Then her hand slipped into my shorts, and I lifted just enough to give access, lost to the soft, warm grip of her palm and fingers. Going to one elbow, I pulled her with me and thrust my hand down the front of her shorts. ‘Jesus Christ, Melody,’ I gasped, fingers sliding into her so easily. She came seconds later, quaking against me, and I followed.

Drifting back to reality, we slowly pulled our hands from inside each other’s clothing. I grabbed my T-shirt and used it to clean her hand and then mine. I wanted to suck on the fingers I’d thrust inside her, wanted to know how she tasted, but I was oddly shy in that moment. Cocooning us inside my comforter, I drew her close and we lay staring at each other until we fell asleep.

When I woke, she was gone. She’d taken the drawing with her.

LUCAS

I didn’t email Jacqueline until Sunday evening – four short sentences, all instructional, no flirting. She responded in kind, but referred to my weekend. I couldn’t stop myself from telling her that my weekend was good – especially Friday. How was yours? I asked.

Three words stuck out of her short reply – good, lonely and productive.

We all need our moments of solitude, but this girl should never be lonely.

I pulled out a heavy sheet of paper and my charcoal pencils, chose the fully reclining pose – on her back, arms above her head. As I re-sketched her lean limbs, each stroke across the paper evoked the kisses and caresses that left my body craving more of her. I smudged the shadows under her br**sts with my finger, recalling her soft skin and the way she’d allowed me to touch her. Despite my need to keep a wall between myself and her, it was crumbling faster than I could rebuild it.

In my bedroom, I tacked the drawing to the wall, across from my pillow.

By the end of economics Wednesday, my desire to tell Jacqueline the truth about who I was warring heavily with my desire to continue the game we’d begun – the one where I was the sexual mercenary who helped her get her groove back. It seemed the ideal scenario – I got to be with the first girl to rivet my attention in years, and she got to spread her wings, forget her self-important ex and reclaim ownership of her own body.

I silenced the voice in my head telling me that none of this was enough.

Jacqueline appeared to be having second thoughts, too – she didn’t email Landon or text me all week. She didn’t come into Starbucks, and she only looked back at me during class a couple of times. On Friday, her ex approached her at the end of class. He smiled down at her, one hand in his pocket, confident in his charm.

I couldn’t see her face as they spoke, though her posture seemed taut. Wanting to wipe that smug smile right off his face, I left the classroom before I did or said something stupid.

Friday afternoon, I got an email from Ralph Watts, the assistant chief of campus police. Watts was responsible for university-sponsored self-defence lessons the department offered a couple of times every semester. After I’d seen the flyer on our bulletin board last fall and asked him about it, he sent me to a training and certification programme. I’d volunteered to assist twice now – donning padding and consenting to be punched and kicked by female students, faculty and staff who sacrifice three Saturday mornings to learn basic self-protection.

Lucas,

Sgt. Netterson was supposed to assist the next self-defence class, but she snapped her collarbone in some wall-climbing mishap last night. I know it’s short notice, but if you can make it – I need you, starting tomorrow morning. Plus two more sessions after Thanksgiving break, if you can do those. If you can only do tomorrow, that’d still be a huge help. Let me know asap.

Thanks,

R. Watts

For once, I didn’t have a ten-to-three-o’clock Saturday shift scheduled at Starbucks. I wrote Watts back and told him yes, for all three Saturdays.

I also got an email from Jacqueline. Nothing flirtatious – just her research paper for Heller, which I’d promised to go over before she submitted it.

I couldn’t be displeased when I didn’t want her to flirt with Landon … Right? I emailed her back, telling her I’d look it over and have it to her by Sunday.

Minutes later, Lucas got a text from her: Did I do something wrong?

I paced the apartment before replying that I’d just been busy and added a casual, What’s up? So indifferent, when I felt anything but indifference where this girl was concerned. Instead of seeming slighted, she replied with curiosity about the charcoals I’d said I was going to do of her sketches. I told her I’d done one and wanted her to see it. She replied that she’d like that.

So I told her I was out and would talk to her later.

‘Goddammit,’ I muttered, tossing my phone on the counter and pacing to the sofa. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, but there was no blotting out the memory of her beautiful surrender in my arms a week ago. She trusts me. There was no triumph in that knowledge because I was giving her the embodiment of mixed signals – not to mention giving them as two different people.

‘I am a lying ass**le,’ I told Francis, who yawned.

Standing in a chilly activities-building classroom at nine a.m. on a Saturday morning, the last thing I expected to see was Jacqueline Wallace. While Sergeant Don Ellsworth directed our twelve attendees to sign in and Watts handed out packets, I was lacing my low-rise taekwondo shoes and setting up the mats. I slowed when I recognized Jacqueline’s redheaded friend come through the door and went immobile when Jacqueline entered right behind her.

I’d considered suggesting the course to her, but didn’t think she was ready yet – especially if she hadn’t told anyone else what happened that night. If she attended too soon and felt intimidated or overwhelmed, she might not come back.

But she must have told her friend, who didn’t move further than a foot away from her, stroking a reassuring hand over her shoulder blade or guiding her firmly by the elbow when she looked ready to bolt out the door. Jacqueline was absolutely ready to run when she looked up and saw me flanking Lieutenant Watts. Her eyes tearing from me to the packet she gripped in her white-knuckled hands, she said something to her friend under her breath. One hand on her leg, her friend murmured something back.

Watts began his anxiety-dispelling opening speech, where he introduced himself, and then I bench-press three hundred pounds Ellsworth and me in his usual way: ‘This feeble-looking guy to my left is Sergeant Don, and the ugly one is Lucas, one of our parking enforcement officers.’ As everyone snickered, he praised them for giving up a Saturday morning to attend the session and then gave an outline of the three-week programme.