On Wednesday afternoon, a freshman chemical engineering major offered me twenty bucks an hour in exchange for extensive grammatical assistance.

If we'd had any champagne in the apartment, I would've popped it.

In celebration of my restored status as an employed person, Andre proposed a dinner party, which was a very grown-up way of saying that we wanted to pool our money to buy Mexican food from our favorite taco stand and feast until we fell asleep watching a movie we'd already watched eighteen times.

It was the perfect night to do it, too. One of Andre's roommates was back home for his mom's birthday, another was sleeping at his girlfriend's apartment, and the third was going on a Wednesday evening bar crawl that he predicted would end on either someone else's couch or a stretcher in the emergency room.

So the apartment was all ours.

Andre ran down to Pepito's to pick up the food. Hanna, who'd had my car keys in her possession since my Sunday evening breakdown, volunteered to drive to Ralph's and pick up the bottle of wine she'd promised me—despite my instance that I wasn't going to drink it until later, anyway.

She returned to The Palazzo with only a jumbo bag of Hot Cheetos cradled tenderly in her arm like a sleeping newborn.

Hanna tossed me my keys. I frowned up at her from my spot on Andre's couch, where I was lounging in my cleaning-the-apartment leggings and a white sweater that had shed so many tufts of fuzz on my pants it looked like I'd wrestled a polar bear and won.

"Did you get—"

"I got your wine, yeah," she said. "It's in your trunk."

I frowned again, but harder.

"Why didn't you bring it?"

"I forgot," Hanna said, peering down at the nutritional chart on the back of the Cheetos bag, which had to be depressing. "Maybe you can go get it? I parked in the garage across the street. Super close. It'll take you five minutes, tops."

Hanna had many artistic talents, but acting was not one of them.

I just couldn't figure out why she wanted to send me out to the parking lot.

I shot a look at Andre, to check if he looked like he knew why Hanna was being so sketchy (Andre was habitually awful at hiding his guilt), but he was busy dividing up the group order of nachos into three equal portions on mismatched plates he'd borrowed from his roommates, each of whom apparently owned only one individual set of cutlery and dishwater.

"So are you mad at me," I asked Hanna, "or—"

"Laurel," she said, exasperated. "Go."

❖ ❖ ❖

She'd parked on the top floor. Now I was absolutely certain she was mad at me.

I stopped on the landing, panting like an overheated dog from the steep climb up the stairs, and looked out across the street. It was golden hour. The Palazzo's windows sparkled peach and gold against blue and lavender skies.

From the east side, the parking garage was a monolith of shadow and concrete, but when I shouldered open the door and stepped out onto the roof level, I was momentarily blinded by sunlight.

I lifted one hand to shield my eyes.

And then I saw it.

My Corolla was one of maybe fifteen cars parked on the top floor. She sat alone along the north wall, her windows and mirrors glittering. There wasn't a single spot of dust or dirt on the body.

But that's not what made me stop in my tracks.

It was her hood—smooth and white as a field of untrodden snow—and the boy sitting on the wheel stop in the empty space next to her, his elbows on his knees and a bottle of wine on the ground between his feet.

Bodie picked up his head when he heard me wheezing towards him.

The setting sun cast his face in gold.

"Hey," he called.

"Hi," I replied, my voice small and watery.

I stopped at the edge of the empty parking space, unable to decide which sight had me tearing up—my repaired car or Bodie, with his off-white Pepito's t-shirt and freshly-brushed hair.

He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood, leaving the bottle of wine behind as he stepped forward to meet me.

"You skipped class," he said. "Twice."

"Did you miss me?" I quipped.

"Yeah," Bodie said with a sincerity I hadn't prepared myself for. "Yeah, I really did."

I tried to laugh, but there was a lump lodged in my throat. I fidgeted with my keys in my hands instead.

I couldn't stop looking at my car.

My beautiful, unmarred car.

"How?" I asked, unable to articulate a more specific question.

"Hanna gave me your keys," Bodie explained. "I hope that's okay. I didn't want to invade your privacy, or anything, but I thought—"

I waved him off and sniffled.

"How'd you—did you paint it?"

"Torres works at a mechanic's during the summer. I called in a favor. Drove it over, had them fix it up. Took a few hours. Easy."

As charming and affable as Bodie was, there was no way his teammate had done that much work for free. And Bodie wouldn't have asked for special treatment. I had a good ballpark idea of what he'd paid. I'd done my research.

I'd known exactly how much I needed to save up.

Except the numbers didn't matter anymore. Bodie had taken care of it. I couldn't think of a single good way to express myself that wasn't straight out the midseason finale of a telenovela—crying, throwing myself to my knees, slapping him across the cheek and then kissing him in the same well-choreographed motion.

"Thank you," I settled on.

I was proud of my restraint.

Bodie shifted his weight between his feet uneasily. When he spoke again, his voice was nervous.

"Kyle's the one who keyed it."

"I know," I said on a sigh. At Bodie's curious frown, I added, "I saw him in the parking lot. Before it happened. I figured."

"I tried to get him to say something on that app you always use—that recording one—but I think I fucked up the settings. I can try again, though. He really likes telling the story."

I sniffled.

"He's kind of a giant asshole."

Bodie nodded and said, "I think I need some new friends."

"Well," I told him with a sigh, "can't help you there. I've only got two, and they're huge dorks."

"Shepherd's pretty cool," Bodie commented. His smile slipped a little as he added, "He told me you got fired. I'm sorry. I can reach out to your boss at the country club and—"

"No," I cut him off. "I don't want to work there anymore."

"Are you sure?"

I chewed on my cheek, debating if I should tell him the winning line Rebecca had sent me off with.

"Well, my boss told me to go back to Mexico. So yeah. I'm sure."

It took about three seconds after the words had left my mouth for Bodie's face to fall into what looked like the scowl he reserved for his opponents on the field, except a hundred times more furious.

"She can't talk to you like that."

I folded my arms over my chest and cast my eyes skyward, hoping he'd take my cavalier attitude as a sign that I was totally over it. Which I was. Maybe.

"Who's her boss?" Bodie asked. "I want to—"

"Rebecca isn't worth it," I interrupted.

Bodie looked like he was going to argue with me on that, so I changed the subject.

"You could've told me you were doing that ESPN interview. When did you film it, anyway? Your nose looked really bad."

"Thanks."

"Well, it's true—"

"I went into the studio the Monday after that game."

"So that's why they put so much concealer on you."

"Hurt like a bitch," Bodie said, then glanced at my car. When he spoke again, his voice was more solemn. "I know some of the guys just want to process everything in private, but I'm the dumbass who spoke up for him right after the article came out. I had to say something."

"You told the police about the emails, too."

The corner of Bodie's mouth quirked. He didn't look surprised. If anything, he looked like he'd known I would figure it out and was satisfied to see I'd followed through on his prediction.

"It might not be anything," he blurted. "It might be a dead end."

"How'd you find out about them?"

"Well, I knew Vaughn had a bogus email for free trials and shit. But I figured the police already knew about that. And then we were at the country club, and I heard Sterling say he'd forward something to him on that account. It just sounded... I don't know. Suspicious."

"He said it right in front of you?" I asked.

Bodie shrugged. "He was really low-key about it. That's why I think the emails might not be anything. But it's worth checking, right?"

I wanted to hug him. I wanted to put my hands on either side of his face and just hold him there, for a few hours, so I could soak up the warmth of his smile like it was the first sunshine of spring.

"When did you decide?" I asked him. "That you believed our article, I mean. When did that happen?"

Bodie leaned back against the back of my car, hands in the front pockets of his jeans, and rolled my question over in his head for a moment.

"Everything was off the morning the school sent out that statement," he said. "I should've been like, here we go, here's the confirmation. Garland says he didn't do it. But it felt wrong. I couldn't shake it. And then you came in, making perfect sense—like you always do—and I just," he shrugged. "I trust you."

I sniffled again and rubbed my nose on my sleeve. I was sure I looked like some disgusting, puffy-eyed gremlin, but I was too relieved to sink into self-consciousness.

And Bodie was smiling at me.

It was so hard to feel bad when he did that.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," he whispered.

I shook my head.

"I was really impatient," I blubbered. "I was so hard on you, at the beginning. It was wrong of me to ask you to turn your back on someone you trusted without giving you time to process it. I shouldn't have expected you to be able to—to just get over it—"

It happened very quickly. Bodie stepped forward, and before I had time to worry that my tear-stained face and snotty nose might smear on his shirt, his arms were around me.

I hadn't realized how much I needed a hug.

And hugging Bodie was like hugging one of those enormous Costco teddy bears, except Costco teddy bears didn't have well-defined pectorals and the back muscles of an Olympian. His body was big and warm and solid. The comfort of it brought on a fresh round of tears that left me completely unable to breathe through my nose.

The duration of a polite embrace came and went.

Shamelessly, we held onto each other.

At last Bodie sniffled and said, "You wanna crack open the wine?"

❖ ❖ ❖

I was used to wine that came in bottles with twist-tops and tasted like someone had poured nail polish remover into some expired Welch's grape juice. But Hanna, bless her heart, had splurged on the good stuff tonight.

It was corked.

"Damn it," I exclaimed, stomping my foot in frustration. "Why would Hanna do this? She knows I'm not bougie. I don't have a freaking corkscrew in my—"

"Here," Bodie said, holding out a hand.

I passed him the bottle of wine and folded my arms over my chest, glancing over my shoulder just to check that there weren't any university security guards lurking behind concrete columns to catch a pair of rowdy delinquents like us.

"And your keys."

I turned and frowned at him.

Bodie just smiled and held out an open palm. I dropped them obligingly into his waiting hand.

In one easy move, he wedged the key to my apartment into the cork, gave it a twist, and tugged it clear out of the bottle with a satisfying smack of suction.

It was the hottest thing I'd ever seen a boy do.

Bodie looked far too proud of himself as I gaped.

"It's all upper body strength," he said with a shrug.

My gaze flickered to the sleeves of his Pepito's t-shirt where they stretched across his biceps.

"Do you have cups?" Bodie asked.

I did not. But I did have an extensive collection of reusable grocery bags, a loose bottle of Cholula hot sauce, a cardigan I'd worn to the beach sophomore year and still hadn't managed to wash the sand out of, and a rosary my abuelita had given me to hang on my rear-view mirror (the constant clattering of plastic had been too distracting, so I figured the Lord wouldn't mind if I kept it in the glovebox with emergency tools I didn't know how to use).

"We can waterfall it," I said.

"Great idea," Bodie commented. "Do you want to get wine all over your shirt first, or should I?"

The smart ass let me take the first swig.

I decided backwash wasn't the worst thing in the world, considering we were already drinking poison, so I let the bottle touch my lips. Then I passed it back. Bodie took a short pull, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and shivered like a kid downing cough syrup.

"Oh, come on," I scolded. "It's good stuff."

"I don't drink much," Bodie admitted with a grimace.

I grabbed the bottle of wine from his hand and brought it to my lips again. Hanna had picked out a nice one. I wondered if there'd been some kind of promotion, for her to go for a wine so—

Son of a bitch.

Hanna had known. Of course she'd known. She'd been weird about the wine because she knew St. James was out here, waiting for me.

While Bodie braced himself for another sip of wine, I tugged my phone out of my back pocket to text Hanna. I couldn't decide if I should thank her, for helping Bodie, or curse her out for not at least warning me to brush my hair and put on some real pants.

"Hold on," Bodie interrupted, his smile far too pleased when I lifted my head. "I'm sorry, what's your lock screen?"

I fought the sudden urge to hurl my phone off the third floor of the parking garage.

"Just something from Pinterest."

Bodie's mouth twitched.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," he said, tipping his chin up in challenge.

Curiosity won out.

"You first," I told him.

Bodie tugged his phone out of his back pocket and held it up.

"Is that your sister's baby?" I asked, squinting at the screen.

He nodded. "Your turn."

I ground my teeth together.

Bodie raised his eyebrows pointedly.

With monumental reluctance, I handed over my phone. And then I tipped my chin up, holding onto pride even as I melted with embarrassment.

"Are those—" he said, squinting, "the Jonas Brothers?"

"Ah, so you're familiar with them."

"Why do you have a picture of the Jonas Brothers from, like, 2009 as your lock screen?"

"Because they have a very compelling discography."

He snorted.

"So are you a Joe or a Nick girl?"

"I'm not answering that," I said.

"Don't tell me you're a Kevin—"

"I like their music."

"Sounds like something a Kevin girl would say."

"Honest to God, Bodie! I have one of their CD's in my car. It goes hard as—"

He was laughing too loud to hear my review.

I folded my arms over my chest and waited, one eyebrow raised with impatience, for him to get his shit together.

Bodie eventually composed himself enough to look apologetic.

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry," he said. "Here. I'll give it a chance."

He shuffled to the driver's side door of my car and jammed the key in the lock.

"You have to wait a second after—"

Too late. He'd tugged the handle.

The alarm blared.

Bodie stumbled backward, my keys slipping through his fingers and clattering to the ground.

It was my turn to howl with laughter.

"What'd I do?" Bodie yelled over the alarm, the terror in his wide eyes sinking into embarrassment as I cackled at his expense.

I jogged over and scooped up my keys.

"She's sensitive," I scolded. "You can't just stick it in her and go."

"That's what she said."

"Alright, get out."

"It's a public parking garage, Laurel."

"Which is exactly why you shouldn't be making that joke."

I tugged open the driver's side door, sat back with my legs hanging out of the car, and jammed my key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, followed by the crackle of the stereo system and the opening notes of the first track on my Jonas Brothers CD.

It was only after we'd finished half the bottle of wine that Bodie reluctantly admitted that they did have some bangers.

I'm not sure when I got out of the car and started dancing.

I'm not sure when Bodie joined in.

We weren't good, but we were enthusiastic, and that's what mattered.

Between the fading tail-end of one song and the beginning of the next—when Bodie and I had stopped jumping around and were doing nothing but laughing with our arms slung around each other—I let my lips press to his shoulder.

Just once.

Quickly, so if he noticed, he could think it'd been an accident.

_________________

Author's Note:  I've been very diligent about not touching these chapters as I update (because I'm trying to take the month off before I dive back in) but I DO skim for dumb typos. And I ended up re-reading this chapter twice because it makes me so happy. I love that Hanna and Bodie coordinated this. I love that Laurel got her car back. I love that St. Cates got some time (finally) to just be. 

Ten chapters to go!

Your friendly author,

Kate