Fangirl

“Hey, Cath…” Levi’s voice was so soft. “What exactly are we waiting for?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you take an abstinence pledge?”

She laughed, but still managed to sound affronted. “No.”

“Is it—” He exhaled quickly, like he was forcing something out.”—is it still about trust? Me earning your trust?”

Cath’s voice dropped to almost nothing. “God, Levi. No. I trust you.”

“I’m not even talking about sex,” he said. “I mean … not just sex. We can take that off the table completely if it will make you feel better.”

“Completely?”

“Until further discussion. If you knew that I wasn’t pushing for that, if that wasn’t even on the horizon, do you think you could relax and just … let me touch you?”

“What kind of touching?” she asked.

“Do you want me to show you on a doll?”

Cath laughed.

“Touching,” he said. “I want to touch you. Hold you. I want to sit right next to you, even when there are other options.”

She took a deep breath. She felt like she owed it to him to keep talking. To at least reciprocate this conversation. “I want to touch you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“What kind of touching?” he asked.

“Did you already give the operator your credit card number?”

Levi laughed. “Come home with me, Cath. I miss you. And I don’t want to say good night.”

The door swung open, and Reagan came back into the room wearing a T-shirt and yoga pants, a towel wrapped around her hair.

“Yeah, okay,” Cath said. “When you will get here?”

He was obviously gri

*   *   *

Cath put on brown cable-knit leggings and a plaid shirtdress that she’d taken from Wren’s dorm room. Plus knit wristlet thingies that made her think of gauntlets, like she was some sort of knight in pink, crocheted armor. Levi’s teasing her about her sweater predilection had just made it more extreme.

“Going out?” Reagan asked.

“Levi just got back.”

“Should I wait up for you?” she leered.

“Yes,” Cath said. “You should. It will give you time to think about what a shameless ground-rule breaker you are.”

Cath felt silly waiting for the elevator. Girls were walking by in their pajamas, and Cath was dressed to go out.

When she stepped out into the lobby, Levi was there, leaning against a column and talking to somebody, some girl he must know from somewhere.… When he saw Cath, his smile widened and he pushed off the column with his shoulder, immediately waving good-bye to the girl.

“Hey,” he said, kissing the top of Cath’s head. “Your hair’s wet.”

“That’s what happens when you wash it.”

He pulled up her hood. She took his hand before he could reach for hers, and he rewarded her with an especially toothy grin.

When they walked out of the building, she knew in her heart, in her stomach, that she wasn’t coming back until morning.

*   *   *

At first Cath thought there was another party going on at Levi’s house. There was music playing, and there were people in almost every room.

But they were all just his roommates—and his roommates’ friends and girlfriends and, in one case maybe, boyfriend.

Levi introduced her to them all. “This is Cather.” “This is my girlfriend, Cather.” “Everyone? Cather.” She smiled tensely and knew that she wouldn’t remember any of their names.

Then Levi led her up a staircase that couldn’t have been original to the house—the landings were strange and cramped, and the hallways shot out at irregular intervals. Levi pointed out everyone’s rooms. He pointed out the bathrooms. Cath counted three floors, and Levi kept climbing. When the staircase got so narrow they couldn’t walk side by side anymore, he led the way.

The stairs turned one more time and ended at a single doorway. Levi stopped there and turned, awkwardly, holding on to the handrails on both sides of the hall.

“Cather.” He gri

“Who knew it was at the end of a labyrinth?”

He opened the door behind him, then took both her hands, pulling her up and in.

The room was small, with narrow dormer windows pushing out of it on two sides. There was no overhead light, so Levi turned on a lamp next to the queen-sized bed. It really was just a room with a bed—and a shiny turquoise love seat that was at least fifty years old.

She looked up and around. “We’re at the very top of the house, aren’t we?”

“Servants’ quarters,” he said. “I was the only one willing to climb all these stairs.”

“How’d you get this couch up here?”

“Talked Tommy into helping me. It was terrible. I don’t know how anyone ever got this mattress up around all those corners. It’s been here since the begi

Cath shifted nervously, and the floor creaked beneath her. Levi’s bed was unmade, an old-looking quilt thrown over it, the pillows in disarray. He straightened the quilt and picked a pillow up off the floor.

The room felt closer to the outdoors than to the rest of the house. Exposed. Cath could hear wind whistling in the window frames. “I’ll bet it gets cold up here—”

“And hot in the summer,” he said. “Are you thirsty? I could make tea. I should have asked while we were still downstairs.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

Where Levi was standing, his hair brushed against the ceiling. “Do you mind if I change? I helped water the horses before I left. Got kind of muddy.”

Cath tried to smile. “Sure, go ahead.”

There were drawers built into a wall. Levi knelt over one, then ducked out of the room—the doorway was at least an inch too short for him—and Cath sat down carefully on the love seat. The fabric was cool beneath her. She ran her palm along it, some kind of slick cotton with nubby swirls and flowers.

This room was worse than she thought.

Dark. Remote. Practically in the trees. Practically enchanted.

A calculus test would feel intimate in here.

She took off her coat and set it on his bed, then tugged off her soggy boots and pulled her legs up onto the love seat. If she held her breath, she could hear Bon Iver quietly blaring at least two floors below.

Levi was back before Cath was ready for him. (Which was bound to happen.) He looked like he’d washed his face, and he was wearing jeans and a baby blue fla

He picked Cath’s hand up off the couch and held it loosely in both of his, looking down at it, then ru

She took a deep breath. “How did you end up living here?”

“I worked with Tommy at Starbucks. One of his old roommates graduated and moved out, I was living in a house with three deadbeats, and I didn’t mind the stairs.… Tommy’s dad bought this house as a real estate investment. He’s lived here since he was a sophomore.”

“What is he now?”

“Law student.”

Cath nodded. The more that Levi touched her hand, the more that it tickled. She stretched out her fingers and took a soft breath.

“Feel nice?” he asked, looking up at her with his eyes without lifting his head. She nodded again. If he kept touching her, she wouldn’t be able to do even that; she’d have to blink once for yes, twice for no.

“So what happened this weekend?” he asked. “How is everybody?”

Cath shook her head. “Crazy. Fine. I—I think Wren and I are okay again. I think we made up.”

His lips twitched up on one side. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s great.” You could tell that he really thought so.

“Yeah,” Cath said. “It is. I feel—”

Levi brought one leg up between them and bumped her thigh with his knee. She practically jumped back over the arm of the couch.