Page 21

MAYA

It had all happened so quickly. One minute, Theo and I were texting, and I was teasing her about not asking me to hang out. The next, Theo was coming over to my house.

I didn’t really know what had taken over me in asking her to come over here.

Maybe it was the way she’d so playfully texted me, I’m not sure I want you to see my living room, I don’t want you to get the ick .

Or maybe it was just that I had so much fun texting her that I couldn’t resist wanting to see her again as soon as possible.

I had friends who rotated around me—people I got drinks with, people I met up with after class, people I saw at parties—but it’d been a long time since I’d had someone new around that I was excited about.

Despite my best efforts to hide it, I knew I had a little extra pep in my step.

It was someone to change up the routine; someone to offer me something new.

It was impossible to resist the story of it all and the grip Theo seemed to have on me.

I wanted to know as much as I could about her and permanently store it in my memory.

In ten years, I’d tell my friends over drinks, remember when Theo McCall was texting me? and it would be worth it .

I looked at myself in the mirror; I had to be realistic. Despite the undeniable thrill I felt over Theo coming over, I was doing everything I could to push it down. I didn’t really want to talk about Theo as a vague memory ten years from now; she deserved better than to be used for a story.

“Just get her out of your system,” I mumbled to myself as I put on mascara—enough makeup to feel put together but not so much that Theo would think I put it on just for her when our only plans were to hang out at my apartment.

I headed out into the open floor plan living room just as Iris walked in with bags of groceries from Trader Joe’s, our local spot.

“I got you a four-pack of those elderberry blueberry acai seltzer water things,” Iris said.

“None of those are the right fruits, but I know exactly what you’re talking about,” I said. “Thank you so much. How was work?”

“Oh, you know,” she said. “Same stuff. One of my clients thinks I’m her daughter this time instead of her sister. Another one keeps talking about needing to take the dog out for a walk, but she had the dog in, like, 1983.”

“Jeez,” I said. Iris didn’t like it when people talked about her work as if it were something saintly, but I really respected what she did.

I tried my best to mince my words and not go down the path of either praising her too highly or dragging details out of her when I knew her work could be a lot to handle emotionally.

She’d had clients who couldn’t remember their own names, clients who passed from old age or illness.

It was a tough job. But she handled it well, talking weekly with a therapist and taking breaks when she needed.

“I gave everyone some of those candy bags you helped me make, though. They were very excited,” she said, and I smiled, always happy to help her out. We’d binged reality TV while putting them together; it’d barely felt like work.

“What’s the rest of the day look like for you?” I asked as I reached into Iris’s grocery bags and helped her stock the fridge. I hadn’t told her about Theo yet, but considering she was coming over in less than an hour, it was going to have to come up.

“Probably not doing much. I’ll have to see.

I obviously don’t get my period anymore, but I feel vaguely PMS-like,” she said.

I’d never been on birth control, so Iris was my educational resource on what the experience felt like.

“Very luteal phase right now. Or maybe I’m just depressed because the basketball player has been impossible to find. It can be hard to tell.”

“Sorry,” I said, sympathizing. I didn’t necessarily understand the longstanding unrequited crush part, but I definitely understood the luteal phase downswing. “I invited someone over, but I can cancel if it feels like it’ll be too much having someone here.”

“I think it should be fine. Maybe don’t keep them here too late but I’ll probably just be hiding in my room, anyway,” Iris kept moving, loading her veggies into the fridge. “Who’s coming over?”

“Um,” I said, dragging it out. “Theo…?”

Iris, who’d been previously unfazed, nearly dropped the oat milk in her hands. “You’re lying. Theo McCall is coming over?” She paused. “I guess I am going out after all. I do not need my favorite sport ruined by the sounds of—”

I cut her off before she could go any further. “We’re just watching a movie. It’s chill. Nothing major.”

Iris turned to me, as if trying to piece together if this was a really weird and elaborate joke. When I didn’t back down, she realized I was being serious.

“Dude, what the fuck?” she stood by the open fridge, totally dumbfounded.

“Have you guys been texting? Or was it, like, a random invite?” She turned to me.

“Did Theo McCall booty call you? Or no—even more likely, did you booty call Theo McCall? She’s, like, a superstar basketball player.

You can’t just booty call someone like that! ”

“No one is booty calling anyone,” I clarified. “We’re just hanging out. We’ve been texting. Kind of a lot, actually. But whatever. She’s coming over and we’re going to watch a movie, and it will be chill . Everyone is going to be normal about it.”

“Oh, watching a movie?” Iris asked with air quotes. “Since when have you ever actually had anyone over to watch a movie? Everyone knows what that actually means.”

I flashed back to the very realistic dream of me and Theo making out in the locker room. I’d be lying if that hadn’t been flashing periodically through my head as we’d been texting. But that wasn’t the reason I’d invited her over.

“It means something different this time. ”

“Oh, does it really?” Iris asked playfully. “I mean, I don’t blame you at all. Theo’s hot. And cool. And definitely seems interested in you.”

“It’s just a movie,” I said. But as Iris was talking, the more I realized she was right. I’d been so caught up in watching a basketball movie together as an excuse to hang out again that I’d completely forgotten the phrase Netflix and chill .

It was a total rookie move. I was an idiot.

Even if I didn’t mean it that way, Theo probably did. And while I wanted to get Theo out of my system, I wasn’t sure having sex was the way to do it. In fact, I worried it might make it worse. The last thing the chemicals in my body needed was to be drawn to her even more.

In a weird way, Theo felt like more than that, too.

She seemed genuinely nice. And interested in getting to know me outside of sex, which wasn’t particularly common amongst the people I’d met on campus.

Everyone always wanted casual, always exploring, always looking for the next best thing.

And the people who craved stability felt too stable for me in a way that was off-putting.

Until Theo proved herself to be otherwise, I was going to assume she was a genuinely nice person. And she offered just enough unpredictability with her schedule and pending professional basketball career to keep things interesting.

But if she stepped out of line and made it weird, coming into this assuming we were hooking up, I was nixing the whole plan.

We’d fuck once and then never speak again and that would be that.

She was hot, so I wasn’t going to completely pass up the opportunity.

But she wasn’t so hot that I was going to completely lose my sense of self in her and hold out for a crush on someone who was secretly an asshole.

“It’s just a movie,” I reiterated, mostly to myself this time.

Theo arrived exactly on time, which felt on brand for her even though I didn’t know her that well. The knock on the door also felt on brand for her—direct, to the point. No musicality to it.

“Go get your girl,” Iris said as she stood up from the couch.

Despite not feeling great, Iris had stuck it out and offered emotional support.

Unsurprisingly, I was nervous for Theo to come over.

It was out of character for me, but it’d been a consistent theme with Theo.

The nerves seemed to level out when we were together, but the anticipation each time was killing me. It was so unlike me.

I brushed off Iris’s comment as she went off to her bedroom. I headed to the door of the apartment, smiling to myself as I thought about Theo’s text: I think I’m here, someone let me in. They made it clear they thought I was very tall.

Did they ask if you play basketball, or is that offensive to assume of someone tall? I had written back, unable to help myself even though I’d see her in a second.

I walked to the front door of my apartment and opened it.

Theo stood in front of me, looking almost sheepish in her sweatsuit.

She had a grocery bag with her. “I brought snacks,” she said.

She phrased it almost like a question, and I knew immediately from her tone that she wasn’t here for any of the reasons Iris—and now I—had started to suspect.

No one who wanted to get laid that badly would look so shy. Or so cute .

The bravado that I’d been approaching the situation with melted away instantly. I didn’t have to hardball her. The pep talk I’d given myself in the shower, reminding myself that I was too hot to get tugged around by someone—even if she was a star athlete—felt silly in retrospect.

“Come in,” I said, stepping aside. “What’d you bring?”

“Kind of a mix of everything,” she replied, peeking into the bag. “Sorry I didn’t ask before coming. I was already running behind, but I saw the corner store and thought I should grab something since you’re hosting.”

“No, it’s okay. I appreciate the effort,” I said. I decided against teasing Theo for her ‘running behind’ still getting her to my place exactly on time.