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“Doesn’t matter how much they work us,” Koda says, wheezing. “Still got the energy for more.” Then, he grins. “Did you at least get her pants off, or did you just carry her around campus like a trophy?”

I straighten up and look at him, and whatever’s on my face makes him put both hands up and skate away laughing.

Across the ice, Greeley is doing extra work at the far end with one of the assistants, by himself, on faceoffs. Nobody else is out there. He does about forty of them, and then he does forty more.

I knock on her door at eight. I’m going to ask if she wants to get food. That’s the plan. Then the door opens, and the plan leaves my head.

She’s in a blue thing that matches her eyes, with straps, stopping mid-thigh. Her hair is down, there’s something shiny on her lips, and she’s got different earrings in, putting in the second one as she looks up at me.

Everything in my body goes hot. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Her eyes widen. “Hello to you too.”

I look at her legs.

“There’s a party,” she says. “Bianca’s friend has a house. Paige’s coming here at eight-thirty, and then we’re—”

I walk into her room, and she walks backward and lets me.

There’s a girl at the desk, dark hair up in a clip, headphones on, book open. She turns her head when I come in and goes completely still, the way a cat does. She looks at my face, then at the rest of me, and then past me at the open door and the hallway behind it. Her shoulders stay tight.

“That’s my roommate,” Kylie says, but I’m already looking at Kylie again.

The roommate looks at Kylie, puts her headphones back on, and turns her chair a quarter inch toward the wall. I’ve never seen her in my life, and right now she’s the only thing standing between me and my new plan.

I look down at the blue dress. “I’m coming with you,” I say.

Kylie laughs. “You’re funny.”

She told me this morning she was going to Theo’s. Now she’s standing here in this.

“Where is it?” I ask.

“You weren’t invited.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t even know whose—”

I kiss her. She makes a sound against my mouth, and her hands come up to my chest like she’s going to push me away, and then she grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls instead. I walk her backward. It’s four steps; the room isn’t big. We go down onto her bed, and it creaks, and her earring hits the floor. She squeals into my mouth when I suck on her bottom lip. I get one hand under her shoulder and one in her hair, and she hooks her leg over the back of mine.

“Nash,” she whispers. “My roommate.”

I don’t stop.

“Nash.” She’s laughing and kissing me at the same time and pulling me down. “Paige’s going to be here any second. And I haven’t told them anything yet. I need to tell them first before they walk in and see this.”

“Later,” I say, and kiss her again, and she lets me. Her hands go into my hair, and she kisses me so hard I forget where I am. Her dress rides up, and it takes everything I have not to touch her in front of her roommate. I press my hips into hers, and she pushes me back with her knees while she flicks her tongue against mine.

At some point, she gets up, finds her earring on the floor, and goes to the mirror to put it in. She tugs her dress down and huffs at herself. The shiny thing on her lips is gone.

“Okay,” she says, breathing hard. “Fine. Come tonight.” She finally gets the earring in and points at me. “But no more carrying me out of places. Promise me.”

I look at her.

“Nash.”

“I heard you.”