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“Yeah, I guess. But I thought we’d try to be in the same region.” He runs a hand over his sling-less arm. “We’ve never lived more than a quarter mile from each other. How am I gonna eat?”

“Your personal chef?”

“I thought that was you.”

I give him a smile I’m not really feeling. “It’ll work out. I mean, we’re always going to be ... friends.” I swallow, incapable of pulling off such a loaded term nonchalantly.

He looks at me, dropping the casual act. “Friends?”

“Lorenzo.”

“I know you don’t like committing to things?—”

“That’s not it. I’m committed to you always. I—wejust don’t know what that’s going to look like in the future.”

“Okay, but we don’t have to assume from the start that friends is the best we can do.”

Lorenzo really believes that the future won’t change us, and that makes my heart strain with affection for him. But this is the one place where he’s the dreamer and I’m the realist. Life has so much in store for him. “I want us to live close. I want us tobeclose. We just ... can’t count on it completely.”

He turns to open the fridge, but not before I catch the hurt in his eyes. “Yeah,” he says dully. Guilt forms a hard lump in my throat. I know he’s confused. I am too. We’re still figuring out what we are together, but we know what we’re not: not just friends, not just hooking up to pass the time. But beyond college? I can’t base my life around a future I have no control over, and I won’t make false promises.

“Am I wrong?” When I hear the question is when I realize how badly I want him to convince me I am. Because I told myself all along to expect nothing of him, but there’s a seed of hope buried somewhere deep inside me that wants nothing more than to believe forever with Lorenzo is real. Losing him would mean losing everything.

He closes the fridge. “I don’t know. If all you want to do is prove something to your parents, then maybe you’re right.”

“What I want is a job I can be proud of.”

“That you can be proud of? Or that your parents can?”

My phone rings right as his probing gaze settles on me. I reach for it—it’s Bree—and relief washes over me at the chance for escape. “I have to go in a minute.”

Lorenzo keeps his eyes down as he opens a container of salad on the counter, his brow furrowed.

“Unless you want to keep talking about this,” I offer, hoping like hell he doesn’t.

“Not really.” His mouth quirks. “Have fun.”

I get nothing from him as I gather my purse, kiss him on the cheek, and head for the door. Clearly he’s annoyed with me, but I wonder whether he knows as well as I do that the world is never going to guarantee us a future together.

THIRTY-TWO

ruby

“Areyou sure you want to get dragged into this?” I ask Lorenzo, glancing at him in the mirror again. Tonight we’re celebrating my parents’ anniversary with dinner in Lakeside, and Lorenzo’s decision to honor the occasion by combing back his glossy hair and donning a crisp suit shirt is making preparations difficult because my eyes refuse to stay on my own work.

Lorenzo’s body wasn’t meant for a suit. Not because he doesn’t look hot as hell in it—my eyes keep drifting to his rolled-up sleeves and the way the clean white fabric cuts against his bronzed, tattooed forearms, half hiding the veins that stand out on his skin but doing absolutely nothing to diminish them. No, he looks perfect in a suit, but the suit fails at its job to make him seem elegant and refined and like every other upstanding young man in a suit. The suit can’t hide his immense, muscled body, and its failure only emphasizes the fact that he’s straight up sex on legs.

“I’m not being dragged.” He leans over the bed where his jacket is laid out and plucks a piece of lint from the lapel. “I enter into tonight’s dinner of my own free will.”

“Would you?” I hold up a gold pendant necklace, and he steps behind me, draping the chain around my neck. The leathery scent of his cologne settles over me. “You remember those words later when you’re listening to my dad’s eleventh retelling of how he impressed my mom on their first date with his story about a first-edition copy of some book no one’s heard of.” But already my mind is drifting. The mere brush of Lorenzo’s fingertips at the back of my neck has me thinking about skipping dinner and undressing him instead.

“I’m going for you, not for Richard’s tales of personal glory.” He fastens the necklace clasp and drops his head, kissing the sensitive skin where my shoulder meets my neck and sending bolts of electricity through me. He knows nothing makes me weaker than that spot. “Besides,” he says, nuzzling my neck, “your parents’ anniversary is the reason you exist. We should get fucking blasted tonight to celebrate.”

Lorenzo was kidding, but as we walk into the bustling restaurant in Lakeside’s humble downtown, I’m thinking he was onto something with the idea of getting shit-faced. Dinner with my parents is never without its drudgery, but tonight I have a goal that goes beyond just surviving the meal. Assuming my dad is in a good mood—and he will be because nothing gets Richard’s rocks off like celebrating a personal milestone—I’m going to tell my parents I have big plans for myself after college. I can’t wait for their reactions.

My mom and dad stand to greet us as we head toward the rear of the restaurant, where their table sits against enormous arched windows. My heels clack on the sleek travertine floor, but I don’t soften my step.

“Happy anniversary,” I say brightly as I put my arms around my parents in turn. I ignore the disapproving look my mom shoots at the length of my skirt. I will not let this evening be ruined by their judgments or my resentments.