Page 64 of Deep End

“I’m not soft.”

“You are with me.” His eyes meet mine. A dark, unflinching look that sands layer upon layer off me. “MaybeImake you soft.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I force my gaze away, down to our shoes, his legs that are so much longer than mine, he must be matching our paces, or I’d have run out of breath a while ago. “Josh met someone he liked better.” The truth is not the sucker punch it used to be, back when just hearing his name made me feel alone and unwanted. “But he wasn’t really . . . like us. We weren’t well matched in that sense.”

He stops in front of a white Spanish Colonial house just outside campus. I do the same, trying not to be intimidated by the serious way he’s studying me. “Are you still in love with him?” he asks quietly.

The question takes me by surprise. So does the ease of my reply. “No. I haven’t been pining for him. It’s been a million years, and—”

“A million.”

I roll my eyes. Smile. “One and a half years.” It’s a more helpful answer than the one he gave me when I asked if he still had feelings for Pen.Do you, Lukas?

“And there hasn’t been anyone else?”

I shake my head. “Not because I’m hung up on Josh. It has more to do with being premed and practice schedules. Plus, with my luck, I’d swipe right on someone who stormed the Capitol and hates routine vaccinations. So . . . yeah. Just Josh.”And now youpulsates sweetly between us. I want to squirm against it, this heat in my stomach he left burning, this frustrating but pleasant reminder that Lukasislike me.

I shrug. Chew on my lower lip before finding the courage to ask, “What about you?”

“Me, what?” He gives me an expectant look. A Norse god granting an audience to his subject. It’s more than a slight turn-on, because I’m twisted like that.

“Has there been anyone else aside from Pen?”

He hesitates, then tilts his head, gesturing toward the entrance of the house, and says, “It’s complicated. We can discuss it inside the house.”

CHAPTER 27

ASKING WHETHER I SHOULD TAKE OFF MY SHOES BEFOREstepping in seems like a fairly normal question, and I don’t understand why Lukas recoils as though I offered to smear badger turds all over his guest bathroom.

“Is there an alternative?” he asks, like there is a right answer, before shaking his head, and mouthing something under his breath.Americans, I believe it is.

I cannot help laughing as I follow him down an uncannily spotless hallway.

Sadly, my perfectionism never quite extended to cleanliness. Maryam and I have quarterly household meetings that share a tried-and-true agenda: we start by blaming each other for the pigsty-like quality of our place, continue with some superficial stress cleaning that temporarily assuages the heft of our shame, and conclude by swearing on what’s dearest to us—my dog, her Cthulhu funko pop—that we’ll procure coasters and never again let entropy conquer us.

Pipsqueak and Cthulhu are fucked.

“Your house is so much tidier than mine,” I say, hating the awe in my voice. Lukas looks at me over his shoulder, a littlejudgmental.

“That’s our closet.” He points at a wooden door. “You may borrow cleaning supplies.”

I snort. “You’re officiallynevercoming over.”

“Fine by me.” He guides me into the kitchen, which looks like something a realtor might show to clients in the hope that they’ll buy the house in cash.

“Lukas, when do you even find the time to—”

“Mate, I didn’t know Pen was—oh.” Hasan appears under an arch and stops in his tracks, eyes settling on me. “Hey, Vandy.”

“Hasan,” I say. He’s British, tall and broad and deep voiced, and while I’ve never seen him be anything but kind, I instinctively shuffle closer to Lukas. My flank meets his heat, and I find that he’s already done the same.

“Sorry. I heard a female voice and assumed you were Pen.”

I glance at Lukas, waiting for him to explain tohisroommate why I’m here, but he’s busy selecting a Fuji apple from the most pleasingly arranged bowl of fruit I’ve seen outside of a nineteenth-century still life painting. The burden of half-truthing must fall upon me. “Lukas and I are working on a project together.”

“Ah.” He smiles in something that looks a bit like relief. His expression clears. “You done with rehab?”

Last year, we’d often be in the PT room at the same time. “Yeah. And your right knee?”

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