Bonnie wasn’t a student. She lived in a ramshackle house on the outskirts of Charlottesville. She was at least twenty-five, and though she was overly wise in how threesomes worked, she was not a pro. Nothing Spencer did with Lexie was directly transactional. But he’d given her a special night. She wanted to give him something special back, and a threesome was a thing Spence had been talking about with a gross and hopeful fervor since middle school.

All that fall, at any all-male gathering, Spence would tell the story of the threesome. When guys asked who the girls had been, Spence would scoff and say, “Please. I’m a gentleman,” and then go into extremely ungentlemanly and graphic detail. Trey heard the story often, and each time, in the way of such things, it got a little kinkier, a little more mind-blowing.

“Barbarella sex,” Spence said. “Sex in motherfucking space. Two girls, no gravity.” Never names, though. Just, “So, there’s this crazy girl I know. . . .”

Some of the brothers might have guessed Lexie, but if so it stayed a boys’-club secret. Maybe they’d exchange a knowing look before offering her coffee on the rare mornings she slept over in Spence’s room. But they were sweet to her. She was under Spencer’s broad wingspan. By then she and Spence were seeing each other every week at least, though never at the frat’s official mixers. He stayed at her place, mostly.

He liked visiting her world. He even dragged Trey to an open-mike poetry night at a run-down coffeehouse. Sober. The whole place stank of mothballs and jasmine incense. But Lexie was reading, so he was there, whooping and clapping when she finished.

Lexie herself developed a small, hungry way of glancing at Spence when she felt unobserved. Trey thought she’d agree to be his bona fide in a heartbeat. He also thought a steady girlfriend would be good for Spence. Settle him, or at least channel all his wild in one direction. But it never came to that. She didn’t have the pedigree, and that mattered to Spence. Probably because it sure as hell would matter to his parents.

There was a diner near her dorm, a hippie spot with vegan sausage and a lot of tea choices, where Spence often met Lexie after her breakfast shift. He’d buy her café au lait and a chocolate croissant. Once she showed up when Spence was sleeping off a bender. It was not a frat hangout, but Trey was there, avoiding friends and grunt-pumping coffee, trying to care about fall finals with a bad case of senioritis.

He waved her over, happy for an excuse to close his textbook. She shook her head, a pink flush coming to her cheeks.