Yet Ben still called Ronny in the afternoon or in the late evening to tell the news of the day. Asked for advice about his assignments. Complained about Tate’s farts, his mess. Sometimes teased Ronny for his jealousy; on being the subject of this kind of joking Ronny felt the beginning of despair.

Ronny focused on the work he did for the newspaper, on Sheria, Lily, Charlotte and the poets, on his own work, on another project with Otis, a longer version of a Title IX story they’d written together. Now and then he made himself too busy to sit with Ben and read to him out of a textbook, to type his papers, to worry about his grades. One day he refused to answer the phone in the afternoon, just lay there on his bed reading. Somebody was riding his bicycle along the balcony, no hands, playing a harmonica very badly, back and forth in front of the window, enjoying the warm day.

The door opened and Ben stood there in jean shorts, his shirt open. “You little shit,” he said, closing the door, glowering, hands on his hips. “You can’t ditch me.”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to answer the phone when I call you. You think I don’t know when you’re in here?”

Ronny closed the book, sat up on the bed, Ben sat next to him and they stared at each other. The idiot on the bicycle rode past again, the window open, the reedy sound awful. “What the fuck is he doing?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know. Practicing to be a circus clown maybe.”

He reached across Ronny and pulled down the shade. Pitching his voice low, he said, “You know you’ve been acting like a dumbass lately.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fuck you, I’m not stupid.”

They were close to each other, there was the heat of their skins, Ronny with no shirt at all, Ben with his vast body; their faces engulfed in one another, the same feeling as before. The same result, but it was Ben who moved toward Ronny this time.

Afterward, Ben said, “Satisfied?”

Ronny failed to make a sound, nodded his head.

“I’d ask you what’s going on but I already fucking know,” Ben said. He left it at that. They sat awhile, and after a spell of quiet they started to talk, not about Jennifer but about ordinary things: The Tar Heel, the last weeks of class, the spring scrimmage, Ben’s mother. There was a commotion on the balcony, some shouting, a last screech of the harmonica, the sound of the bicycle crashing over the balcony rail.

“That’s enough of that shit,” said a booming voice, and Ben laughed. Ronny wanted to lean against him, just barely managed to stop himself. But he had gotten the message.

The despair came back when Ben was gone. After all, he had refused to explain anything. Ronny went on as before. One night, restless, he headed onto the balcony, prowled out there, down to the lawn. Looking up at the dark sky, the glare of the pole lamps, only a week of classes left, the summer yawning. He would go home to Goldsboro, he would have that summer, a repeat of last year. Three months without. Ben found him wandering in front of the dorm. He was lit, home from the bar. Ben touched his shoulder to Ronny’s as they drifted on the grass. “Let’s go for a ride,” Ben said. “I’m by myself for a change.”