As he stripped down and stepped naked under the hot spray, he quelled a mental image of Louisa doing the same, but the vision of her willowy figure, slick and wet, wouldn’t stay gone. He turned the spigot to cold. In his head he ticked off the reasons this undefined thing, whatever it was, between them wouldn’t work. They had nothing in common. Their entire relationship was based on time shared during bizarre and terrible circumstances and his inexplicable compulsion to peel away the layers of Louisa’s personal defenses. They hadn’t spent a normal five minutes together. They hardly knew anything about each other, and every time he tried to get a glimpse of what lay beneath her perfect exterior, she put up a wall.

But his brain was definitely not running the show. He was operating on instinct, on a gut feeling that when he finally got to her core, what he discovered would be worth all the work.

And he didn’t mean core in a sexual way. OK, he did, but it wasn’t his primary motivation. He’d learned his lesson. Sex wasn’t enough.

Thirty minutes later, they walked a block to the parking garage where Conor had left his car. He opened the passenger door for Louisa.

With a graceful twist, she lowered her body into the passenger seat. Conor slid behind the wheel.

“Your car looks wonderful.” Louisa ran a hand across the leather dashboard. “I wouldn’t know it was the same vehicle you were driving last spring.”

“Thanks.” He shifted the Porsche into gear and pulled out into traffic on Eighteenth Street. “It’s a hobby. I buy beat-up old cars and restore them.”

“Will you sell this one now that it’s done?”

“Probably. I like a project.” He stroked the steering wheel.

A bicyclist shot out from between two parked cars. Conor braked. Louisa gripped the armrest.

“What’s wrong?” He steered around a double-parked delivery truck. The taxi driver in the next lane blew his horn and flipped them a middle finger. Conor waved him off.

Louisa gasped, her body stiffening in the seat. “I haven’t adjusted to the traffic.”

“It is rush hour.” Conor turned onto Walnut Street and made his way to the ramp that led onto I-76 East. Less than a mile later, he exited onto University Avenue. They drove through the main campus, and Louisa directed him toward blocks of row homes that had been converted into student housing. “Where to first?”

Louisa gave him the address of the off-campus apartment Zoe and Isa shared. Conor wove through the city streets and parked at the curb near the converted row home. They rang the buzzer for Isa’s apartment, but she didn’t answer. They returned to the car, and Louisa left a voice message for Isa.