“No.”

“Oh.”

That was it.

His head went back in, and he slammed his door shut.

Immediately Mrs. Rings yelled from her apartment across the hall. “STOP SLAMMING THE DOORS! EVERYONE FUCKING SHUT IT!”

And her parrot a second later.

“STOP SLAMMING FUCKING SHUT IT!”

And then, “SHUT IT, BORIS!”

And her parrot again, “EVERYONE FUCK IT AND GO TO SLEEP!”

My phone kept buzzing. I didn’t read them, just typed back.

Me: In my place. I lied to Bill, broke my heart to do it.

Reese: He’ll get over it. There’ll be other chances for you to lie again.

Reese: They’re letting me board early. For this time, there’s a lot of ball supporters here.

Me: The life of a celebrity. Poor you.

Reese: Image of me giving you the middle finger.

Me: Image of my big toe.

Reese: What the fuck is that?

Me: Now you won’t be able to stop wondering. Okay. I’m going back to bed.

Reese: Turn your phone off so I can keep sending you updates while you sleep.

Me: Shouldn’t you try to sleep too?

Reese: Yeah, but in case I can’t. Your friends said they’d just show up and bang on your door anyway, so sleep. For real. Turn your phone off.

Me: It’s like you care about me. Friend.

Reese: Don’t do that. But I care about certain activities with you. How about that? Better?

I laughed, and something settled in me. I wasn’t going to question it. It’d been with me since we woke up—an uneasiness sitting on my stomach.

This might’ve been a good feeling, but I was scared to feel it. Even while we were doing the jokes, the teasing, using the crude words, that feeling wouldn’t dislodge.

Whatever it was, it was there, and I knew when it left, I would miss it.

I typed back.

Me: Turning phone off. I care about fucking you too.

But I didn’t turn my phone off. I silenced it, left it on, and propped it so it was facing me.

The screen lit up as his texts came in, and that unsettled feeling became more permanent.

It was two weeks later and I still hadn’t made a decision. Shortly after Reese left, Trent, Grant, Owen, and Hadley had all shown up at my apartment. Things went down just as Reese said they would.

My friends gave me their dramatic interpretation of the events that had happened after I left camp, and also brought me a job offer. It was a part-time head of promotions position. I would be given an allowance for moving, but that was it.

I wasn’t sure what to say.

Was I desperate enough to take something like that to tide me over. I could hear Reese’s words in my head. The salary wasn’t great—I really needed full-time work, but could I be too picky? I’d had a couple job interviews since I got back, but no one had called me for a second one. And I’d applied at a bunch of places. I was open to all sorts of possibilities. My degree was in social work, but I’d never used it. I took what jobs I could get.

Eye doctor’s office receptionist. Guest services coordinator at a hospital. Research assistant. My last job was data management. I’d liked that one the best, except for the boss and, you know, being fired because she mistook me for her husband’s mistress. There’s that. But the pay hadn’t been bad, and I’d enjoyed looking at numbers all day.

I was a closet nerd, until Reese found out.

He kept asking for a pic of me in a skirt and wire-rimmed glasses. I’d succumbed once as I walked past an eyeglasses kiosk in the mall, but I itched my nose with my middle finger in the photo. The sales guy thought it was hilarious—until I handed him back the glasses and tossed a “thank you” over my shoulder. He’d been dropping hints about when he got off work and asking what kind of food I liked. I booked it before the proposition could happen.

The text I’d gotten back from Reese was an image of him pulling his shorts away from his waist.

Reese: Are we doing this?

Me: Is that growing? Can’t tell. Your boxer briefs are in the way.

Reese: I have a game tonight or I’d be buying you a plane ticket right now.

That was the typical back-and-forth with us.

My friends had spent the rest of the weekend at my place, and they’d even talked me into having lunch with Janet and her new husband. I’d sworn each of them to silence about Reese. If Janet found that out, friends from when I’d gone to camp as a child would come out of the woodwork. I also made sure they were tight-lipped about Damian. I was better about talking about that situation, but I still didn’t care to go there with Janet.

I’d also returned to my therapist.

She was surprised by my willingness to open up, but we were peeling away one painful layer at a time. Turns out I suffered from something called caregiver’s toxic guilt.

It was a mouthful to type and say, so I kept that to myself as well. Just easier. My friends knew I was going through a level of guilt they couldn’t understand, so they had refrained from asking too many questions.

Reese was the only one who brought Damian up these days, and it was just every so often and always a roundabout question—like what other teams Damian had liked. He was never direct or demanding, but he’d bring Damian’s name up until I peeled another layer back and gave him some details about the past. Once I’d done that, he’d change the topic.