Night had snuck up on us while we were inside sipping sangria. The heat of the afternoon lingered, but the sky was dark when I slipped through the front doors of the restaurant and started down the steps. Light pollution from the city blotted out all but a handful of stars.

I sighed and hugged my arms over my chest.

He couldn't have gone far.

This was the last thought that crossed my mind before I turned the corner around the walled-in front patio and saw Bodie coming down the sidewalk toward me with one hand in the front pocket of his jean jacket and the other braced around a paper-wrapped cone of soft serve ice cream.

And here I'd thought he was off having an emotional breakdown.

"Hey," he called from the end of the block. He looked at the restaurant, then back at me, clearly confused. "What's up?"

An excuse.

I needed an excuse.

"I didn't have service in there," I blurted, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder. "And I had to check my—my emails. So I came out here. For the—for the signal."

There was free WiFi in the restaurant.

Bodie probably knew this, but he was nice enough not to say anything.

He stopped a few feet short of me, lifted his soft serve to his mouth and licked around the side of the cone, just barely catching a drip before it hit the side of his thumb. I was absolutely not staring at his hands. There was nothing remotely interesting about the way they made the cone look cute and miniature.

"Where'd you get the ice cream?" I blurted.

"Well, I put some more money in the meter," Bodie explained, oblivious to my pink cheeks, "and then I tried taking a shortcut on the way back. I passed a Foster's Freeze, and I had a few extra quarters, so I figured, you know, why not?"

I was jealous. Of Bodie—not the cone. Foster's Freeze sounded delicious right now, and he'd gotten the best kind: chocolate-dipped vanilla.

"Anything good?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

I managed to tear my eyes off his soft serve.

Bodie nodded toward the phone in my hand. Right. Emails.

"Oh! Uh, nothing yet. I'll just—I'll give it a minute. To load."

The silence stretched out. For a moment, I feared it would last forever.

What was I even doing? What did I think I would accomplish by hovering like this? Bodie and I were horrible conversationalists, and when we did manage to talk, we ended up arguing about Vaughn, my agenda, or Bodie's shortcomings.

I tried to step back and be a voice of reason for myself.

Go back inside, Laurel.

I didn't budge.

But neither did Bodie.

We just stood there, staring at each other, while his ice cream melted in the warm Los Angeles night.

"How do you know all the words to that song?" Bodie asked out of nowhere. "The Spanish one."

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about, and another second to get over the embarrassment of knowing he'd seen me mouthing the lyrics.

"Oh. Uh, my mom was from Mexico," I said with a shrug. "She loved Selena."

Bodie blinked at me.

"Quintanilla," I clarified. "Not Gomez."

"I know," he said in a bashful tone that told me he hadn't.

My mom was born in Mexico City in the mid-seventies, so Selena had been her Jonas Brothers—the music she listened to when she did homework, and when she drove around in my abuelo's car with the radio blaring. She and her friends had known all the words.

She'd immigrated to the US the same year Selena was killed.

My mom had died young, too—in her twenties—just like Selena. But that didn't feel like the kind of thing you shared when someone was trying to enjoy their ice cream.

"So that's why your Spanish is so good, then," Bodie said, smiling like he'd finally found the missing corner piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

I tilted my head at him.

First, because it wasn't true. My Spanish was basic, at best, and unintelligible Spanglish, at worst.

Second, "When have you heard me speak Spanish?"

Bodie blinked. His eyelashes had no business being so thick.

"You called me a dumbass at the Baseball House," he said. "I Google translated it."

I opened my mouth to protest and was immediately thunked over the head with the memory of my drunken self calling him pendejo when he'd taken my glass of wine and put it up on the fridge.

"Oh my god," I said. "I'm sorry. I had so much wine—"

Bodie laughed, the sound bright and clear over the hum of LA traffic.

"Don't worry about it," he told me. "You were mad. I learned some Spanish. So, win-win."

He took another lick of his ice cream.

I caught a glimpse of his tongue, all pink and bathed in melting white ice cream, and imagined his hair tickling the insides of my thighs.

The thought came so abruptly, I didn't know where it'd come from or what to do with it. It had to be the sangria. Beneath the sweet, punchy aftertaste lay dangerous volumes of alcohol. Three sips and my head was lodged in the gutter.

Definitely the sangria.

Luckily, Bodie completely misinterpreted the way I was looking at him

"Nuh-uh," he said, keeping his cone out of my reach. "Get your own ice cream. I had to walk like eight blocks to find this."

I rolled my eyes and leaned back against the whitewashed adobe wall that encircled the outdoor patio. Then, because I was desperate to steer my thoughts away from his tongue and what it could theoretically do, I asked, "How do you know the words to that Beach Boys song?"

"Well, first off," Bodie said very seriously, appearing not at all ashamed that I'd caught him mumbling the lyrics in the car, "it's a classic. But also, I grew up with—" he paused and squinted a little, "—outdated pop culture. My sister's ten years older than me. And my parents are really, really old."

I snorted. "Well, they're parents. Isn't being old part of the job description?"

"I mean my dad's seventy-one."

"Oh shit," I said, completely sidestepping tact.

Bodie laughed it off.

"Yeah, I know. I was his mid-life crisis."

He said it like it was a joke he'd told a hundred times before. Like it was something he always peppered in when he talked about his dad, to ease other people's discomfort. To ward off the uncomfortable silence as you tried to think about something to say that wasn't, so does he have dentures yet or...?

All at once, I wanted to tell Bodie everything.

I wanted to tell him about my mom. And my dad. And my hometown in the Central Valley that smelled of methane (because of all the cows) and gasoline (because of all the Chevron and Shell stations) but had night skies so heavy with stars it felt like you could jump up and grab handfuls of them at a time. I wanted to tell him that I lived off of granola bars and Mexican food and had the Jonas Brothers' third studio album in my car and that, when he smiled at me, I felt the opposite of invisible.

Instead, I popped off the wall, nudged Bodie with my elbow and said, "You know ice cream tastes better if you share it, right?"

He studied me carefully over the cone.

"Sounds like an urban legend."

I shook my head. "Scientific fact."

"I'm gonna need to see a peer-reviewed study."

It took me a solid three seconds to realize that he'd cracked a joke. My laugh came out as a delighted snort.

Bodie hid a proud smile behind another lick of ice cream.

"Thanks for driving, by the way," I said, scuffing the toe of my sneaker against the sidewalk and trying not to think about the green-haired owner of the car we'd come in. "And for—I don't know. Doing shit. For this project. I know you've got a lot going on right now."

This last bit came out mumbled.

Bodie heard me anyway.

"Don't mention it," he said tightly. "I'm sorry I was the world's worst group member for a few weeks there."

The guilt in his voice bothered me.

"Bodie?"

He hummed. His mouth was full of ice cream.

It was my chance to monologue.

"It's okay to not be okay. I know you don't like letting people down, but—" the words were coming out all globbed together. I was horrible at this. "Whatever Vaughn did—just hear me out—whatever he did, it's awful. And it's okay to be upset about it. It's okay to step back from everything to figure out how you feel. You're allowed to not be okay."

Bodie stared down at his ice cream cone and pulled a face like he'd lost his appetite.

"Can we talk about something else?" he asked. "I—I'm really sorry, Laurel. I know this is an important talk. But I really, really don't want to have it tonight."

I did.

I wanted to press it. To press him. But I could tell I was prodding a bruise, and tonight had been too nice to ruin with another receptive, predictable argument. Besides. Getting away from campus made it so much easier to forget about everything. Our classes, our responsibilities, the article that'd upturned both our lives.

Maybe we both deserved a night off from being ourselves.

So I folded my arms over my chest, relieved I'd gotten the words out but kind of hating that I'd made things awkward again, and said, "Okay. You're right."

Should've gone back inside. Dumbass.

The worst kind of silence stretched out before us.

Bodie broke it when he sighed, turned to face me square on, and extended his ice cream cone like a chocolate-dipped olive branch.

"One lick," he said, a warning in his tone and a smile on his face.

I'm not sure what possessed me to wrap both of my hands around Bodie's wrist, anchoring him and his cone in place and using his solidly muscles arms to leverage myself up onto my toes.

The bite of ice cream I took was massive, and the rush of cold made my front teeth sting like a bitch, but it was worth it to see Bodie's eyes light up with delighted outrage.

"You did not," he said.

I held my hand over the bottom half of my face, in the off-chance that my laughter sent ice cream out of my nose, until I'd swallowed.

"Sorry."

I was not at all sorry.

Bodie narrowed his eyes.

And then he said, in a very mediocre Spanish accent, "Pendejo."

I knew, then, that I couldn't blame the sangria. I wasn't drunk. Not even a little bit. It was Bodie—the jitters and the urge to giggle like a thirteen-year-old at her first Jonas Brothers concert were all his doing.

Bodie's thundercloud grey eyes flickered down to my lips.

Fuck it, I thought.

With a surge of wild and chaotic bravery I imagine skydivers feel before they launch themselves out of airplanes, I reached up and pressed my fingertips to the top of Bodie's shoulder just firmly enough to keep my balance.

I rolled up onto my toes again like I was going in for seconds.

My lips made contact with his jaw—an accident, not a strategic step in my poorly-thought-out plan.

Bodie froze.

The regret was instant. I'd fucked up more monumentally than previously thought possible. I pulled back, an apology forming at the back of my throat even as our faces were still so close that I could've held him there and counted his eyelashes.

I heard the wet splat of ice cream on the pavement.

And then Bodie's hands were on either side of my face, his fingers brushing across my cheekbones and knotting into my hair.

His chin dipped.

His mouth caught mine.

I'm not sure if he kissed me first or if I kissed him, but the technicalities of it all seemed deeply unimportant, because his lips were still cold from the ice cream but his mouth was hot, and he tasted like chocolate-dipped vanilla.

He was so much taller than me that I had to stand on my tiptoes. A muscle in the arch of my left foot was cramping. I didn't care. I looped one arm around his neck for leverage and pressed my other hand flat to his chest, fingers burrowed under his denim jacket and splayed over his t-shirt.

His heartbeat hammered against my palm.

I had the most inappropriate urge to burst out laughing.

A month ago, I'd wanted to punch Bodie St. James square in the face. Now his tongue was in my mouth and it was quite possibly the highlight of my entire collegiate experience.

Somewhere behind us—what felt like miles off—the front door of the restaurant opened again and a burst of music spilled out onto the sidewalk.

Footsteps came plodding down the steps.

And then, with all the subtlety of an air horn: "Yo!"

Bodie and I broke apart with a wet smack.

Ryan didn't look even a little bit guilty for interrupting us. And he wasn't exactly the sharpest eyeliner in the brush kit, but it was pretty obvious what we'd been doing, so there was no excuse.

Bodie cleared his throat.

"Hey, Ryan," he said, voice low and rough and deeply annoyed.

"I thought you guys got jumped, or something!" Ryan said with a laugh. "Show's over. You missed the big finale. It was so good, yo. They did a fuckin' Beyoncé tribute. Olivia covered the bill, so we just gotta Venmo her like twenty bucks each. Cool?"

Bodie nodded. "Yep. Sure. Good."

I still felt like I might laugh.

I had to press my fingers to my lips to hold it back.

"After you," Bodie told me, with a rather formal sweep of his hand.

I still had my head lodged in the clouds, so it was hardly a surprise when my sneaker caught the lip of the top step and I stumbled.

Ryan snorted.

"No more sangria for you," he teased.

It had nothing to do with the sangria.

He kissed me back.

In the dark hallway between the dining rooms, just outside the door to the men's bathroom, the three of us had to pause to let a pair of women and a waiter carrying a steaming plate of fajitas pass each other.

I knew Bodie was right behind me.

Half of me wanted to turn and apologize for mauling him so hard his ice cream had become a casualty.

The other half of me wanted to do it again.

I tried to think about the feel of his lips against mine so I'd remember it right. I should've been handsier while I had the chance. I should've combed my fingers through his hair—my nails on his scalp would've felt nice to him. Had whatever I'd done with my hands felt nice to him? I wished I'd been paying more attention.

It was like I'd blacked out.

I hated that I hadn't had the time to catalog every little feeling, every little point of contact. I wanted to remember it.

I wanted to do it again.

Olivia watched me as I slid back onto the bench beside her.

I cleared my throat and asked, super casually, "'Sup?"

The corner of her mouth twitched.

"Your lipstick is smudged, babe," she said.

I lunged for a napkin. When Bodie sunk down into his seat across the table from me, our knees bumped. We apologized simultaneously.

Olivia beamed at us.

"Well, kiddos," she said, tucking her notebook under her arm. "It's almost eleven, and I've got a pure barre class at seven AM. I think we should head out. You good to drive, St. James?"

"Yeah," he murmured. "Dead sober."

It struck me, then, that he wouldn't look me in the eyes.

❖ ❖ ❖

The cool night air roared through the open windows of Fogarty's Tesla, tangling our hair in our faces and drowning out Olivia's voice as she shouted along to Ryan's avant-garde music choices.

I caught Bodie's eyes in the rearview mirror.

He looked away.

The closer we got to campus, the tighter the knot in the pit of my stomach become. I didn't want to go back to reality. I wanted to sleep on the terracotta tiled floor of La Ventana and live off guacamole and sangria while drag queens sang for me. More than anything, I wanted to stand outside the restaurant with Bodie and talk.

I wanted to ask him what the hell was going on inside his head.

Did he regret kissing me back?

I knew I was being paranoid, but what was I supposed to think, when a guy wouldn't look at me after we'd put our mouths on each other? And Bodie wasn't just a guy—he had a laundry list of reasons to want to stay away from me.

We dropped off Olivia first. When Bodie turned to Ryan and asked where he lived, and I realized he was going to save me until last to drop off. He wanted to talk, too. I wasn't sure whether I was relieved or disappointed when Ryan insisted that his place was farther, and that it'd make more sense for Bodie to drop me off first.

"I'm hella tired," Ryan exclaimed as we turned onto my street.

"Same," I said in the back seat, yawning as proof.

Bodie remained bewilderingly silent.

We pulled up to the curb in front of my building. I climbed out through the stupid falcon wing door and hovered on the sidewalk for a moment, then squatted to look through the open passenger-side window.

"Goodnight," I said, looking directly at Bodie.

"Goodnight," Ryan said, completely missing that he was not the intended recipient of this message. "We should do this again. Like just for fun. Not even for the project. Except maybe I won't drink so much sangria next time. I'm gonna have a gnarly hangover."

"I think you guys all had too much sangria," Bodie commented from the driver's side.

My chest felt tight.

I tried to catch his eyes, but he stared forward through the windshield resolutely. Did he think that I'd only kissed him because I was drunk?

Because—

"I didn't do anything I wouldn't have done sober," I blurted.

Well, there it was. The last drop of my courage squeezed right out of the tube. I didn't even have the cajones to look at Bodie after I said it. I just tugged down the wrinkled hem of Hanna's black overall dress and cleared my throat.

"G'night," I said, for the second time in under a minute.

"Sleep tight," Ryan said with a wave.

Idiot, idiot, idiot.

This was my mantra as I darted up the front steps and onto the stoop, where I fumbled with my key.

It was only after I'd shouldered open the front door of the building that I heard quick footsteps on the sidewalk behind me. I thought someone who lived in my building was jogging to catch the door, so I held it open behind myself.

Bodie appeared on the stoop.

"Hey," he said, a bit breathless.

It would only dawn on me later that he was an athlete and had much better stamina than that.

I stepped back, as if to get out of his way, and he slipped into the building along with me. The hall was dimly lit and smelled of Thai food. One of my neighbors was listening to John Mayer at a volume that John Mayer did not necessarily warrant, but other than that, it was just me and a heavy-breathing Bodie St. James.

I don't think I should've found it so romantic.

When I spoke, my voice was small.

"Did you need something, or..."

"I don't know how to do this," Bodie blurted, one arm braced out as he held the door open behind us, letting the cool night air drift in. "I'm so, so bad at this stuff, Laurel. But I do—I do like you. It's just that you wrote the article. I know it's unfair to ask, but if we could—if we could just wait until after the investigation's over and we know for sure what happened—I just—I can't do it. Not yet."

Not yet.

I could work with not yet.