Jenna is making eyes at me like, “You go, girl,” if that were a thing we actually said to each other. Shane and Fletch are acting aloof and ignoring us, and I don’t know how to deal. At all. Objectively, Jones is a good-looking guy. His neck is kind of thick, but I gather that is a thing as he’s not the only guy I’ve seen like that on campus. He’s got eyes that remind me of the sky in June, and he texts in complete sentences. Why am I not excited that he’s showing me attention right now?

“Hey, let’s go out Sunday night,” Jones says.

“Um...”

“Oh, that’s perfect. I have to leave Sunday morning, so don’t say no on my account,” Jenna says, nudging me.

“Um...”

“Yeah, you said you didn’t have any homework this weekend,” Fletch says, his face a mask I just can’t read. “You should go.”

His words ping against my heart the way a rock does to a windshield on the highway.

Shane is looking at Fletch like he just sprouted a second head. Jenna is either not sensing any tension or she’s not addressing it. Jones seems like he earnestly wants to get together. And I...I don’t think I want to. He’s a nice guy. But I have some mixed-up, confusing feelings about my roommates. Which is probably exactly why I should go. So I can unconfuse my feelings.

It’s not like we’re dating. They’re helping me learn about men so I can find one of my own, right? I mean, they obviously aren’t the jealous types—cue recent memory of them urging me to come from the other’s administrations. It would be weird maybe to not go out with Jones since getting asked out by guys like Jones was the point of all this tutoring anyway.

But I want to keep going with the lessons with Shane and Fletcher. I want to see what comes next. I don’t want anyone else. In the brief minute I had between getting dressed and answering the door earlier, I had already been wondering what it would be like to taste them. To feel the weight of them on my tongue. I wanted them to teach me how to give a blow job next.

And I don’t feel that way about Jones.

“Seriously, Penelope. You study too hard. You should go out with Jones,” Fletch says again.