“Sure.”

“Where are you, anyway?” I need to keep the conversation as neutral as possible . . . not that it’s ever possible to keep things between Hardin and me neutral.

“A gym.”

I almost laugh. “A gym? You don’t go to the gym.” Hardin is one of the few people to be blessed with an incredible body without ever having to work out. His naturally large build is perfect, tall with broad shoulders, even though he claims that he was lanky and thin as a young teenager. His muscles are hard but not too defined; his body is the perfect mixture of soft and hard.

“I know. She was kicking my ass. I was genuinely embarrassed.”

“Who?” I say a little forcefully. Calm down, Tessa, it’s obviously the woman whose voice you heard.

“Oh, the trainer. I decided to use that kickboxing shit you got me for my birthday.”

“Really?” The thought of Hardin kickboxing makes me think about things that I shouldn’t be thinking about. Like him sweating . . .

“Yeah,” he says, a little shyly.

I shake my head to try to cast out the image of him shirtless. “How was it?”

“Okay, I guess. I prefer a different type of exercise. But on the plus side, I’m a lot less tense than I was a few hours ago.”

I narrow my eyes at his response even though he can’t see me.

My fingers trace the flower-print fabric of the comforter. “Do you think you’ll go again?” I finally feel like I can breathe as Hardin begins to tell me about how awkward the first half hour of his session was, how he kept cursing at the woman until she slapped him across the back of his head, repeatedly, which, in turn made him respect her and stop being such a jerk to her.

“Wait.” I finally speak. “Are you still there?”

“No, I’m home now.”

“You just . . . left? Did you tell her?”

“No, why would I?” he asks, as if people acted like him all the time.

I like the idea that he dropped what he was doing just to talk to me on the phone. I shouldn’t, but I do. Which warms me, but also makes me sigh and say, “We aren’t doing a very good job on this space thing.”

“We never do.” I can picture his smirk even though he’s speaking from more than a hundred miles away.

“I know, but—”

“This is our version of space. You didn’t get in the car and drive here. You only called.”

“I guess so . . .” I allow myself to agree with his twisted logic. In a way, though, he’s right. I don’t know yet if it’s a good or a bad thing.

“Is Noah still there?”

“No, he left hours ago.”

“Good.”

I’m looking at the darkness beyond the ugly curtains of my room when Hardin laughs and says, “Talking on the phone is so fucking weird.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know. We’ve been talking for over an hour.”

I pull my phone from my ear to check the time, and sure enough, he’s right. “It doesn’t seem that long,” I say.

“I know, I never talk to anyone on the phone. Except when you call me to bother me about bringing something home, or a few calls to my friends, but they never last longer than like two minutes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why would I? I was never into the teenage dating shit; all my friends used to spend hours on the phone listening to their girlfriends go on about nail polish or whatever the fuck girls talk about for hours on end.” He laughs lightly, and I frown a little at the reminder that Hardin never got the chance to be a normal teenager.

“You didn’t miss out on much,” I assure him.

“Who did you used to talk to for hours? Noah?” Spitefulness is clear in his question.

“No, I never did that talking-for-hours thing either. I was busy shoving my nose into novels.” Perhaps I was never a true teenager either.

“Well, I’m glad you were a nerd, then,” he says, making my stomach flutter.

“Theresa!” I’m snapped back into reality as my mother repeatedly calls for me.

“Oh, is it past your bedtime?” Hardin teases. Our relationship, nonrelationship, giving-each-other-space-but-talking-on-the-phone thing, has become even more confusing within the last hour.

“Shut up,” I respond and cover the receiver long enough to tell my mother I’ll be right out. “I need to see what she wants.”

“You’re really going tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I am.”

After a moment of silence, he says, “Okay, well, be safe . . . I guess.”

“I can call you in the morning?” My voice is shaky as I offer.

“No, we probably shouldn’t do this again,” he says, and my chest tightens. “Well, not often, anyway. It doesn’t make sense to talk all the time if we aren’t going to be together.”

“Okay.” My response sounds small, defeated.

“Good night, Tessa,” he says, and then the line goes dead.

He’s right—I know he is. But knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. I shouldn’t even have called him in the first place.

Chapter sixty-nine

TESSA

It’s fifteen minutes until five o’clock in the morning, and for once my mother isn’t dressed for going out. She’s wearing a silk pajama suit and has her robe wrapped around her, matching slippers covering her feet. My hair is still damp from my shower, but I’ve taken the time to apply some makeup and decent clothing.