“Sure we did. I always said hi to you when you came over.” I cut my eyes her way. “Even though you’d look at me like you wanted to smack me upside the head.”

She adjusts her position, bringing her giant purse close to her chest. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No it isn’t. I was—” She sighs. “It’s just that I didn’t always approve of your behavior.”

“You mean the keg stands?”

“Yes.”

“And the drinking games?”

“Yes.”

“How about the body shots—were they offensive, too?”

She raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms. “You mean the ones you did on my half-naked sorority sisters? If you must know, yes, I did find them offensive.”

“You did, huh?” She didn’t seem to mind the night I licked her all over, but I keep that memory all to myself. “You call it offensive. I call it age-appropriate activity. We were in college, after all.”

“Would it have bothered you if I’d done that?” she asks, quietly.

“Licked a shot off one of your sorority sisters? Hell, no.”

Oh, and there’s that pissy look again. “I meant if I’d done that to one of your frat brothers.”

“No.” Maybe.

“No?”

“No.” Okay, probably.

“Oh,” she says.

Maybe it’s me, but she sounds disappointed. I glance over at her, noticing the way she seems to shrink inward, like she used to do all those years ago. For all that she’s changed physically, on the inside, I’m not sure she’s changed much at all. She’s still that same girl, appearing to watch life from a distance.

I nudge her, hoping I can somehow draw another smile.

“Admit it, our time at the ol’ frat house was fun. And if I recall, the night you finally took part in some of those offensive shenanigans—”

“Shenanigans?” she asks, curving the edges of her lips slightly.

“It was my Grammie’s—God rest her soul—favorite word to describe me and my family’s behavior. Anyway, like I was saying, the night you cut loose, you seemed to have the time of your life. Well, until your dad caught us naked in bed the next morning. Speaking of which, how is the old coot?”

Tess’s jaw slowly unhinges, but then she quickly composes herself. “He’s fine. Just fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’? You just brought up what happened between us as if, as if—Jesus, Curran.” She covers her face before she realizes how far I’ve driven. “Turn right, right here—no, here. Okay, now left at the next block. There—it comes up fast. No, no, right there.” She shakes out her hands, completely flustered as I make a hard left.

I straighten the car. “You all right?”

“No. I went to bed with you. And now you’re here, reminding me what happened and picturing me naked.”

“I’m not picturing you naked.”

She whirls to face me, her cheeks bright pink. “You’re not?”

“Well, I wasn’t before.” My gaze shoots her way. “But now that you mentioned it, I kind of have to.”

She buries her face in her hands. “Oh, God.”

Without meaning to, I crack up. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“But it is to me, Curran,” she says, quieting. “What happened between us was something I’d never done before.”

“Holy shit, you were a virgin?”

“No!”

I slump back in my seat. “Thank Christ. I mean, I didn’t think you were, given how hard we went at it and what we did. But if you were, I would’ve felt bad.”

She stumbles over a bunch of syllables before managing to spit out, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you feel bad had I been a virgin?”

“You know.”

She frowns slightly, appearing confused. “No. I don’t.”

“Because the first time for someone like you should’ve been different than what happened between us. Don’t get me wrong—you were all sorts of sexy and sweet. And I really liked how we rocked it. But we went at it like horny bulls at a rodeo going after hot clowns—” I shut my trap when I realize her jaw is hanging out somewhere near her toes. “That was too much, wasn’t it?”

“Ah, yes, you could say that.”

I clear my throat. Too bad I can’t clear the image of throwing Tess’s legs over my shoulders and pounding into her. “What I mean is, someone like you deserved a different experience if it was your first time.”

She plays with her clasped hands like she doesn’t quite know what to say. When she speaks, her question catches me off guard. “When you say ‘someone like me,’ what do you mean exactly?”

I think about what to say without going too far. But nothing special comes to mind except the truth. “I mean a nice girl. You’re a nice girl, Tess. Just like you were then.”

“You thought I was nice, even though I kept my distance?”

The corner of my mouth twists. “You may not have been real friendly to me. But you did things for other people that showed me who you were. Remember Kenny Singleton? He was my little brother in KOK. He would have flunked out of school if you hadn’t spent all that time tutoring him. Instead, he became the first college grad in his family. And what about Ben Felipe? You found him passed out on the street. Anything could’ve happened to him, but instead of leaving him there covered in his own piss—”

“Oh, God, he was covered in urine?”

“Well, yeah, Benny was pretty wrecked. Anyway, like I said, you could’ve left him there. But instead you brought him back to the frat house and made sure one of us took care of him.” I turn my head. “You didn’t know he’d pissed himself?”

“All I could smell was his vomit when he hurled in the backseat of my car,” she says, grimacing. “Thank you for cleaning it up…and for being the one to look after Ben.”

“No prob— Scratch that. Yeah, the Benny thing kind of sucked.” I stop at the light. “You want me to keep straight?”

“Yes. But we’re almost there. It’s the second lot on the right.”

I take in the area, knowing it’s mostly made up of rich old people, then look ahead. “Hold up. You’re at the senior center?”

“It’s not a senior center.”

“Don’t old people live in that place?”

Oh, lookee here. There’s that blush again. “They’re retired, but most are still quite active,” she says, sounding nervous.

“I don’t doubt it.” I remove my hat and scratch my head. “Saturday nights must be hard core. Bingo must get all crazy up in this bitch.”

Tess laughs out loud, but then covers her mouth and hurries to settle. “They do enjoy quieter activities, but that’s fine by me. With school and everything I have going on, living here helps keep me focused.”

I don’t believe her. Like I said, I could read faces even long before I was trained to do it. But it’s as if these words aren’t her own. I mean they are, she said them, but it’s more like she’s repeating something that was told to her.

Tess quiets upon catching my frown, and she doesn’t say anything more until we pull into the lot. “You can park anywhere there’s an opening,” she tells me.

“Okay.” I pull into a spot close to the building and cut the engine. “Here. Let me help you out.”

“No, it’s fine. Really.”

She throws open the door and loses her footing the moment her feet hit the asphalt. I run to the other side of the car to find her squinting in pain. This time she doesn’t fight me and lets me haul her up. “Shit. You okay?”

She holds tight to her side. “Yes. The maintenance staff is usually good about keeping the area clean, but I suppose with all the sleet that’s fallen, they need to put more salt down.”

I pull her closer to me. “You suppose? Hell, had it been one of your neighbors, EMS would be responding to a broken hip. Who do I need to talk to in order to get this taken care of?”

She pushes her disheveled hair away from her face and adjusts her glasses. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll phone the super and let him know what happened.” She smiles at my scowl. “Really, it’s okay,” she says quietly.

Her eyes latch on to mine, and something in her expression changes.