Kathy went on complaining about her calculus exam. “I just don’t get that little ‘f’ thing. Do you?”

“Function? No, I never quite got it either,” Ronny said. “I’m not a math person.”

“What grade did you get on the paper, dude?” Ben asked Otis, leaning up on one elbow. Blue eyes pale and arresting, shaking his hair out of his eyes, perfect. Impressed when Otis showed him the grade. Ronny forced himself to look away.

After that there was a curious period of weeks until the end of exams—Ronny helping Otis with his feature story, Ben lounging on the other bed sometimes studying and sometimes pretending, Kathy with him sometimes and sometimes not. When she was there, she and Ronny kept up an easy conversation about their families, the university, the best places for omelettes, the terrible taste of beer, why Fleetwood Mac was the best band ever. When she was not, when Ben was studying and Otis was writing, Ronny helped them both, their private tutor, and in the heat of all that, feeling the draw of Ben’s presence, he sometimes wrote for Ben; he also went so far as to write parts of Otis’s feature for him—drawing the thoughts out of him, typing them onto the page, with Otis accepting this because he had no time, and Ronny had already finished the assignment himself.

Later, in April, Ben went out with his friends and trashed a parking lot in Carrboro, almost getting arrested. Kathy broke up with him, not because of the craziness but because there had been a girl involved and Ben had screwed her in the backseat of a car in the parking lot. Kathy had found out about it from Tate, who was also her friend—Ben never said much about the details, just sat slumped on the bed and kept his hands at his sides while Kathy berated him—which Otis told Ronny about. The whole sequence of events grew tangled to the point that it was hard for Ronny to understand—and he had become involved because he wanted to be there, close to Ben—and he knew why but he kept it out of his thinking when he was there—and Ben still had papers due and needed somebody to mind him while he studied—and there was Ronny, ready and willing, yes, to do almost anything.

One morning that May, near the end of exams, Ben appeared in the door of Ronny’s room, shirt open, pretty skin showing, hair tousled from sleep, barefoot, hungover, quiet. Ronny had the room to himself by then; Kelly had packed and gone home. Ben padded to the bed and sat beside Ronny, put his hand on Ronny’s shoulder, friendly, maybe a hint more. “I’m a piece of shit,” he said. “You know it?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I was such a shit to Kathy. She was a good kid.”

“She was cool. Can’t you call her or something?”

Ben made a face. Indifferent, resigned. “Nah. Might as well move on and fuck up the next one.” Still the hand, heavy and tangible, rested on Ronny’s shoulder, a sign of connection, but what kind? He hoped he knew better than to hope. He knew he could hardly stop himself.