All Played Out

• Oh God. Stop freaking out. Stop it.

I should be studying. Mateo or Torres or whoever he is won’t be here for another hour, and I should be studying because even though he’s promised not to distract me, he’s just naturally distracting, and I’m not sure how much work I’ll get done tonight.

That’s what I should be doing. Instead, I’m putting on makeup. Real, actual makeup. On my face. Like a normal person. Or trying to anyway. I haven’t used my mascara in a couple months, and it’s gone all clumpy inside. I make a few passes over my lashes, but no matter how much gunk I wiped off the brush, it still comes out all clumpy and awful on my eyes.

When I find myself actually considering running to the pharmacy down the street to buy a new tube, I press my hands to my face in frustration.

I look at myself in the mirror and say, “Stop this. I don’t need this to impress him. I don’t need to impress him, period.”

Clearly he hadn’t needed me to wear makeup the other night. Granted, it was dark, and he could probably only see the outline of my face, but still. Besides . . . it’s not as if I’m trying to . . . I don’t know, keep him. This isn’t about that. It’s about experience and discovery. And yes, maybe I’m no longer envisioning a future spent alone, married to my job; maybe that’s not what I want anymore, but I’d be crazy to start picturing a future with this particular guy.

What if he goes on to play football professionally? I might not watch football on TV, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that all of those guys date supermodels and actresses and people much prettier and more interesting than me.

I don’t expect to have a piece of his future. I’m just going to enjoy the piece of him I have now.

After a quick trip to the bathroom to wash off the mascara monstrosity on my eyes, I decide to go ahead and start cooking. If I can’t be productive and study, I can at least do something useful. Originally I’d planned to wait to start dinner until Torres got here. I relished the idea of putting him to work. But it’s probably a good thing I’m starting now. Somehow I can’t imagine Torres doing anything in my kitchen except making a mess. An image pops into my head of my counter covered in ingredients, and the food burning, while he kisses me into oblivion.

I shake away that thought and begin prepping ingredients. One of the things I did love about growing up in and around a restaurant was learning how to cook. It’s not as big a part of my life as it is for my parents and the rest of my family, but it’s something that puts me at ease. There’s a science to it that has always appealed to me. Measurements and mixes and observation. It engages my hands and my mind, and at the moment I could use that kind of distraction.

I’m making tortellini Bolognese because I figure since he’s an athlete, his diet is probably pretty carb heavy. And Bolognese is a sauce I used to help my mom make all the time. She used to spend hours on that sauce, letting it simmer and steep in flavor. She’d be horrified to know that when I make it these days, I’m usually done in a little under an hour.

I focus on the vegetables first. Chopping and dicing my way through onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. It takes a little while, but eventually the motions of my hands and the concentration finally push the thought of Mateo (and his mouth and his hands) out of my head for the first time in days. By the time I toss the vegetables in the pan with olive oil and a little butter, I’ve lost myself in the task. I’ve made this dish often enough that I don’t even have to look at the recipe. I move on from the vegetables to the meat. Mom makes hers with ground beef, pork, and veal, but on my college-student budget, I’ve settled just for ground beef.

I think of Mateo again, but this time I’m calm enough to do it objectively, to wonder what’s made me so nervous in the first place. It’s not that he’s coming over or that I’m cooking for him. It’s more about what happens afterward.

Dylan texted just before the makeup debacle to say she was staying the night at Silas’s again. The words caused a stab of regret . . . until I realized what they meant. An apartment all to myself with Mateo. No one would be coming home to interrupt us. And after what happened in his truck earlier in the week, I was practically suffering withdrawals from his hands and his mouth and all of him.

How is it that I could be addicted to him already? That I could crave him this much? I don’t know, but I do know I’ve never had this kind of physical connection with anyone. And maybe he is dangerous. Maybe he’s a much bigger catalyst than I bargained for, but I’m willing to risk it. For the orgasms. And okay, the laughs and the companionship and the adventure, too. And for him. That indefinable, overwhelming, annoying, and endearing thing that is just Torres.

I’m ready to sleep with him.

The thought hits me out of nowhere and has my heart behaving erratically again, so I force my attention back to my sauce.

I’ve finished adding the milk and tomatoes and spices and have left the sauce to simmer while I clean up when the knock comes at the door. My hands are covered in the remnants of my ingredients, and my stomach swoops so low I could swear it settles somewhere around my knees. I nudge the sink faucet with my forearm and start washing my hands as I call out, “Come in.”

I hear the door open, and I close my eyes and take a few quick, steadying breaths as I soap up my hands. I tell myself to open my eyes. That he’s going to come around the corner any second, and I’m going to look ridiculous washing my hands with my eyes closed, but everything inside of me is in a frenzy. And I know . . . know that “butterflies in your stomach” is just an expression, just something parents say to their kids, but all the same, I could swear that I feel every flap of their wings.