The other girl straightened. “Damn straight.” She narrowed her eyes at Nadia. “Are you doing that psych major thing on me again?”

“No,” she answered with a laugh, pulling me to the front desk where she stooped to grab her messenger bag.

Pantsy eyed our joined hands. “You know, in ancient times, women shared the most virile men.”

I blinked in surprise, but Nadia sighed dramatically. “If only I was willing to share. Did you shut down the computers?”

The teen pouted as she double-checked. “Yeah, and all the lights in the back are off.” She grabbed a backpack from behind the desk, pushed the door open with a flourish, then stopped in the entrance. “I’m not against the idea of a harem—I’d make a great sister-wife. Just throwing that suggestion out there.”

Nadia rolled her eyes. “Pantsy, you’re seventeen. I need you to stop sexually propositioning people who come in here. Now go home.”

The girl grumbled as she took off at a fast clip down the sidewalk.

“It’s happened more than once?” I asked her quietly.

She shook her head. “She’s perfect when the kids or their parents are present, but she can get handsy around the other teenagers.”

I watched her weave in and out of the streetlights. “Is she okay getting home alone?”

Nadia patted my chest. “I love that you’re concerned for her, but she’s fine. You can see her family’s house from here.”

“Do I want to know how she got the name Pantsy?”

“It’s about what you’re imagining right now. C’mon.” She pushed out the door into the warm night.

8

DERRICK

Nadia’s apartment was only a few blocks from the community center, but we walked slowly with our joined hands swinging between us. She asked me about practice, and I glossed over the part where I fucked up.

Coach didn’t call out Nadia by name, but he seemed to know an awful lot about what I did outside his purview. His warnings had been disturbingly specific, suggesting I’d regret my decisions if I stayed on my current path. I’d promptly rushed out of there to fly in the face of his advice.

Strolling along with Nadia, her hand in mine as she laughed up at me, I felt a lot of things, but regret wasn’t one of them.

She slowed, and I got my first look at her place. Nadia lived in a funky little building with four apartments stacked two by two surrounded by a thick growth of trees. It somehow managed to look sketchy and neat at the same time. The flood light that all four doors shared buzzed and flickered, but two of the outside spaces boasted pots of flowers.