him.
Slowly, he swipes back through my pictures, taking each in before moving to the next. I flop down next to him and peer over his shoulder as he pauses on a shot of me in the library, hunched over a notebook, several towers of textbooks lined up in front of me.
“Cute.” He glances over his shoulder at me, then back to the phone before I can react.
He spreads his thumb and finger over the image to zoom in on my face. I watch him in profile, his face lit up, his dimples shadowing. “So fucking cute,” he repeats quietly.
Heat blooms in every nook and cranny of my body. This time when I reach for my phone, Wyn lets me take it. He sits up. Only a handful of inches separate our faces. I can smell his clove deodorant. His gaze is heavy on my mouth.
“I told you,” I manage, “you need to stop flirting with me.”
His eyes lift. “Why?”
Because my best friend has a crush on you.
Because this group of friends matters too much to risk ruining it.
Because I don’t like how out of control I feel around you, how whenever you’re nearby, you’re the only thing I can focus on.
I say, “You don’t date your friends.”
“You’re not my friend, Harriet,” he says quietly.
“What am I, then?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But not that.”
Our gazes lash together, a heady pressure building between us; his want and mine have started to overlap, two halves of a Venn diagram drawing together on the twin bed.
“We can’t,” I murmur.
“Because of Sabrina?” he asks.
My heart spikes. “No.” It comes out thin, unconvincing.
“I don’t see her like that,” he says.
“You see everyone like that,” I say.
“I don’t,” he says, voice firm. “I really don’t.”
“Wyn,” I say quietly. “This is . . .” What word did he use earlier this week? “Messy.”
“I know,” he says. “Trust me, I’m trying not to—feel like this.”
“Try harder.” I want to sound light and teasing. Instead, I sound as angsty as I feel.
“Is that what you want?”
I can’t bring myself to lie, so I just stand. “We should get at least a little sleep.”
After several seconds, he says, “Good night, Harriet.”
8
REAL LIFE
Tuesday
THE FIRST THING I register is a heaviness across my stomach, a bar of gentle pressure, like a weighted blanket, only concentrated. A cold breeze wriggles through the sheets. I nestle back into the delicious warmth behind me. My head spins from the motion. My stomach roils. Something stiff rocks against the backs of my thighs, and a bolt of heat, of want, goes down my center.
Holy shit!
I scramble upward, eyes snapping open on the pewter gray of morning, blankets snared around my thighs. I’m on the floor.
Why am I on the floor?
Why am I on the floor with him?
I search my immediate surroundings for clues.
King-sized bed. Window open above it, a damp wind wisping in. Bare legs, covered with goose bumps. And the shirt I’m wearing— No!
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Tissue-paper thin. Faded to near transparency, long enough to reach a third of the way down the fronts of my thighs but somehow not long enough to cover my whole ass. A cartoon horse barrel racing with a cartoon cowboy on its back, yellow serifed font superimposed over it: THIS AIN’T MY FIRST RODEO.
No, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. This is not my shirt.
Sure, it used to be my favorite shirt to sleep in, but once that UPS box of my stuff showed up (a whole two days after our breakup), I’d stuffed this shirt—along with every other trace of Wyn I could find—into the Crate & Barrel box from our first set of shared dishes and shipped it right back to him.
Why am I fixating on the shirt?
Surely, I should be panicking about the fact that my ex-fiancé is lying on the floor beside me, bare chested, face half buried in a pillow, his arm still a deadweight across my lap and his erection wedged against me.
“Psst!” I shove him. He rocks right back into the same position. I’ve always been a terrible sleeper, whereas Wyn—who never stops moving while awake—sleeps so hard that I used to check his pulse in the night.
“Get up!” I shove his shoulder harder. His eyes flutter open, slitting against the half-light of morning.
“What?” he grumbles, one eye closing to better focus on me. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” I hiss back. “How did this happen? How could I let this happen? How could you let this happen?”
“Hold up.” He pushes himself up, scrubs his hair back. “Tell me what happened.”
“What happened?” My whisper pitches up to a teakettle whistle. “We slept together, Wyn!”
His eyes widen. “Slept together?” He laughs hoarsely. “When would we have slept together, Harriet? In between you and Kimmy doing body shots and me—literally—carrying you up the stairs?”
“But . . .” I look around for all that evidence I’d cataloged. “I’m wearing your shirt.”
“Because you puked on yours,” he says. “And when I went to get you another one, you demanded, quite vehemently, the I’ve been to so many fucking rodeos shirt.”
I gawk at him, trying to recall the night he’s describing. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Are you kidding?” he says. “You once told me you wanted to be buried in that shirt. And then that you didn’t want to be buried, so I’d have to cremate you in it.”
“I don’t demand things,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “That part was a pleasant surprise.”
“Wait.” The front of my head throbs. I push my hands against it, hard. “Why am I on the floor?”
“Because you refused to take the bed,” he says.