On the top shelf, there’s a display box with a collection of pinned beetles between an old encyclopedia set and a framed pencil sketch of someone hugging a huge tree. On the shelves below, there are two globes, various art history books, a record player, a big stack of records, four African female busts wearing Rex’s baseball caps, a small green lamp sitting on a gold tray, and a ceramic red-and-blue clock. On his nightstand there’s a miniature rocking chair holding a silver watch on a stack of worn novels.

“Who knew you had such eclectic taste? I like . . . I like,” I say.

“Huh?” Rex shouts from the closet.

“Oh, nothing,” I mumble under my breath and walk over to his desk in the corner near his closet. His desk is actually an old wooden drafting table with a brass-and-steel file cabinet underneath it for drawers. On it there’s a silver vintage pencil sharpener and five neatly sharpened number-two pencils beside an opened precalculus book. Dang, this boy loves him some math. Above his desk there’s a roughly sketched portrait of a woman with two french braids.

I want to ask, Is that your mom? But I’m not ready to feel anymore sadness. Instead, I divert my eyes to the glass dome paperweight sitting on the upper right corner of his desk on top of a small notepad from Hotel Locarno Roma.

“Cool! You and your dad have been to Rome?” I shout, picking up the paperweight. There’s an abstract purple-and-blue watercolor painting inside.

Rex’s muffled voice comes from the closet. “Ha! Real funny. I seriously have so much to tell you.”

I’m tired of shouting. So I put the paperweight down and follow his voice into the closet, where he’s bent over looking inside his bottom built-in drawer along the left wall. When he sees me, he stands up with a shirt in his hand.

But there’s not one on his body.

REX

Carli is looking at me like I’m a straight-up snack. Like if she could, she would fold me in half, slap some peanut butter on me, and chomp away. I’m not gon’ even lie, she has your boy feeling a little shy up in here. I bite my lip to ease the embarrassment.

CARLI

Oh my goodness. He did not just bite his bottom lip. Is he trying to make me lose my mind? In this small space with his smooth, brown skin . . . his hard chest . . . his six-pack. And don’t even let me get me started on his dips. You know those creases that start at his hips and angle down toward his . . .

REX

“This is the smallest shirt I could find,” I say, trying to take some of the attention off me, and hold out a long-sleeved black-and-navy striped tee.

CARLI

Did he just invite me to come closer? Is that what he did? Okay, if he says so.