Chapter Text
Paxton opened the door to Rebecca’s bedroom without knocking and poked his head in. She was at her desk, hunched over a stack of magazines with her earbuds in.
“Hey Rebecca, guess what?” She looked up at him and rolled her eyes.
“Don’t you knock?” Paxton walked over to her desk and craned his head over her shoulder.
“What are you working on?” He asked her. She sighed and pushed her chair back from the desk a little.
“I don’t know,” said Rebecca. She’d been cutting up magazines, sometimes precisely, sometimes almost at random and arranging the shapes in her sketchbook. “Feeling uninspired.”
“Looks cool to me,” he said. He glanced at the tall, glossy pile of fashion magazines she’d stockpiled over the years. Paxton didn’t really get fashion, but he got style. He and Rebecca had their differences, but they both understood that the way you dressed could change the way that other people looked at you, could give you the ability to hide what you didn’t want them to see and accentuate what you did. He had always pretended to hate it, but sometimes when they were kids and she’d made him play dress up with her, he’d actually had a pretty good time.
“So what did you come barging in here for?”
“Oh, yeah,” he grinned at her. “You were wrong. I am not a douche.”
“Hmm,” said Rebecca, turning back to her project. She rotated the sketchbook around and glued down a piece of the collage.
“Would a douche be having dinner with Devi tomorrow night?”
Rebecca looked at him sideways. “Depends on how good he is at sucking up,” she said.
“Whatever. Just trying to take your advice,” said Paxton as he picked up a copy of Vogue and started thumbing through it. He stopped on a perfume ad, picked at the little flap and gave it a sniff.
“Um, can you leave?”
“No,” he said, taking the magazine and flopping down on her bed with it. “Why are you in such a mood today?”
“I’m supposed to hear back about my application soon,” she said, giving her chair a kick and spinning around in it.
“Oh. Are you worried about it?” He flipped from an ad featuring a very ugly women’s watch to a two-page spread advertising Nutella like it was lingerie.
“Yeah, of course I’m worried. I don’t know if I’ll get in. I don’t know if I’m good enough.” Paxton put the magazine down.
“You’re definitely good enough,” he said, sitting up and looking at her. “I hope you get in.”
“Me too.” They looked at each other across the room for a minute, and then Paxton shrugged his shoulders and stood up from her bed.
“Okay, fine, I’ll leave you alone,” he said, walking over to the door.
“Smart man,” she said, and he looked back over his shoulder and gave her a wink as he went to his room.
When Paxton saw Devi in Facing History the next morning, she was wearing a very short denim skirt. She sat next to him and said good morning, but she seemed a little distracted. Mr. Shapiro started the class by talking about dashikis and asking everyone how their weekend was. Ben Gross, always ready to suck up, piped up first.
“My weekend was pretty great,” he said.
Paxton wasn’t usually one to join in on class discussions, but maybe because he was looking at Devi, he said, “Yeah, my weekend was tight.”
He caught her eye and grinned at her, and this seemed to fluster her because she announced to the entire class, a little too loudly, that she’d spread her dad’s ashes at the beach. Mr. Shapiro tried to turn her experience into a teaching moment, and then Devi called him weird, which made Paxton smile.
Mr. Shapiro reminded them they were going to do community service the next day, and Paxton stopped paying attention. Under his desk he pulled out his phone and texted Trent and Marcus.
Hang later? I asked someone to come over
Marcus replied right away:
Right on
Just then, Trent spoke up from the back of the room. “Oh, I know that park. I love littering there.”
Paxton watched a little bit of Mr. Shapiro’s faith in humanity slip away, and then he felt his phone buzz.
Count me in
“So who’d you invite? Zoe, finally ?” asked Trent when he found Paxton at his locker after school.
“Zoe and I haven’t really been hanging out,” said Paxton.
“Then who?”
“Uhh… Devi,” said Paxton, avoiding Trent’s eyes.
Trent considered his friend in silence for a moment. “I’m confused,” he said at last. “The tryhard from history who got attacked by a coyote in my backyard? The girl who told everyone she railed you without even getting to rail her? That girl?”
“Dude, don’t make it a thing,” said Paxton.
“You’re the one making it a thing. Hey, Marcus!” Trent spotted Marcus coming out of science class further down the hall and waved him down. “The girl Paxton’s having over is Devi.”
“Who?” asked Marcus, striding up to them.
“Coyote Girl,” said Trent.
“Oh, damn. The girl that fell into that pool?”
“Yeah,” said Paxton, annoyed. “That girl.”
“Hey hey, I heard you hit that but I thought it was just some dumb rumor,” said Marcus, laughing. “So what time do you want us over? And what time do you want us to leave?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Whenever, man. I get done swimming at six,” said Paxton, ignoring Marcus’s leer.
Trent shook his head and turned to Marcus. “Okay but like, Marcus, if you had a shot with Zoe Maytag, would you be hooking up with a mathlete?”
Marcus opened his mouth to reply, but Paxton cut in. “She’s not a mathlete. I don’t think. And if you’re so into Zoe, why don’t you just ask her out?”
“She’s not into me,” said Trent, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We can’t all be blessed with Milo Ventimiglia good looks.”
Paxton rolled his eyes and took out his phone to text Devi.
We still on for tonight?
“Well, I gotta get to practice,” he said.
“Later,” said Marcus, but Trent was sulking. Paxton turned away and headed towards the locker rooms.
Practice was a breeze compared to talking to Trent and Marcus about going on a date with Devi. Paxton’s times had steadily been improving all season, and today when he climbed out of the pool, his coach pulled him aside and told him that he’d started talking to some NCAA recruiters about him.
College still seemed like a distant future to Paxton, but it was pretty cool to imagine swimming taking him there. Sometimes Paxton felt like swimming had taught him everything he knew about being a person. It had taught him discipline when he had spent most of elementary school in trouble because he couldn’t keep still. It had given his body strength where he’d once been slight. It taught him how to breathe when it felt like the walls were closing in around him. It gave him a team to cheer on and to be cheered on by. He wasn’t sure where he’d be without it.
Paxton headed to the showers, nerves soothed. As he entered the locker room, he took his phone from his bag and checked it. Devi had replied to his text.
Yes, but I have something to take care of this afternoon. What time?
He realized he was smiling and looked up quickly to make sure no one had seen.
7?
This time she responded right away.
👍🏾
Paxton ran his hand along his jaw and felt stubble, and looked down and saw it on his chest, too. He’d take care of that before his date tonight. Paxton showered, washed and styled his hair, shaved. When he walked through his front door, Rebecca gave him a once-over. “Are you still having Devi over tonight?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, pausing on his way up the stairs to get changed.
“Trent and Marcus just got here. They’re in the garage.”
“Oh. Cool,” he said, and resumed climbing.
Behind him, he heard Rebecca mutter under her breath, “Oh brother .”
When Paxton got to the garage, Trent tossed him a Mountain Dew and he caught it with ease. “Yo,” he said. “You guys order pizza yet?”
“Just did,” said Trent.
“But we conferred and decided it was your turn to pay,” said Marcus. “On account of having to watch whatever this is play out all night.”
Paxton rolled his eyes and dropped down next to Marcus on the futon, opening his soda. Trent leaned forward and looked at him. “Also, just thought I would let you know I ate a weed gummy about a half hour ago.”
“Dude, come on,” he said, but Trent merely shrugged.
“Blast off in T-minus forty,” he said, tapping his bare wrist.
There was a knock at his garage door. When Paxton got up to answer it, Marcus made a kissy sound at him. Paxton shot him a look that he hoped said chill , and opened the door. Devi stood there, in an orange sweater and red combat boots, with her shiny, dark hair pulled back from her face, fingering the strap of her purse.
“Hey, you look nice,” he said, hanging on the door.
“Thanks, so do you,” said Devi, checking him out.
“Grab a seat, Lil’ D,” he said, and stepped aside to admit her before sitting down again next to Marcus.
“‘Sup Coyote Girl?” said Trent, who threw her another Mountain Dew, except Devi wasn’t expecting it.
“Ow! Trent! What the hell?” She reflexively grabbed her chest where the can had squarely hit her. Paxton froze.
“Whoops! Did I just hit you in the boob?” asked Trent, like it was an extension of one of their games.
“Yeah, you did.” She sounded annoyed.
“Whoa. I just hit your mountains with my dew!” Trent snickered.
Marcus chimed in, “You just hit her cans with your can!” They laughed, but Paxton saw Devi’s expression.
“Dude, shut up!” He said, reaching over to punch both of them.
“It’s all good. So I take it you two are about to head out?” asked Devi hopefully.
“Nah, bro, pizza’s on its way. We got triple sausage because we’re three guys.” Paxton knew his friends were just trying to get a rise out of him—or her—or both of them, but Devi wasn’t as familiar with their particular brand of stupid as he was. What they needed was a group activity to smooth things over before they got out of hand.
“Oh shit, now we’ve got four for Call of Duty,” he said, getting Trent and Marcus on board immediately. “Fire it up!”
“Uh—okay?” said Devi, who perched on the end of the chair nearest the door. She picked up a controller. “So Paxton and me versus you two?”
Paxton looked up at her apologetically. “Oh no, little buddy, Marcus and I gotta be on the same team. We’re magic together.” It had always been their game. Most girls he had over usually just sat and watched them play. It was actually kind of cool that Devi seemed down to join in.
Marcus turned to him and said, “Thanks for taking the time to make me feel special tonight.”
Devi looked at them in disbelief. “ Really ?”
“Wait, so I have to be on the same team as Denise?” asked Trent, whose expression matched Devi’s.
“Devi,” she corrected him, even though shouldn’t have had to.
“Whatever, this is a huge waste of time,” said Trent. Paxton started up Call of Duty and said nothing.
She didn’t look thrilled about it, but once Devi had the hang of the controls, she did kind of get into the game. Sure, Trent was gunned down by friendly fire a couple of times, but Devi swore it was by accident.
Paxton thought about moving closer to her, but he didn’t want to make Trent move with the mood he was already in. Trent’s edible had kicked in, and he’d mostly stopped trying to achieve objectives and instead was just trying to blow shit up. Eventually, whether it was the pizza/potato chip sandwich Trent had tried to speed-eat or the Mountain Dew he shotgunned afterwards, Trent ended up barfing. At least he made it outside this time.
Paxton paused the game and went to go find the garden hose around the side of the house so he could wash the contents of Trent’s stomach off of the walkway. When he came back, Devi was leaving the garage, careful to step over the puddle of vomit, and she had her bag with her.
“Hey, are you leaving?” Paxton asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “I have to get going. I have… homework and stuff.” She hitched the strap of her purse a little higher on her shoulder.
“Oh,” said Paxton. “But you just got here.”
Devi gave him a polite smile. “I’ll see you at school,” she said, and walked right past him. Should he try to stop her? She was leaving earlier than he’d expected, and they’d barely gotten a chance to hang out. Trent and Marcus probably weren’t going to hang on much longer themselves.
Trent poked his head out of the garage door. “Did Diane leave?”
“Yeah,” said Paxton as he watched Devi disappear around the corner. He blinked and turned back to Trent. “Dude, what’s your deal? You know her name.”
“Just trying to have some fun, man. Can we get back to the game now?”
“Are you done puking?”
“No guarantees,” he said with a burp.
“ Awesome ,” said Paxton, and turned on the hose.
The next morning everyone from Facing History got to school early and Mr. Shapiro loaded them onto a shuttle to Pacoima. Devi sat with her friends at the front of the bus, and Paxton sat with Trent and Phil at the back. When they got to the park, Mr. Shapiro, who had chosen to wear his pink pussy hat for the occasion, gathered them all near the swingset and started rambling on about Henry David Thoreau while sitting cross-legged on a picnic table. Paxton stood at the back of the group and looked around, appreciating getting to spend the morning outside instead of in a stuffy classroom while names and dates flowed into one of his ears and out the other. While Mr. Shapiro was talking to Ben Gross, Trent, who had been poking around on the ground with a stick, suddenly exclaimed, “Aw cool! A condom!”
He speared the condom on the end of the stick and raised it into the air. Paxton laughed as his classmates reacted with disgust, but Mr. Shapiro took it to another level. Excitedly, he took the stick from Trent. “That’s right Trent, contraception is cool! It’s what allowed women to enter the workforce. This right here is freedom,” he said, swinging the used condom dangerously close to Ben Gross’s face. “All righty, everybody partner up!” he cried, sending them off to collect litter.
Paxton stepped forward to ask Devi if she wanted to be his partner, but before he could say anything, she turned instead to Ben. “Hey Ben, want to pick up trash with me?” she asked him. “I’ll do puddles so you don’t stain your sneakers.”
“Deal, but just don’t slow me down. I’m trying to fill ten bags by lunch so I can be interviewed by the local paper.” Devi shook her head at him, but then they walked off together. Paxton frowned. He’d kind of thought Devi would want to spend the day with him.
Instead, Trent found him and they went to the far corner of the park so Trent could get stoned. Paxton took a hit, but just so he could settle the weird feeling he got in his stomach when he looked across the park and saw Devi and Ben off by themselves. He didn’t really want to risk a suspension during swim season, so he wasn’t going to go and get totally blazed. Trent, however, had no such hesitation.
“Yo, there is some crazy stuff in this park,” said Trent, as they ambled back towards their classmates, not wanting to arouse Mr. Shapiro’s suspicion. He bent down and picked up a cracked CD case. “I think this is a country demo from one of the Real Housewives. Or the Desperate Housewives. Or just a regular housewife, maybe?” Said Trent, flipping it over to read the back.
“What? Who even has a CD player anymore?” asked Paxton, pushing an empty chip bag around with the toe of his show.
“Hey, what’s the smell? When we were back there I thought it was just the weed, but…” Trent followed his nose over to the fenceline.
“Whoa,” he said when he got there, but Paxton wasn’t really paying attention. Whenever he glanced at the rest of the park, his eyes inevitably landed on Devi and Ben. They weren’t that far off, but the distance between them felt far greater.
“Dude! There’s a dead skunk over here with a bunch of used needles. Do you think he like, ate a heroin needle and that’s why he died?” Trent asked him.
“Dunno man,” said Paxton, completely uninterested.
“I should pee on him so that a coyote doesn’t like, eat him and OD.”
“You do that. I’m, uh, gonna go throw this out,” said Paxton, tying off his garbage bag even though it was barely half-full. His hands were sweating in his gloves, and it was adding to his overall feeling of irritation. How much longer did they have to be out here? He glanced back over his shoulder at Trent, who was in fact peeing on something in broad daylight. By a stroke of luck, when Paxton turned back around, he saw that Devi was also heading to the dumpsters, unaccompanied. She reached them first and swung the bag up into the already-overflowing bin, and he caught up to her as she was trying to cram it in.
“Hey,” he said, tossing his bag down next to the full dumpster.
“Hey. Uh, if you’re looking for Trent, he’s somewhere over there peeing on a dead skunk,” she said, waving in the direction Paxton had just come from. She started to move away from him.
“Well, I was actually looking for you,” he said quickly. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, noncommittally, and they walked off a little ways from the rest of the group. He didn’t get what was going on with her. She was rewriting the rules on him again, just when he thought he had them figured out. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Why didn’t you pick me to be your partner? I thought we like, had something going on.” Devi looked confused.
“What are you talking about? You clearly don’t like me like that,” she said matter-of-factly, a forgone conclusion, knowledge she had already gained and set aside.
“Yeah I do,” he countered. “Why would I take you on a date if I didn’t like you?” Devi stared at him.
“That wasn’t a date. Your friends were there.” Why would that make it not a date?
“Yeah, my friends are always on my dates. Then they leave when it’s time to hook up. Like last night, we could have hooked up, but then Trent barfed, and you, like, left.”
“Yeah, I left because Trent was barfing on our date ,” she said this deliberately and, okay, now he could kind of hear what she was objecting to.
“Okay, you’re right. The barfing wasn’t ideal, but like I didn’t realize you wanted it to be like a one-on-one thing.”
“That’s what a date is. By definition.” His usual charms didn’t seem to be lessening her frustration with him. No girl he’d liked had ever pushed back on him like this before. They were usually just down for whatever. But he liked Devi more than most girls.
“Fine. Okay. I… I will take you on a real date.” It wasn’t his usual style, but he just wanted to spend time with her. He didn’t really care how, as long as it was outside of school and hooking up remained a possibility.
Devi looked back over her shoulder at the rest of the class milling about near the shuttle getting ready to go back to school. “It’s too late now,” she said. “And besides, I’m moving to India.”
What?
“You’re moving to India? Like, forever?”
“Yeah, like, in a month.” Paxton bit his lip. That was something to process. It was unexpected, but maybe it made things easier in the long run. If she was leaving, there was no reason for him to figure out any of the stuff he’d been turning over in his mind, like what she meant to him or why he was attracted to her. But she was here now, and anything could happen in a month.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to make this time count,” he said, and stepped in and kissed her. At first Devi stiffened in surprise, but then her lips parted softly and he felt her lean into the kiss. He’d been waiting to do this again since the night she’d fallen in the pool. Maybe now, he hoped, they could make up for some of the time they’d already lost.
When they parted, Devi looked at him wide-eyed and cleared her throat. “Um, we should probably get back on the bus. Wouldn’t want them to leave without us.”
“No,” he agreed, and followed her back towards the rest of the group, barely concealing his smile. When they rejoined the others, Trent caught his arm and pulled him aside, and by the time he’d extricated himself, Devi was already sitting with Fabiola and Eleanor. Ben Gross was sitting directly behind them, and kept leaning over Devi’s seat to talk to them. The four of them were laughing together, and Paxton found himself wondering when Devi and Ben had stopped fighting so much. A couple of times, he caught Devi’s eye as she turned to look back at him, and he got the feeling that she was trying to size him up.
Do you like what you see, Vishwakumar? He wondered.
Paxton couldn’t stop thinking about Devi, and it should have been embarrassing. It should have been something to deny and avoid. But he couldn’t. He was doing shit like texting her good morning, and smiling for no reason at breakfast—which was starting to make his family suspicious—and going out of his way to hang out in the hallways where he knew she had class. Seeing her made him giddy, which was deeply uncool, and for the first time since he’d started growing pit hair he didn’t care. He barely waited a day to ask her out again.
Devi came up to him while he was chilling in the stairwell and said hi with an easy smile.
“Hi,” he replied, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She curled into him happily, and he had the sudden impulse to kiss her forehead, but he didn’t. It would be too strong a gesture, and show too much of his hand too soon. Trent found them together, but Paxton was in too good a mood to let Trent mess with him today, so he reached out and wrapped an arm around him as well. While their bromance was strictly platonic, Paxton knew that his friendship meant a lot to Trent, and he wasn’t above exploiting his friend’s affection if it meant making his life a little easier. It paid off more often than not.
“Oh, you mean a lot to me, too, bro,” said Trent earnestly. Devi rolled her eyes at him, and Paxton looked between the two of them and chuckled. He was going to make this work, somehow.
“Can you come over tonight?” He asked Devi.
“Sorry, I’ve got… plans,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“Sure, after swim practice? Come to my garage?”
“Is Trent coming this time?”
Trent raised his palms. “Whoa, what’s with the hostility, Coyote Girl?”
Paxton released Trent from his embrace and turned towards Devi. “Nah.” Giving Trent a pointed look, he said, “Not this time.”
Trent shrugged as Devi beamed. “Whatever, dude. Later,” he said, walking off down the hall.
It was weird and exciting having Devi alone in his garage again. The last time they’d been alone like this was the afternoon she came over to have sex with him, but he hadn’t even known her then. He hadn’t been nervous because he didn’t get nervous with girls. It was always the same thing—he’d notice her or she’d notice him, they’d flirt until one of them offered up an invitation and then they’d hook up, maybe even a couple of times, but never for long enough to get attached.
But nothing about Devi was usual to him. He’d been impressed she’d just come up to him like that, a total stranger, and asked him for sex. Who would be cocky enough, or crazy enough to do that? Who just asks for what they want? Paxton certainly didn’t, because what he wanted to do right now was to push her sweater down and press his mouth to her shoulder and taste her skin, but that was, like, kind of intense, so he certainly wasn’t going to ask her for that. So instead he said something about how they didn’t have to play video games this time, but then Devi said, “I like video games, I just don’t like Call of Duty,” and she dropped down onto his futon. “Why would you pay to be brainwashed by the military-industrial complex like that?”
“Uh, I don’t really think about it that hard. It’s just a thing my friends are always down to play,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah but there must be other games you like?” There were, but it had been awhile since he’d played any. He knelt and pulled out the milk crate where they were all stacked.
“Yeah. I play this one with Rebecca sometimes. She likes it okay.” Paxton had yet to play all the way through though, because Rebecca would often lose patience, Marcus thought it was boring and every time he played with Trent they had to start over from the beginning because he claimed he had to be stoned to play and ended up forgetting how to get through all the levels.
Devi’s eyes lit up. “Wait, is that Cuphead? I’ve played that at Fabiola’s.”
“Really? Do you want to play?”
“Chyeah, think you can keep up?”
“We’ll see. Do you want to be Mugman or Cuphead?”
“Cuphead, obviously.”
Devi was pretty good. They loaded an old game to save time, but even starting at the harder levels, she kicked ass. Time passed quickly as they progressed further than Paxton had ever gotten on his own, and then they were at a crossroads—defeat the final boss or take the easy way out.
“Well, do we do it? Do we make a deal with the Devil?” she asked him suggestively.
“Nah, that’d be wrong. Let’s fight him,” he said. Devi nodded in agreement, and Paxton leaned in and kissed her, a proper kiss that kind of made him want to drop the controller, but then a voice on the game was counting down and realized she had hit start, and as the voice said Go! Devi broke the kiss and started mashing buttons, and they laughed as Paxton tried to catch up. They had the boss beat in three and half minutes.
“Whoa, we got him on like the first try,” he said. This chick .
Devi blew on her fingernails and polished them. Her eyes met his, and a smile spread across his face. This time when Paxton kissed her, Devi dropped her controller, and this, this was more like it.
At last.
Paxton tossed his controller aside as well, and buried his fingers in her hair. He felt her hands on his chest and one of his went to her waist, the small of her back, pulling her closer to him on the futon. Devi shifted, pulling one of her legs up onto the couch in front of her so that she faced him more squarely, her skirt bunching up over her thighs. She kissed him feverishly, nervously, even, and he smiled against her mouth.
What’s the rush Vishwakumar ?
He caught her bottom lip with his and stilled her, drew her in. He moved his fingers down her neck, and felt the hum in her throat as his tongue found hers. Although Paxton’s technique was finely honed, there was a part of him that felt like he was auditioning, like he’d been preparing for this with every previous encounter, like he’d had to kiss a lot of mouths to find hers.
And they only had a month. A month of kisses with a girl who probably had never done anything but kiss. Did she want more? They weren’t strangers anymore, and it was harder now to imagine that if they had sex, he’d only be exposing his body, but would that be, hypothetically, so bad? Especially when kissing her felt like this, felt like being thirteen again at the back of the school bus, felt like jumping off the high-dive for the first time, felt like putting on his favorite shirt.
Paxton let one hand wander to her bare knee and rest there, his fingertips brushing the hem of her skirt, and he started rubbing his thumb in small circles on the inside of her leg, just to see what would happen. In response, Devi’s fingers searched out his skin, clasping the back of his neck, sneaking under the hem of his shirt. Paxton leaned backwards, his hand sliding up Devi’s thigh to her hip, guiding her. Her lips followed his as far as she could until he was on his back and she was propped up on her hands and knees above him, her face inches from his, hair spilling down over her shoulders.
She was staring at him intently, curiously, determinedly, and he smiled and pushed her hair back from her face. She closed the distance between them, and kissed him deeply. Paxton shut his eyes and felt her body press against his, felt the soft weight of her on his chest, her heartbeat, then an unexpected pressure when she shifted her leg between his that made his breath catch in his throat.
“Oh!” Gasped Devi as she felt his body respond, and pulled away. Paxton opened his eyes and saw that she had sat up and was biting her lip, looking anywhere but directly at him.
“Hey,” he said. Her eyes growing wide as she met his. “It’s okay.”
“Okay? Is it? Okay,” she said, blushing. He cocked his head to one side.
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “It feels good.”
“I make you feel good?” She asked him, and he just smiled. Devi made Paxton feel very good. He watched her chew on her bottom lip as she tried to decide on her next move.
“I should go,” she said at last. “Or else my mom is going to get suspicious.” Paxton nodded. Devi stood up off the futon and straightened her skirt, which had twisted halfway around her body, but Paxton remained seated. When Devi wasn’t looking, he pulled on the leg of his jeans, trying to give himself a little room. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, picking up her bag and smiling at him.
“See you,” he said from the futon. He watched her walk to the door, little skirt flouncing behind her, and as she left she glanced back over her shoulder and met his gaze. When she was gone, he slumped back on the futon and let out a long breath, left with a strong mixture of heat and tension low and deep in his stomach. Only a month , he thought again. How could that possibly be enough?