Page 166

“You’ve been holding out on this for too long now, and you’re terrible at holding secrets.”

“And I will hold out. There is no version of the future in which I tell you about that night. Now”—she picks up the cereal box—”go and find out where you stand. And seriously, Bea, I think you’re gonna like the answer. That man looks at you like a Disney princess.”

I stare at her.

“A Disney princess.”

“You heard me.”

I get up. I leave her on the couch. At the doorway, I turn back.

“For the record.”

“Mm?”

“He doesn’t have an iPad.”

She points the spoon at me.

“That,” she says, “is the kind of detail you only know if you’re basically exclusive.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Bea

Callum’s apartment has, in the few weeks I have been visiting it, started to develop the small evidence that I am also in it. My textbook is on his kitchen counter. The mug I always use—the one with the chip on the rim because he dropped it once—is in the rack. There’s a sticky note on his fridge in my handwriting that says Drew’s birthday—March 9—because I asked him last week if he’d remembered, and he hadn’t.

I’m on his couch in his hoodie, my feet tucked beneath his thigh, while he types something on his laptop he refuses to show me.

I’ve been trying to ask for the last ten minutes.

Ridiculous.

I have dissected cadavers. I have stood in front of lecture halls and explained the brachial plexus without notes. I once told a professor, in front of forty people, that his exam question was technically incorrect.

But, apparently, asking a man whether he’s sleeping with anyone else is where my courage ends.

I’ve never done this before.

I’ve had hookups. Arrangements. Men I saw when I was home and stopped thinking about when I left again. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Never had the conversation where two people decide they belong only to each other.

The fact that Cal has probably had this conversation a hundred times makes it worse.

“Cal.”

“Mm.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He looks up immediately.

“Always.”

I shift on the couch, even though I was perfectly comfortable two seconds ago.

“Are we…”

Oh God.