After Thursday's disastrous confrontation with a suit-clad Bodie St. James and Monday's coffee ambush, I wasn't about to risk walking into Human Sexuality alone.

It took me a few tries to find a good bench on campus, since all the ones under trees were splattered with bird shit (and the ones not in the shade were scalding hot from the sun), but eventually I found a place to park myself for fifteen minutes while I waited for Andre to get out of his Typography class.

I texted to let him know where to find me—a narrow, hedge-lined walkway between two redbrick buildings near the architecture school—and that I'd be totally down to skip lecture and grab an early lunch at Pepito's.

We are NOT skipping, Andre replied.

Then he added, Be there soon just gotta fix this fucking kerning.

I propped my backpack beside me on the bench and groaned.

So Vaughn was claiming an alibi.

I'd known that he wouldn't go down without a fight. I could hardly blame him for it, since the evidence stacked against him was career-ending—from the lies about a "charity trip" that'd really been a vacation dedicated to binge-drinking, to the fact his quarterback had told us Vaughn had a history of booking hotel rooms under the name of the Godfather, to the five anonymous tips the Daily had received about potential instances of harassment and assault.

But if Vaughn was an innocent man, he'd have no reason to fear a thorough investigation into each pillar of our article.

Clearly some people didn't understand that. People like Adam Whittaker, for Fox News, who seemed so convinced Truman Vaughn was being attacked by female collegiate journalists that he'd sat outside the student union for who knows how long just to point his phone at my face and accuse me of being a liar.

I let out deep breath in a great whoosh and scrubbed my clammy palms against the front of my sundress. Then I went riffling through the emergency snack reserve at the bottom of my backpack, even though I knew food wouldn't ease the sudden ache in my gut.

This wasn't hunger. It was anxiety.

Sure enough, I took two bites of a Nature Valley bar before I felt nauseous.

I sighed and looked out across the pavement in front of me, towards the hedges boarding the other side of the walkway. The leaves rustled. A lone squirrel emerged, his tail twitching and his beady little eyes fixed on me.

I snapped off a tiny corner of my granola bar and chucked it at him.

And so, when Andre arrived a few moments later, it was to find me sitting cross-legged on a bench, dutifully distributing granola crumbs to a gang of four squirrels who were circling me like little, furry sharks on the hunt.

"This some Snow White bullshit," Andre said, arms folded over his chest.

"It's not funny!" I cried. "They won't leave me alone!"

"Because you fed them, dumbass."

"I have a big heart, okay? Can you just, like, scare them off or something?"

Andre rolled his eyes. One of the squirrels made like he was going to hop up next to me on the bench. I let out a squeal of terror. Andre finally came to my rescue and stomped his feet until the squirrels scattered.

"Thanks," I mumbled, swinging my legs back over the edge of the bench but eyeing the bushes warily.

Andre plucked the remaining half of my granola bar out of my hand and took an enormous bite of it.

"What'd Ellison want?" he asked through a mouthful of granola.

I thought of Whittaker and the twisted excitement in his eyes as he'd aimed his phone at my face. Hanna and Andre didn't need to know about him. They were already too worried about me after the whole coffee-dumping incident—I didn't want to stress them out.

So I shrugged and said, "She just wanted to check in."

Andre narrowed his eyes like he could tell I was lying but hadn't decided yet if he wanted to call me out or let it slide.

"Let's go to class," I blurted, dusting crumbs off my lap. "I don't want anybody stealing our seats."

I guess Andre decided it wasn't worth interrogating me about whatever Ellison and I had discussed. He trailed behind me, crunching away on my granola bar and minding his own business, as we took the stairs down to the basement of the biological sciences building. It was passing period. I could hear the din of chatter and laughter inside our classroom from out in the hallway.

When I hesitated at the doors of the lecture hall, Andre noticed and stepped around me, taking the lead without a word.

My human shield.

I huddled close behind his back, head down and eyes on the ground, as we shuffled down to our usual spot in the third row from the back. I didn't want to look up. I didn't even want to risk locking eyes with Bodie or Kyle Fogarty or any other football player in our class.

I just wanted to be invisible again.

Andre settled into his seat and angled his too-long legs towards me, so his knees weren't wedged against the back of the chair in front of him. I let my backpack slide off my shoulders and hit the floor by Andre's feet.

Before I could plop down beside him, someone called my name.

"Yo, Laurel!"

It was Ryan Lansangan, the man of a thousand inappropriate group project puns. He and Olivia were sitting in the end seats a few rows down.

Bodie stood looming over them in the aisle, both hands braced on the straps of his backpack and mouth set in a grim line. He wore a black shirt and black joggers—very moody—and had beige compression wrap looped around his left wrist.

Our eyes met.

His face seemed different now that I'd scrolled through pictures of him growing up. I could see traces of the kid in him beneath the square jaw dusted with stubble and the sharp features molded by hormones.

Somewhere in the sleepless haze of last night, I'd let myself entertain embarrassingly improbable theories about why Bodie hadn't ditched our group. Theories that I'd usually only come up with after a half a bottle of wine—that from the very first day in the elevator, when we'd both been wet from the rain and late to class, he'd been curious about me. That despite our opposing allegiances, he was still curious, and had decided that working on this group project together would give us both the chance to talk things through and reconcile our differences.

But those theories all withered under the weight of his obvious discomfort at seeing me again.

He didn't look like he wanted to talk things through with me.

He didn't look like he wanted to talk to me at all.

I turned to Andre, who'd taken it upon himself to stare down Bodie. I'm sure Andre intended to look threatening, but the way he was squinting, he sort of just looked like he'd forgotten to put in his contacts.

"I'll be right back," I murmured.

I marched down to where the rest of my group was gathered. Ryan and Olivia watched me approach, but Bodie fixed his eyes somewhere across the lecture hall—which I was sort of glad for, because something about the weight of Bodie's gaze on me made walking very difficult.

Given that Nick had let Bodie enroll in a full class and had also totally been willing to turn a blind eye when he rolled up ten minutes late to lecture, I couldn't imagine our professor telling Garland's Golden Boy that he couldn't switch into another group for the final project. Which left only one possible course of events: Bodie hadn't asked to change groups.

And I had no fucking clue why.

Maybe he'd decided he liked Ryan and Olivia enough to put up with me.

That seemed like the only viable explanation.

"You look super cute today, Laurel," Olivia said as I came to a stop at the end of their row, careful to leave an arm's length of space between Bodie and me. "Love the dress."

"Oh," I said, a bit caught off guard by the compliment. "Thanks! It has pockets."

I shoved my hands into them, like this was a claim I needed to prove, and immediately felt like a moron. A quick glance at Bodie confirmed that he'd been watching my pocket demonstration. He exhaled sharply through his nose and looked away—back across the room, to the spot where his teammates were socializing in their usual seats.

I wished he'd smile again.

He still had a boy's smile.

"So what's up?" I asked, tugging my hands back out of my pockets and smoothing down the front of my dress.

"Okay," Olivia said, popping up in her seat like a bottle of champagne that'd been uncorked. "So, I used to waitress at this Mexican restaurant in Hollywood that does the most amazing drag karaoke nights. And I was thinking we could totally do our project on drag culture! You know, like, its history in Los Angeles, and gender performance and identity, and all that stuff. The restaurant's kind of a long drive from here, but I could get us interviews with the manager and some of the regular performers. We'd have super solid primary sources."

"That's perfect!" I gushed.

Really, I was just overjoyed to hear that somebody in this group was going to pull their weight. All Ryan had contributed thus far were inappropriate jokes on our Facebook group, and as far as Bodie was concerned—well, he'd stood around looking pretty. I'd give him that.

But I was also pretty relieved that Olivia's idea was so detached from my own sexuality.

Andre had been telling me his group was pretty sure they were going to do their project on the sex toy industry. It was bad enough I'd have to work with Bodie. I couldn't imagine having to spend the next few months discussing vibrators.

Drag queens seemed safer. I could handle drag queens.

"It's a pretty dope idea, right?" Ryan said, beaming.

"We could go to a drag show at a club or something, too," Olivia added excitedly. Then she turned to Bodie and me and asked, "Are you guys twenty-one?"

Bodie nodded.

I'm not sure why that surprised me—I knew he'd redshirted his freshman year, so it made sense that he was a year older than me. Still, the sudden mental image I had of him standing in a bar, drinking a legally purchased beverage that wasn't served in a red cup, was jarring.

Especially since I'd spend a solid hour and a half last night looking at pictures of him from high school.

"I'm only twenty," I admitted, raising my hand a little.

I saw Bodie glance at me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't look his way, just in case he was judging me for being a relative infant.

"That's okay," Olivia said with an easy wave of her hand. "I'm sure we can find over-eighteen places."

The doors on our side of the lecture hall swung open. Nick entered with a "Good morning!" that I could tell meant please be quiet, you greasy little heathens, and stormed down the aisle towards the stage up at the front.

I went to shuffle out of his way at the same moment Bodie stepped forward so a girl could squeeze into Ryan and Olivia's row.

We bumped shoulders.

Well, my shoulder bumped into his (very solid) bicep. But I wasn't too concerned about that technicality. I was too busy blushing from my collarbone to my hairline.

His skin was so soft. Was my skin that soft?

"Sorry," I said, laughing in what I meant to be a casual way.

Bodie responded by clearing his throat and taking one comically large step back from me.

Okay, I thought, rude.

I folded my arms over my chest and swallowed hard.

"Let's meet up tomorrow afternoon," Olivia said quickly, so focused on the fact that our professor was starting class that she'd completely missed my horrifically uncomfortable interaction with Bodie. "I can reserve us a study room at Buchanan. Does three o'clock work?"

We all looked at each other, checking if any of us had a conflict or objection. Somehow, this little burst of team spirit resulted in Bodie and me looking each other dead in the eyes and nodding just as he said, "Works for me."

My throat was painfully dry.

I cleared it and murmured, "Me too."

_________________

*DJ Khaled voice* ANOTHER ONE.

Hi. Me again. Happy double-update weekend (I'm taking a nap after this).

There were so many things this group project could've been. And originally, I was a hundred percent gonna pick something for the sole purpose of getting Bodie and Laurel in some tense situations. But consider. Drag queens! Perhaps the people who best understand the connection between gender and performance! And that toxic masculinity is a thing! Hm, wonder which of my characters could really use some enlightenment and guidance on that front.

(This is not to say that I won't find ways to get some tense situations in there because I one hundred percent will.)

Your friendly author,

Kate