They sat on the steps in the dark. Music adrift from the other wing of the dorm, where there was no curfew. Breathing, both.

It was too much to believe. Felt so ordinary sitting side by side. Ben hawked and spat onto the concrete. He had brought a sweater and put it on. Started to say something. But he was in the same state as Ronny, had no voice. So they just sat there. It took a while. Ben said, “Fuck, Ronny, you couldn’t bring an umbrella?”

“I wasn’t thinking about rain. Just started.”

Ben cleared his throat. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I told you not to.”

“You told me a lot of things.”

Dim night lights burned in the walls. Rain multiplied, falling in long, gray sweeps, refracting the lights in the parking lot, those visible through the trees, beyond the black railing of the balcony. As though he could not help himself, Ben moved closer, wrapped his arm around the blanket. The weight of him, so warm. Ronny closed his eyes. What rushed out he could not help; he wiped his face. He asked, “How are you?”

Ben’s voice broken, a sob. “I don’t know right now.”

“I just couldn’t wait anymore. It was like I didn’t know whether you were dead or alive.”

“You knew I was here. Didn’t you?”

“Oh, I knew that, all right.”

“She’s so mad at me.”

They sat still. Ben rubbed an edge of the blanket over his eyes. Across the courtyard space a door opened, closed, along the opposite wing. Lights everywhere smeared with rain. Inside Ronny was sore, tired. He wanted to break down, to let go everything he felt, to throw off the blanket and scream in the stairwell, to the point that the silence echoed as if he had done it. Ben shifted away again. “You’re mad at me, too.” He spoke as though nothing had happened, as though they had only been apart a day or two.

“Miss Dee told me you came to the house.”

“Yeah. I did. I was too chickenshit to go in.”

“She said you were drunk.”

“Probably.”

They couldn’t face each other, they couldn’t stand up and walk away. Ronny could feel it for them both. Their plural. It made him ache, such a piercing fact. He said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

Ben made a low, choking sound. Ronny stood, let the blanket fall.

“Let me take you home,” Ben said.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just rain. You have curfew.”

“Ronny, please—”

“No. I’m fine.”

Ben was shaking now, sobbing. Ronny watched and let it happen. He wrapped Ben in the blanket. “I came to every game,” he said.

Ben took a long, ragged breath. “Did you?”

“Yes. You had to have known I would.”

He nodded, mouth quivering. So tempting to slide beside him, to pull him close. But not here. “You coming to Duke?”

“Can’t get a ticket since it’s in Durham.”

He nodded, Ben did. He was collapsing. In the moment it felt as if he had needed to collapse. They were locked together like that, not touching, distant from each other, but frozen, unable to separate. Ben releasing something, shaking. Enter someone, though. There had been no sound. But someone was there, a bulk of shadow, and Tate said, “What the fuck, Ben? Who’s that?”