On Tuesday (in a turn of events that surprised absolutely no one who knew me) I was late to Human Sexuality.

The basement of the biological sciences building was dead quiet, save for the whir of air conditioning and an eerie hum emitting from a maintenance closet. My footsteps echoed as I tore down the hallway.

With the lightning-quick agony of ripping off a DIY waxing strip, I shoved open the first set of double doors.

It was something out of a stress-induced nightmare. Up on the stage, Nick went silent. An entire lecture hall of my peers twisted around in their seats to see what the interruption was. It was me. Wide-eyed, stone-faced, wearing light wash jeans that may or may not have had five tiny smudges of Cheeto dust on the right thigh where I'd accidentally wiped my hand after Hanna and I had shared the most nutritionally disastrous breakfast of our lives.

"Hey there," Nick called from the stage.

Oh, God. He was doing this.

"Hi," I said, my voice suddenly very high-pitched.

"We're ten minutes into the lecture," Nick replied, not looking remotely remorseful for the public humiliation he was subjecting me to. His hair wasn't in its usual ponytail today, but the rest of his hipster aesthetic remained intact: grandpa glasses, Star Wars t-shirt, tweed blazer.

"Sorry," I said.

At least, I tried to say it. Terror had frozen my vocal cords. I'm pretty sure I just mouthed the word.

Nick took a breath, shot me one last withering glare so the whole class knew he wouldn't tolerate being interrupted, and resumed the lecture.

I briefly considered turning on my heel and leaving.

It wasn't too late to drop a class. I could take the incomplete. Drop out of college entirely. Change my name. Join a traveling mariachi band.

"Laurel," I thought I heard someone whisper.

Like a pair of magnets, my gaze snapped together with Bodie's. He was sitting in the third row from the back. My row. The seat on the aisle was occupied by his backpack.

He'd saved it for me.

I could've cried with relief, but I was a little too focused on not tripping over my own feet as I darted down the aisle. Bodie lifted his backpack half a second before I threw myself into the seat. I tugged on the swivel desk with a tad too much enthusiasm, and it snapped into place with a loud thunk that caused a few heads to turn again.

Fucking Nick.

What specific brand of asshole called out his students in a one-hundred-person lecture? Honestly. Four years of tuition at Garland was enough to buy a starter home in most states. You'd think Nick could respect that my being late to class came at a far greater cost to me than to him.

It wasn't until I leaned back in my seat and exhaled a shaky breath that I noticed the paper coffee cup that'd appeared on my desk.

Across the side, scribbled in black marker, was BUDDY.

I guess, statistically speaking, there had to be at least one barista in Garland, California who didn't follow football.

"Is this for me?" I whispered.

Bodie nodded.

"You need it more than I do," he whispered back.

And then he smiled, and it was over for me.

"I guess I owe you my firstborn, now," I said.

Bodie cleared his throat.

I realized, belatedly, that this saying held significantly more sexual connotations when uttered while the dual projector screens up at the front of the room read Unit Seven: Fertility, Pregnancy and Childbirth.

He'd be a good dad. I really shouldn't have been thinking about his paternal potential, but it was far from the wildest daydream I'd had in the middle of a class about sexuality.

"Shepherd told me you got a new job," Bodie said, guiding us into a new topic of conversation like a pro. "Congrats."

"It's just a tutoring gig," I said, tucking my hair behind my ear and clutching his cup of coffee tight to my chest in one hand. It was hot even through the cardboard sleeve. "Not like a real job, or anything. I like your sweater, by the way."

I wasn't just trying to flatter him. Bodie looked nice in sweaters.

But, predictably, the compliment painted his cheeks pink.

"Thanks. I, uh, also heard that some of the people at the Daily got some pretty threatening notes," he said, trying and failing miserably to sound chill about this.

I took a gulp of scalding coffee and winced.

Bodie shifted in his seat.

"Did you get anything?" he asked, clearly trying to hide his worry.

"Hm?"

"You didn't get any notes, did you?"

I stared at him for perhaps a beat too long.

"Nope," I lied.

Bodie still looked suspicious, but he didn't press it. I was touched by his concern. But it was his concern that made me sure I wasn't ever going to tell him about the note under my door.

Fine. So Andre was right—I didn't like telling people I cared about when I had problems. In my defense, I was rational about it. I'd warned Hanna about the note (in admittedly vague terms) because it'd been slipped under our door, which meant that it posed a safety hazard to her, too. I wasn't an idiot.

My pride would never outweigh the wellbeing of my friends.

Bodie's voice snapped me out of that train of thought.

"The Art House is having their paint party this weekend, right?"

Fuck. I'd forgotten about Pollock. I needed to find my white shorts—the ones I'd picked up at Goodwill freshman year exclusively for the one paint party a year I attended—and make sure they still fit. I'd been hitting the Mexican food a little too hard this semester.

"Yeah, it's Friday," I said, to answer Bodie's question.

"Are you gonna go?"

"Of course," I said. "Are—are you going? Because Hanna and I are throwing a pregame at ours, so you—you and Andre, could, like, walk over together?"

Bodie smile made warmth bloom in my chest. Or maybe it was the coffee giving me acid reflux.

"I'd like that," he said.

"Cool," I said.

"Cool," Bodie parroted.

And then I took another gulp of coffee, because I really needed something to keep another dumb word from coming out of my mouth.

Nick announced it was time for the first group presentation of the day.

On the other side of the aisle, Andre and three significantly shorter girls stood from their seats and started down towards the stage. The girls had index cards in hand. Andre carried a reusable Target tote he'd borrowed (stolen) from my collection.

"Do you know what Shepherd's presenting on?" Bodie whispered.

"Yeah," I replied absent-mindedly. "They're doing—"

Oh, God.

The first slide of a PowerPoint entitled The History of Sex Toys appeared across the screen.

Dildos. They're presenting on dildos.

I clutched Bodie's coffee cup in my hands and sunk low in my seat, wondering if it was too late to pack up my things and take a nice five-point deduction from my already-abysmal attendance grade.

"Today," said one of Andre's group members, "we're going to be walking you through a brief history of sex toys."

Beside me, Bodie started bouncing his knee.

❖ ❖ ❖

Purgatory ended with the final PowerPoint slide—a tastefully done black and white illustration of the world's first vibrator, originally used in a nineteenth-century Paris hospital on hysterical women, who's wombs tended to wander about their bodies like lost Disneyland tourists searching for the entrance to Indiana Jones Adventure.

Just kidding. They were women with perfectly normal sexual frustrations, anxieties, and pre-menstrual symptoms.

Men just didn't know shit.

"We hope this is a very happy ending to the presentation," one of Andre's group members quipped boldly.

Giggles and chortles swept through the crowd.

I was pretty sure I hadn't taken a breath during the last half an hour.

Beside me, Bodie was still as a rock.

Another of the three girls in Andre's group grabbed the mic and held up a baseball hat full of shreds of paper.

"We wanted to thank everyone in this class who answered the survey we sent out," she said. "As a token of our appreciation, we put the email addresses of everyone who responded in this hat, and we're going to draw three lucky names to win some prizes!"

I was suddenly very relieved that I hadn't bothered taking that survey, despite the initial guilt I'd felt when Andre kept asking me about it, because it meant that my name wasn't even in the running.

The first prize was a tiny purple bullet vibrator.

They had to draw four different email addresses before a boy on the other side of the lecture hall—to the amusement of his friends—jogged down to claim his prize. He held it aloft like baby Simba over the animal kingdom.

His friends absolutely lost it.

The second prize was even worse—an enormous cheetah-print dildo, seemingly too large to be in any way practical. Despite the wave of laughter that rolled through the lecture hall, I saw people sink down in their chairs and fidget nervously.

A girl in the fourth row whooped with celebration when her email was read out.

The third and final raffle prize came in a hot pink box.

"This," proclaimed one of Andre's group members, "is the Casanova V4."

She read the specs like she was auctioning off a luxury sports car.

Ten speeds. Waterproof silicone casing. Smooth ride.

I glanced at Bodie out of the corner of my eye. I wish I hadn't. I'd never seen him so red-faced.

"Aight, let's do it," Andre said, rubbing his hands together.

He pinched his eyes shut and reached into the hat. He pulled out a single slip of paper, unfolded it, and then looked up into the crowd.

His eyes fell on me.

And I knew, with striking clarity, that Andre was about to pull a bitch move.

"?" he called out.

He furrowed his eyebrows like he'd never heard this email address in his life, which I knew was bullshit, because he'd sent me several papers for a quick proofread over the years.

And now, this.

Betrayal.

Beside me, Bodie ducked his head. His shoulders shook with laughter.

I slumped lower in my seat. I was not about to stand up and claim a vibrator in front of a lecture hall full of people. I'd had enough public humiliation for one day. Any more and I risked the complete dismantlement of my precarious self-confidence.

"Do we got an L-Cates here today?" Andre repeated.

He was holding back a smile.

I was going to throttle him.

I was so busy imagining all the ways I could get back at him, I didn't put up enough of a fight when Bodie reached out, suddenly, and caught my wrist.

"No, wait—"

Too late.

He held my arm aloft, his grip unyielding even when I wriggled.

"She's here!" Bodie called.

Andre started up the aisle, his grin a mile wide.

People turned in their seats, craning their necks to see the girl who'd won Cosmopolitan's top vibrator of the year.

"No, no, no," I chanted, still fighting to free my hand.

Andre arrived at our row and dropped to one knee, bestowing me with the boxed vibrator in a sweeping gesture.

"Enjoy," he told me. He had the nerve to wink.

People laughed. He's not that funny, I wanted to yell. But Andre was already jogging back down the stage. I glared at the back of his fade and thought about chucking something at him.

I looked down at the box in my hands.

Across the side, in atrocious cursive, was The Casanova V4.

Ten speeds! it proclaimed.

Somebody please end my suffering, I thought.

I heard Bodie suppress a snort and realized he'd leaned over to inspect the blasphemous item of packaging in my hands.

I lurched forward to shove the box into my backpack. I'd have to remember to chuck it in the dumpster outside our apartment building—preferably in the dead of night, so nobody would see me. I'd have to wear all black, too. I could Amazon Prime myself a ski mask and gloves, if I really wanted to be safe.

I turned to glower at Bodie for his role in my well-orchestrated humiliation.

He smiled and held out his hand like he wanted me to shake it.

"Congratulations," he said. "I'm so happy for y—"

I bit back a smile, without much success.

"Eat a dick, St. James," I grumbled.

Bodie laughed again.

His hand was still reached out towards me. I smacked it away with the back of mine, but he caught my fingers in his and held them, just for a moment, before he let my hand drop.

_________________

I gave my full manuscript a few weeks ago and this was the only chapter we really discussed, which either says a lot about my book or a lot about who we are as human beings. My browser history also includes vibrator history and sex toy names?? now so I hope you all appreciate my sacrifice. My Amazon ads are going to be weird as shit.

I'm not sure if anyone's going to get a notification when I post this (because Wednesday was a struggle and a half) but if you're reading this: next week I'll be posting chapters on Monday, Wednesday, THURSDAY, and Friday. Over 8k words in total. Get. Ready.

But like study for your final exams and stuff, too, if you've got them.

Your friendly author,

Kate