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“I am not expanding. Draw the grid, Callum.”

He drew it very slowly, and he was grinning at it the entire time.

I put the card down, smiling from the memory. I get up and make a tea before sitting back down. Maybe the hot fluid will calm my nerves. Or maybe I should have gone for a cold drink to cool me off? I shake my head. Focus, Bea, the temperature of your drink will not change your horny, horny thoughts.

I open the laptop instead, because clearly, the textbook is not happening, and try the practice MCAT bank. The move you make when you have lost the battle with your own brain and need to surrender to a multiple-choice format.

I get four questions in before my mind drifts.

Specifically, I’m thinking about the fact that Cal and I haven’t…defined ourselves. We have slept with each other a lot in the last few weeks, and he told me he wasn’t sleeping with Violet as well. We’ve also hung out, continued tutoring, ordered food together. I, for sure, don’t have time or desire to be with anyone else. But what about him? Just because he wasn’t having a thing with Violet doesn’t mean he isn’t with anyone else. Are we…exclusive?

He brought me a coffee on Monday, and I have one of his hoodies on the back of my desk chair. That constitutes exclusive, right?

Except I’m not sure. I’m so embarrassingly out of the loop when it comes to dating culture, and I know that college boys are notorious for not defining things. And I’m guessing that college rockstar boys are even worse.

I’m not saying I want to sit down on a Sunday and have a State of the Relationship meeting. But it’s on my mind more than it should be.

I look at the loop of Henle question.

Screw it, I need advice on this. I leave my room to seek out Sydney.

She’s on the couch in pajama shorts and a hoodie that says ASPEN across the chest, eating cereal directly out of the box, watching what looks like—I squint—Real Housewives Reunion.

She looks up. Reads my face in approximately one second.

“Oh,” she says, putting the cereal down. “Crisis mode? Sit down.”

“I’m having man issues.”

“Sit. Down.”

I sit.

“What’s up? Talk to me.”

I look at my hands.

“So,” I say. “Imagine you’re sleeping with Callum Fox⁠—”

“Because you’re sleeping with Callum Fox, on the reg. And I sometimes hear it through the walls.”

“Yes. That’s weird. Please don’t listen. I meant me. I’m sleeping with Callum Fox. And…and I want to make sure he isn’t, you know…with other people.”

“Banging any other chicks on the side?”

“Pretty much.”

Sydney lights up. Like physically lights up. Like a small festive object has been switched on inside her. She sits up straighter. She puts the cereal box on the coffee table with the reverence of a woman setting aside an unimportant task to attend to a very significant one.

“Bea.”

“Yes?”

“Beatrix Idunnoyourmiddlename Walker.”

“It’s Margaret.”

“Oh nice! Anyway, you’re asking my advice.”