Against the white of his skin, there is a triangle of chest hair. I put my hand on it. I slide my hand down his chest and feel his stomach muscles tighten. In the shadow his eyes reflect an unseen source of light, and they’re fastened on me. In this swirl of right and wrong, good intentions and bad outcomes, there’s only one thing I’m sure of right now. Only one thing is certain. And that’s what I want.

He reaches his hand up to me. I pull him off the floor, and we get into bed.

Next morning, I come into the truck stop diner, wearing Bo’s white T-shirt and his leather jacket. He’s on a pay phone somewhere, having a big argument with his dispatcher about whether someone else can take the potatoes to Tennessee so that he can drive us the rest of the way home. I walk up to Grimshaw, who’s in the back of the restaurant. She rips open a packet of sugar and slowly stirs it into her cup of coffee.

“Hi.”

She raises her eyes and fixes me with a hostile gaze. A guy in white with a paper hat on his head goes by behind me, dragging a mop and a garbage can on wheels. I lean forward to get out of his way. She watches him walk by. I sit down.

“Here. Have another one.” Grimshaw flips a condom across the table at me. She jerks her head at the janitor. “In case he wants to do you behind the dumpster.”

I feel like I’ve been socked in the stomach. “Jesus,” I say when I get my breath back. “I didn’t even use the first one. We didn’t do that.” I dig the condom she gave me out of my pants pocket. “Here. You can have this one back if you want it.”

“Do you have any pride?” she asks. “Any? Any at all?” She’s almost spitting at me. “Where is he, anyway? I want to go. He better drive us home now.”

“Pride? I can’t believe who I’m hearing this from.”

“At least I didn’t drag you around behind every little thing that stuck to the bottom of my shoe.”

“Your boyfriend”—I lean over the table and speak slowly—“is scum. I wouldn’t have him on the bottom of my shoe.” Grimshaw, who has never lost a staring match, looks away.

“And he thought you were so innocent,” she says finally.

“He did not think I was so innocent.”

Something about the way I say that snaps her attention back to me. Grimshaw looks at me very closely for a minute and narrows her eyes. Her lips get very thin. This time I look away.