Grace
The air outside of Senior House hit me like an arctic blast. Winter was settling in. I rushed to the stoplight, hit the crosswalk button, looked across the street, and then completely froze in my boots. Matt was standing on the other side, looking right at me. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a gray long-sleeved thermal shirt underneath, jeans, and his boots. It was coat weather, and as I watched him from across the street, his hands gripping the straps of his backpack, I thought I could see him shivering.
My heart skipped a beat; I swallowed. He smiled and I couldn’t help but return it, even though I wanted to ask him a million questions I knew I couldn’t. It was his life and we were friends. When it was time to cross, we walked toward each other and stopped in the middle of crosswalk.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
“Dinner.”
His eyes flitted down my body and back up to my eyes. In the three months I had known him, I had rarely worn anything nicer than sweats and ChapStick. There was a longing in his expression. “Let me walk you.” His teeth chattered, drawing my eyes to his full lips and unshaven jawline. I wanted to rub my face against them.
The light was about to turn, and we had to get out of the middle of the street. “You’re freezing, Matt. Just go home, I’ll be fine.”
We hurried across the street, shoulder to shoulder.
“Where are you going to dinner?”
“The Thai place around the corner.”
His hands were deep in his pockets and his arms were pressed tight against his body. “I can walk you.”
“I don’t need you to walk me two blocks, Matt. I’m fine.”
A subtle grimace flashed on his face and then he took a step toward me, reached his hand out, and caressed my cheek, our bodies inches apart. He released a weak, frustrated breath. “Who’s taking you to dinner? . . . Grace?”
I peeked over Matt’s shoulder and saw Dan standing there, an inscrutable look on his face. Matt turned around and then turned back to me, his eyebrows arched. “Pornsake?” I didn’t like the humor in his tone.
I pushed him away. “Fuck you, Matt. I’m sure you can find something else to do. Isn’t there some big darkroom orgy you need to attend?”
“What?”
“I can smell rum on your breath.”
“So what? I had a shot with my photo buddies. I was coming home to see if you wanted to hang out.”
“I can’t. I have plans. Bye, Matt.” I turned around and didn’t look back.
Dan gave a halfhearted wave and shot Matt a friendly smile. I didn’t want to see the look on Matt’s face, so I tugged him by the arm and headed toward the restaurant.
Once inside, Dan pulled my chair out for me. He was kind and gentlemanly, offering to choose a wine for us. We made it through the first hour of dinner by making small talk about the orchestra he planned to form before the summer started. He was thinking about leaving NYU and following his dream of creating a fulltime traveling orchestra.
His teacher façade slipped away, and his enthusiasm for music made him seem like a peer, not a professor. We laughed a lot, and there was an ease to the conversation. Something about him, his maturity and know-how, made him seem attractive to me for the first time.
“Are you and Matt dating?” he asked.
I had to make a decision in that moment. It wasn’t like me to lie, but I didn’t want to lead Dan on, and I knew why he was asking the question. “Well, it’s complicated.”
He looked down to his fidgeting hands. “I heard Tatiana this morning say something . . .”
“I like Matt,” I blurted out. Which wasn’t a lie at all.
“That makes a lot of sense.”
“What do you mean?” I wasn’t sure if he thought Matt and I would make a great couple or if he was making a general statement about dating in college.
“Girls like you always go for guys like Matt.” That pissed me off. I didn’t like that he assumed he knew anything about Matt, although at the moment my opinion of Matt probably wasn’t much better than his.
“What, are we in elementary school, Dan?” I was suddenly extremely defensive. “Certain girls can only date certain boys?” I narrowed my eyes at him and leaned forward. “Wait, is this why you bought me a bow and took me to dinner. Did you think I would hop into bed with you?”
He put his hand out to stop me. “Hold on. Before you let your imagination get the best of you, the answer is no. I don’t want to sleep with you.” His eyes darted to the ceiling. He cocked his head to the side. “Well, actually . . .”
“Forget it.” I started to get up.
“Stop, Grace. What I’m trying to say is that college guys like Matt usually have one thing on their minds, you know? I was like him once; I know these things. I bought you the bow because I wanted you to have it. I invited you to dinner because I like talking to you. Things are not always as black and white as we make them out to be when we’re young. I’m less than a decade older than you, but in my time I’ve learned this much: there are lots of gray areas. Going to dinner at night with a man does not have to be about sex.”
I swallowed but still found myself at a loss for words. He reached out and clutched my hand across the table. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. We lapsed into awkward silence for the rest of the meal.
After dinner, he walked me back to Senior House and didn’t even gesture for a hug. I thanked him for the bow and dinner and said I would see him tomorrow. When I opened the door to the lobby, I immediately heard Operation Ivy playing loudly on the lounge stereo, telling me to proceed with caution. I heard several voices laughing and talking, and when I turned the corner I spotted Matt on the couch with his arm around a girl who looked exactly like Rachel from Friends. He saw me, held up a shot glass full of brown liquid, and yelled, “Body shots!” He stuck a lime wedge in the girl’s mouth, shook a saltshaker on her cleavage, and then—I kid you not—grinned at me before licking the tops of the girl’s breasts. He took the shot and covered her mouth with his own.