“Earth to Amy.”

Exactly. How did I miss out on this alien love-fest thingy? “I’m listening.”

He frowned. “Not the reaction I was looking for.”

“Dare I ask what it is you were?”

He took a deep breath. “What anyone is who says something like that.” But, then, just as quickly, “It’s okay. I have no expectations of you saying it, or feeling it.”

Just hope. He didn’t even have to say it. He never should have had to say any of this.

“But I had to tell you,” he went on. “So—I don’t know. You’d know why I act the way I do.”

“I already know why, Brandon.” I put my hand over his, there between us on the sofa.

Another deep breath. “Yeah. I was kind of hoping that you didn’t, and that if I told you…” He trailed off and looked down at our clasped hands.

He hoped that if he came right out and said it, I would stop screwing around and fall in love with him, too. I knew this man. Knew him well enough to transcribe the thoughts in his head.

Strange. With most men, admission of unrequited love is a little wishy-washy. Forget Cyrano de Bergerac, forget Romeo Montague, Act One, Scene One. Girls only go mushy for those men in fiction. In real life, we like a little hard-to-get. Show me a pining man and I’ll show you a pussy.

But Brandon continued to break the mold, even here. Beneath the bare bulbs shining harsh, 120-watt light down from the common-room ceiling, seated across from me on a threadbare couch with his hands full of flower-stand roses and his eyes full of expectation, Brandon Weare had never looked more like a man worthy of my love.

And I had never felt like a bigger bitch. Here before me, in splendid, golden reality, sat a kind, brilliant, funny, cute, affectionate lover, the kind of guy that any girl I knew would be happy to not only have in her bed, but also to take home to Mom once school was out. Moreover, he loved me.

And I’d been out with George Harrison Prescott, a player, a ladies’ man of the first order. Yes, he was cute, and yes, he was funny, and for all I knew, he might be brilliant as well, but he was not and would never be boyfriend material. I’d known that for years.

But, wait a second, who said I wanted a boyfriend? I so didn’t have time for a boyfriend. Last time I had a boyfriend, I’d been totally burned. I’d told Lydia as much last night. I’d been telling Brandon as much for the past two months.

“Brandon, we’ve talked about this….”

“Yeah, we have.” He made a sound of disgust. “And I think you’re full of crap.” Mocking me, he began to tick off a list on his fingers. “We can’t be together because, one, I’m not good with boyfriends. Well, you’ve never tried it with me. Two, I’m too busy. But not too busy to have sex with me every week or so, nor go to dinner with me once a week, nor to call me and see me and hang out half a dozen other times. You think a title change will make a difference in the time commitment? Three, I don’t want to ruin our friendship. Well, I’m telling you right now, Amy, that it has ruined our friendship. I can’t ever go back to the way things were before Valentine’s Day. If I’d known it was going to lead to this, I probably—fuck it, I probably would have done it anyway, but I’d have thought about it a lot more seriously. I want to be with you…or not. I can’t be your booty call anymore.”

And there it was. The ultimatum. “So, decide tonight?”

“Yes. No. Yes. Decide tonight.” He nodded briskly.

I bit my lip, and tasted pomegranate juice. “Tonight is…not the best time.”

“You’ve had two months to think about it.”

Yeah, but twenty minutes ago I had another guy’s tongue down my throat. I could still taste him. I was surprised Brandon couldn’t smell him. “I—I need to go to the bathroom.”

Brandon’s shoulders dropped. “I’ll wait,” he said resolutely.

I rushed out of the suite and into the floor bathroom, trying not to hyperventilate. A quick trip into the stall (you do remember the four and a half 312s, right?) and then I checked out my reflection in the mirror above the sink. My mouth was stained a deep purple; it looked like I’d been sucking on pickled beets. My lips were swollen, too, and my cheeks were flushed, still (or maybe again). How could Brandon have missed these signs? I balanced my hands on the porcelain and took several deep, shuddering breaths, until my treacherous heart slowed down to normal measures.

He said he loved me.

I splashed cold water on my face and ran a comb through my hair. I brushed my teeth, concentrating on my stained red gums and scrubbing the hell out of my tongue. Thinking back on it, I should have been a little more self-aware about my actions.

I was getting rid of George.

For Brandon’s benefit.

Because Brandon had cared about me for months. Because it had been Brandon who’d sent me funny e-mails, and cards on my birthday, Brandon who had held me the last time I’d cried, Brandon who’d always been there to offer advice, who’d been the one to convince me, however obliquely, to join Rose & Grave in the first place. George was a Johnny-come-lately. I did love Brandon. Maybe not yet in a way that Shakespeare would have endorsed, but definitely in a way that probably had its own special name in ancient Greek. Phileventuallyoksis or something.

After all, that Roxanne chick went for Cyrano once he finally approached her himself, right? (Or was that just in the Steve Martin version? My literary education is notoriously deficient in Balzac—if it even was Balzac.[4] It’s because the Balzac and Dickens seminar was full last semester, further proving my theory that students will study anything if it has a cool enough title.) Try someone else. Jane Austen. Marianne Dashwood and—well, Colonel Brandon. Now, if that’s not a hint, I don’t know what is.

I rushed back into my suite, hoping Brandon hadn’t misinterpreted my prolonged absence. While I’d been gone, he’d managed to stuff the entire bouquet of roses into a crackled-finish plastic dining-hall glass and had wedged the whole top-heavy shebang between two of Lydia’s thick poli-sci textbooks. Now he was back on the couch, fingering the strap on my messenger bag. I froze.

“Nice pin.”

“Brandon—”

He stood, his hand out as if to stop me. “Don’t leave the room. I’ll never mention it again. Tabled forever, if that’s what will make you happy.”

But the thing was, I actually wanted him to ask me about it. I wanted to tell him what was going on, and see if he could parse it any better than the rest of us had. Brandon fixed things. He’d always fixed things for me.

Who wouldn’t love a guy like him?

“Should I go?” he asked.

“No.”

He blinked, as if surprised. “Really?”

I nodded. “I can’t—I can’t say what you want me to. I won’t say that…yet. But I want to be with you. For real.”

It was as if Brandon had been strapped to a frame that collapsed at my words. He took two steps forward and enfolded me in his arms. His brown eyes had never seemed so bright, his Amy-smile, the one I knew he reserved just for me, had never seemed so unreserved.

I ran my hands through his hair and cupped his face in my hands. His skin was golden beneath my fingertips. He’d gotten a tan this weekend. Probably out somewhere, playing badminton while I fooled around with boys in black robes. Boys who, as it turned out, never wanted me around in the first place.

Whereas Brandon always had.

I kissed him, and his mouth felt warm and familiar against mine. His breath was not tinged with pomegranate and honey, and our bodies lined up perfectly with no need for me to tilt my chin to meet him. Yet, I sighed, and he smiled, and I took his hand and led him into my bedroom, thankful to whatever it was that had made me hesitate outside with George, and only mildly curious whether a girl who would hook up with two boys in the same night was a totally irredeemable slut or just a person who had managed to come to her senses before she completely screwed up her life.