Page 49

Windfall

Sixteen Years Old, Virginia

October, junior year, my parents let me visit Charlottesville with Connor, Bernie, and the twins. They’d been reluctant, at first. I was sixteen, their only child, occasionally naive, blah, blah, blah. I’m pretty sure visions of keg stands danced in their heads—the sort of rabble-rousing they got up to in college, ahem . I sold the trip more as a CVU visit than a loosely supervised weekend with my boyfriend, which wasn’t an outright fabrication.

Autumn had proved itself even more challenging than I’d been prepared for. I was busy in Rosebell, studying my ass off, serving as Key Club’s junior class director and French Club’s vice president, and hanging out with Macy, who’d become a secondary best friend in Beck’s absence. He was swamped, trying to get his freshman-year feet under him. His academic schedule was grueling, his athletic schedule even more so. When he wasn’t in class, he was at the library or the gym or with his roommate, James, whose schedule must’ve been significantly less grueling because he seemed to fit partying into every day that ended in y .

Sometimes when we spoke, Beck sounded grouchy and overtaxed. Sometimes I picked fights to snare his attention. On the hardest days, I let myself wonder if we’d been wrong to try and make it work.

We left Rosebell Friday afternoon, after I’d finished school and Connor had finished work. All the way to CVU, sitting in the third row of Bernie’s Subaru while the twins watched movies on iPads in the middle, I simmered in excited anticipation. I’d gotten only one weekend with Beck since he left for college, when he’d hitched a ride home for his birthday. I wanted my time at CVU to be like those days had been: blissful.

I was pretty sure it would be. Connor, Bernie, and the twins would meet us at Saturday’s Eagles football game, and we’d see campus and get food with them, but they were sleeping at a hotel. As far as my parents knew, I was bunking in Beck’s building, but with James’s girlfriend, Trish, on the third-floor women’s hall, far from any penises. In truth, James would spend the weekend with Trish, and I would stay with Beck.

He was waiting for us outside.

His sisters scrambled out of the SUV, running down the sidewalk for hugs. Bernie and Connor followed. I lingered, stretching my legs as I watched Beck embrace his mom, then his dad. While Norah and Mae made a game of chasing each other around the nearby lawn and their parents attempted to rein them in so they didn’t crash into students hustling back to their dorms, I walked into Beck’s waiting arms. He buried his face in my hair, inhaling the way he did when we danced that first time at formal. Like he was trying to memorize the moment down to its finest details.

All my worrying ceased to matter.

Beck and I were together again.

***

Connor and Bernie took us to dinner at a local pizza parlor. Beck fielded their CVU-centric questions and helped his sisters with the dot-to-dots printed on their menus. Beneath the table, his hand found my knee, then migrated a slow path toward my hip. The longer we sat in that booth, the faster my heart beat. When Connor suggested a dessert pizza, I nearly bottle-rocketed through the ceiling.

The Byrnes dropped us back on campus before heading to their hotel. As soon as Beck and I stepped into the empty elevator, we were kissing, and not with delicacy. After so much time apart, after so much time with his family, decorum had left the dormitory.

With my back against the scuffed wall, Beck murmuring kisses along my throat, I caught my breath long enough to whisper, “Tonight, okay?”

He lifted his head to look at me. Voice raspy, he said, “You sure?”

I raked my fingers through his hair. “Very.”

With a ding, the elevator doors yawned open.

He smiled, grabbed the handle of my suitcase, and took my hand. We walked down the hallway, my stomach fluttering all the way to his room. He fumbled with his key, then flung the door open. I’d seen enough of his living space on FaceTime that the tiny room with its narrow beds and unreasonably big TV wasn’t much of a surprise.

Finding James rifling through a drawer was.

Beck begrudgingly introduced us, though we’d made lots of small talk on calls over the last couple of months. James grinned while stuffing sweats and deodorant into a duffel. He must’ve sensed his roommate’s edginess, though, because he said, “On my way out, bro. Had to grab a few things before heading to Trish’s.”

Beck glowered. “You’re not supposed to be anywhere near this room for the duration of the weekend. Hurry up .”

“I am, I am! Just trying to avoid interruptions later.”

I swallowed my laughter and perched on Beck’s desk, tidied, I think, with my visit in mind. He leaned in to mutter, exasperated, “This fucking guy.”

“Lia,” James said, zipping his bag, “it’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise.”

He shot Beck a waggish smile. Then to me he said, very seriously, “I hope pleasure is a trend that will continue for you tonight.”

Beck snatched a pair of rolled socks from James’s desk, which was far less tidy, and fired them at his retreating back. James ducked out the door, snickering.

Beck showed me where to store my suitcase, then walked me to the hall’s communal bathroom and stood guard while I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Back at his room, he left me to change, returning to the bathroom to shower.

Wearing the pajamas I’d bought especially for my visit—little black shorts with a matching tank trimmed in lace; my mom would have died if she’d seen the set—I explored Beck’s space. His bedspread was gray linen, thick and soft. On his desk sat his laptop, a couple of textbooks and notebooks, a US Army cup filled with pens and pencils, a framed photo of Norah and Mae dressed as Rapunzel and a dinosaur, respectively, and a framed photo of him and me at the Tidal Basin. The mini fridge was stocked with bottled water and caffeinated sodas, and the shelves were lined with protein powders and energy bars. James had hung a bunch of sports posters on the wall over his bed—New York Mets, New York Giants, New York Knicks—but Beck had gone with a tapestry in black-and-white.

He came through the door dressed in sweats and one of the many CVU T-shirts he’d acquired since he’d committed. His hair was wet, curling where it touched the back of his neck, and he brought with him a familiar scent, one I’d come to associate with him and my happiest moments.

His hand was on the doorknob, the door still ajar, when his eyes settled on me. He looked momentarily lost, like he wasn’t sure he’d stepped into the right room, then his expression morphed into something like disbelief, as if a girl on his bed was a windfall too great to comprehend.

“You okay over there?” I asked.

He gave his head a shake. “I think so.”

“Would you mind closing the door?”

His face cracked into a grin. He shoved the door shut, then twisted the lock.

“Doesn’t James have a key?”

“If James shows his face in this room before Sunday night…” he said, stalking toward me. “I’ll kill him.”

I laughed. “I’ll help.”

Scooting back on the bed, I made room. He curved around me, a parenthesis to my comma. Into the space between us, he said, “You’ve been good to me these last few months. I know I’ve been a shit boyfriend, but school is hard and throwing is hard and being away from you is the fucking worst. Things are gonna get easier, though. Better. You know that, right?”

“I do. And you’re not a shit boyfriend, Beckett. You’re my very favorite person.”

He smiled, then kissed me with reverence I felt in my soul.

I looped my arms around his neck as his hands roamed. Soon my pretty pajamas fell away. His sweats followed. He pulled a condom from his desk drawer because, even though we’d talked about birth control and I trusted the pills I’d been prescribed, he was the sort of person to be doubly careful.

And then it was happening, Beck and me, together in the only way we’d never been.

I’d read enough pragmatic magazine articles, enough spicy blog posts, enough heartfelt romance novels to have a relatively holistic view of sex. Macy had given me that startlingly uncensored rundown of her first time with Wyatt. I’d seen movies like American Pie and Lady Bird and The Girl Next Door. I knew to manage my expectations, to anticipate fumbling and awkwardness and discomfort, to let go of any notions of fireworks. But being with Beck was more than warnings, advice, and mechanics. It was the way his eyes sought mine, the way he checked in, the way he murmured his love. He laced his fingers through mine. He kissed my temples, my collarbones, my mouth. And then there were fireworks, because Beck was mindful and determined, and never did anything halfway.

Later, we lay in his bed, listening to the sounds of the dorm: muffled music, slammed doors, the occasional holler. With his arms around me, his breath falling evenly on my shoulder, I turned over what he’d admitted earlier: it was hard for him to be away from me. His honesty was reassuring, as was the awareness that my challenges were his challenges. Our attempt at making a relationship work over distance and time was hard. He could be clueless, and I could be self-centered, and the both of us made assumptions and, occasionally, failed to see reason.

Still, I’d never loved him more.

I snuggled into his chest and chose him all over again.