Page 54 of Given Our History

I arrived on campus early to move into my dorm. I was assigned to La Plata, in a two-person room on the second story; they’d sent me contact information for my roommate in mid-July, but I was more focused on my job at the sandwich shop and getting ready for the semester than I was in making friends, so I hadn’t bothered reaching out. Teddy was back home in Allentown until his fall quarter started in a few weeks, so he drove down to UMD to help me move in, despite my insistence that I could handle it myself.

I stood in front of the trunk of my Volvo, hands planted on my hips. Everything I needed for the school year had been loaded into the trunk: clothes and a stack of three-ring binders and a couple Kirkland boxes filled with books. “Like I said, it’s really not that much stuff.” I pointed at one of the boxes of books. “If you want to get that, I can—”

Teddy stacked two of the boxes on top of each other before hoisting them up, and I watched his arms, mesmerized. His biceps strained against the sleeves of his gray T-shirt and a vein trailed up his forearm. He’d always been on the lean side, tending toward athletic, but during the spring, he’d started to make use of the gym on his campus.

He followed my gaze, glancing down. “I could use the workout,” he said, a little sheepish, and I couldn’t tell whether he was just being modest or if he genuinely thought there was room for improvement.

I turned back to the trunk. My clothes I’d just tossed in on their hangers, so I hooked as many of them as I could on my hands and we marched up to the second floor. The room was vacant when we arrived. I bumped on the lights and tossed the clothes onto the bed. Teddy deposited the book boxes over by the dresser. “Your new roommate?” he said, only half a question as he nodded in the direction of the Joy Division poster that was taped above an empty bed. Whoever she was, she’d clipped Instax pictures on a clothesline and assembled a collection of tiny, potted succulents on the windowsill. A stress ball shaped like a hamburger sat in the middle of the nightstand, its surface wrinkled with use.

“They said in an email that they paired us up based on personality, but…” I shook my head faintly, not really trusting UMD’s vague understanding of whatever they thought my personality was. I had to resist the temptation to squint at the Instax pictures to get a better idea of who I was dealing with here. Spying on my roommate straight out the gate was probably a bad idea.

We headed back downstairs to grab more stuff out of the trunk. It was evening, the sky all cotton candy clouds and the weather surprisingly dry and cool for late August. Teddy hoisted another heavy box of books into his arms. “So you never did tell me how your last year at camp went.”

“Oh,” I said, a little surprised. We’d talked about a thousand things between then and now, but talking about the day-to-day had been moved to the back burner. I collected a stray bottle of nail polish remover and a can of dry shampoo that had rolled around loose in the trunk. “It was fun, I guess. I enjoyed catching up with Izzy.”

He gave me a curious look, like he knew I was dodging the question, and I was. There was something expectant, seeing him today, a sort of tightly coiled tension that I was eager to dispel, and talking about camp wasn’t the way to dispel it.

We finished hauling everything upstairs and then we walked to get iced coffee and sandwiches from a nearby café. By the time we made it back to the dorm, it was dark out, but my roommate hadn’t made an appearance. I invited Teddy to stay and hang out for a bit, in part because I knew he had a long drive back, but also because this was our first time alone, in a room that conveniently had a bed. My heart pounded in my ears as we settled onto my new bed, watching The Twilight Saga: New Moon on my laptop, a movie choice that Teddy had accepted with a mixture of bemusement and reluctant interest.

“Jesus, why do they have to make it so complicated,” he mumbled, dragging a hand down his face when Alice said she had the vision of Bella jumping off the cliff. When I didn’t say anything, he glanced over at me. “You’re being awfully quiet.”

I lifted my shoulders. “I’m watching the movie.”

“Hm.” He turned back to the computer, but I could see by the glossy look in his eyes that he wasn’t really registering the plot anymore. His glasses reflected the shifting light of the screen. After a few seconds, he said, “Just normally you have more commentary. You analyze things.”

“I’ve seen it before. Anyway, I guess I’m just sort of…” I peered at him sideways. He was leaned back against my pillows and his T-shirt had ridden up his stomach a few inches, so that a trail of dark hair beneath his belly button was visible, leading down into his boxers. “… distracted.”

Now he didn’t bother pretending to be engaged in the movie. He turned to look at me, giving me his undivided attention. “By what?”

My heart clambered up into my throat, lodged itself there. “You.”

He didn’t say anything, but he held my gaze. We were both reclined, and somewhere in the midst of our fragmented conversation, we’d angled our bodies toward each other. The air crackled with anticipation. I scooted closer to him, shutting the laptop and nudging it down the bed with a knee. His gaze dropped to my lips.

“Kiss me?” I whispered, grazing my hands over the firm, muscular planes of his chest. His heart hammered beneath my fingertips, a steady rhythm that reassured me I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.

He pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes fluttering closed. “I want to.”

“Then—?”

I didn’t get a chance to finish the question, because his mouth sank into mine. I let out a surprised mm before returning the kiss. We’d kissed only a handful of times, the last time well over a month ago, but the mere memory of those encounters had enough staying power that there was nothing tentative or exploratory this time around. His tongue moved against my own and he swallowed the tiny moan that escaped me. My hands skated down his flat stomach until my fingertips brushed against warm skin and hair. I traced the waistband of his boxers with shaky hands, teasing. Testing.

With a growl of approval, he flipped me onto my back and his hips settled between my legs. Near the foot of the bed, something clattered to the floor—something that, in my haze, I knew was probably my laptop, but any concerns were smothered by Teddy’s weight pressing into me. Heat bloomed between my legs, spreading like wildfire. He rocked his hips against mine and I arched off the bed in reply, wanting to feel more of him. He broke the kiss and pressed his mouth to my neck, running his tongue over my skin. His hands burrowed up the sides of my sweatshirt, fingers digging into my ribs, but they stopped there, like he wouldn’t let himself take this any further.

“Touch me,” I said, but it came out sounding more like a sob. He lifted his head to look at me, his hair tousled and any traces of brown in his eyes swallowed by black. Holding my gaze, his hands skimmed the sensitive skin of my ribs, nudging my sweatshirt higher until it was pushed up over my lace bralette. We dropped our gaze together, staring at my hard nipples beneath the sheer lace fabric. “Please,” I whispered.

He swallowed hard, hooking a thumb in the lace and tugging it askew, freeing a breast. “They’re so pretty,” he rasped before flicking a tongue over me. I sucked a breath through my teeth, my hips rolling involuntarily. Seeming pleased by this reaction, he took my nipple into his mouth. It was warm and wet and the sensation was almost too much to bear—I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from making too much noise.

Teddy moved back up and pulled my hand out of the way to cover my mouth with his, his other hand massaging my breast. His erection pressed into me, hindered by my spandex leggings and the denim of his jeans. I reached for his zipper, fumbling ineffectually with the button. I’d never taken someone else’s pants off before. My hands were shaking. I wondered if I even remembered how to undress myself. I broke the kiss. “I want you,” I muttered, and I pressed kisses into his jaw, up to his ear, where I sucked on his earlobe. “I know you’re worried about hurting me, and maybe it’ll complicate things, but I need—I want it to be you.”

At this, he jerked back like I’d bitten him, just far enough for his eyes to search my face. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m—” I hesitated, embarrassment rising, because what did he think we were talking about? I might have been inexperienced, but I knew enough to understand where this was obviously going. There was only one place it could go. “I thought we were talking about sex. And I don’t want to start college without ever—”

“So what, I’m just the free trial?” He pushed himself off me, kneeling between my thighs. “Take me for a test drive before trying other cars?”

“We agreed that we’re not ready to date,” I said, but even as I was saying it, I was aware that we hadn’t agreed to that. Not in so many words. We’d touched on the idea of fooling around while staying friends, but we hadn’t laid down any ground rules, hadn’t set clear boundaries for what, exactly, we were doing.

“I can’t stand the thought of you doing this sort of thing with other guys while I’m not here,” Teddy said. “It’s not—” He broke off, shaking his head. “This doesn’t feel right.”