Sure she was; she probably isn’t lying. And before I can ask about her visit to the sex shop, and what she bought, and who she intends to use it with because Andy hardly seems like the type, a woman comes in with five whining kids, and I back out of the store with only a wave.

Do I call Gabriel to confirm?

Make sure he hasn’t lost my address?

Make sure he’s still going to be here at three?

Make sure I haven’t lost my nerve?

My parents leave at one o’clock.

I change my sheets, throw my old stuffed frog into the closet, make sure the dishes are done, and that my father’s REAGAN FOR PRESIDENT: LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN poster is off the wall and stashed away in the back closet. Then I take the longest, hottest shower ever.

The clock reads two thirty.

I pace for thirty minutes.

The buzzer sounds.

I hit the button without saying anything.

And wait for what feels like years for him to come up from the lobby.

Gabriel knocks on the door. I open it, and then we stand there staring at each other.

It’s surreal to see him outside the context of the club, even more in the doorway to our apartment.

He smiles and walks in. Backpack slung over his shoulder.

I look around and try to see the living room the way he must. It’s too green, with its wallpaper left over from the previous owners, and the bookshelf that’s bending under the weight of my mother’s glass bird collection, and the old family Christmas photo over the TV with me and Connor in matching sweaters that has been there so long I usually don’t notice it.

Everything in me screams to grab Gabriel’s arm and pull him out of here as fast as I can. Instead, I take his bag and set it down next to my father’s chair. When I turn back, he pulls me into him and kisses me long enough to make me dizzy.

And I know I’ll never look at this room the same way again.

We head to my room. Gabriel tosses himself down on my bed and stretches out as if he’s always been there.

His eyes travel over my desk, my old baseball trophies, a stack of dusty cassettes, a postcard from when Becky went to Disney World as a nanny for some friend of her aunt’s. They land almost audibly on my guitar.

Play something for me, he says, in a voice that makes me shiver. You owe me one for that tumbling run in Washington Square.

I freeze, wondering why I left the guitar out. Why I’m nervous to play for him when I know I don’t suck and I’ve dreamed of playing for him so many times.

I force myself to pick it up, check the tuning, and strum the opening to a Simon and Garfunkel song.

I still have this idea about writing a song for Gabriel, but every time I go to add a lyric, I come up with another question about him I don’t know the answer to.