“Nobody was in there.” He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. “I put the sock on the door to make you think someone was in there, but I was alone.”

“This just got interesting as fuck,” Shane says.

“Why would you want me to think someone was in your room with you? Why were you such a jerk to me yesterday? You’ve always been such a nice guy and then yesterday you just got so mean. I don’t understand why you’re pushing me away so hard. You could have just said—”

“I was jealous.”

“Told you.”

“Shut up, Shane.” I lower myself to the couch next to him. This is all too much to contemplate before even one single cup of coffee. To Fletch, I say, “You were jealous? Of me?”

“Yes.”

“But you told me to go out with Jones.”

“Yes.”

I bring my knees up and hug them to my chest. I wish I had a notebook. I feel like I could think this out better if I could write it down. “So, you didn’t want me to go out with him.”

“Told you,” Shane mutters under his breath.

Together, Fletch and I say, “Shut up, Shane.”

Which makes the three of us laugh, breaking some of the tension. Which is good. It’s not gone, but it’s less and I can breathe. And think. About how much I don’t understand. “In addition to sex, I think I have a lot to learn about guys in general.”

I hear Shane’s alarm clock go off in his room. “Fuck, I have an early class today.”

He gets up to go turn it off, and Fletch and I stare at each other.

“So, the friends with benefits thing isn’t working very well for you, either, I guess.”

He shakes his head. “It looks good on paper, but I don’t like the thought of some other guy touching you.”

“Except Shane.”

“Yeah. I know. It doesn’t make sense.”

It doesn’t. None of this does. I wish it didn’t have to. I wish I was the kind of person who could go with the flow and not have to understand how the mechanisms under the hood work. “Shane hooked up with some girl named Nina last night.”

“No, I didn’t.” Shane says from the doorway of his room.

“I saw you go upstairs with her at the party.”

“She was feeling sick. I made sure she could puke in peace and then made sure she got home safe. I had freshman orientation once too, Pen. You don’t leave girls who might pass out alone to fend for themselves at a party. Too many assholes.” He stops before going into the kitchen. “Were you jealous of me, too?”

I nod.

“Huh.” The intrigued expression on his face says he wasn’t expecting that.

Neither was I.

“I don’t want you to move, Penelope,” Fletch says.