The Perfect Gift

I flushed. “I don’t know.”

Dan smirked. “Come on,” he said. “I’m here studying for midterms, but I could use a break. Feel like taking a walk?”

I wrinkled my nose. “It’s so hot outside,” I said. “Do we have to?”

Dan laughed. “Okay, or we could get iced tea from the snack stand in the campus union. Feel like that instead?”

I nodded. “That sounds great, I didn’t even realize it until now but I’m so incredibly thirsty.”

I followed Dan across campus and into the student union. Being a weekend, it was pretty empty. Some undergrads were lounging around, watching stuff on their laptops or snacking on chips right from the bag. My stomach rumbled. I can’t eat now, I have to go home for dinner or Rebecca will be pissed. But something inside of me was irritated with Rebecca – maybe we’d just gotten a little too close for comfort. I knew it wasn’t entirely normal for platonic best friends to be as close as we were…back when we’d been undergrads ourselves, everyone had joked that we were “same sex life partners.”

“So,” Dan said after we settled into a booth. “What’s going on?”

“I wish I had any idea,” I said moodily, slurping my Coke. “We’ve…started seeing each other.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Tell me about that,” he said, leaning over the table and batting his eyelashes. I burst out laughing at his girlish manner – now that I’d spent a little more time with Dan, I was so embarrassed to think that I’d ever thought he was straight.

I shrugged. “It’s…casual.”

“So you’re having sex,” Dan said bluntly. He smirked as he took a long sip of his iced tea. “That’s fine. I do that all the time,” he said. “Although I haven’t done it as much as I should lately. This program is kicking my ass.”

I frowned. “I really should be spending more time on work,” I said. “I know this program is only a year, but it feels like we’ve been doing it forever.”

Dan laughed. “I know,” he said. He glanced over at the undergrads. “Lazy little fucks,” he said. “They act like they have it so hard. I’d kill to be back in undergrad.”

“I wouldn’t,” I said, rolling my eyes. As unhappy as I was with myself now, it had been worse in undergrad. Rebecca and I had been friends with a small group of people who were just like us – bookish, boring, and naïve. A hot night for us had been staying in watching a Jane Austen movie and eating gallons of popcorn. I’d never even had a drink until my twenty-first birthday, and unlike Rebecca, I’d never gone to a party. I’d always been too afraid of people making fun of my weight, and despite multiple attempts to diet, nothing had ever worked.

“Well, I had a lot more sex then,” Dan said. He smirked again and I flushed. “Although some of it, unfortunately, was with women.”

I burst out laughing. “I bet that was very difficult for you,” I said, raising

an eyebrow.

Dan laughed. “Molly! Did you just make a joke? I’m scandalized,” he said.

We laughed together. It felt nice to make a friend other than Rebecca – it had been so long, I’d almost forgotten what the sensation was like.

“I guess so,” I said, still laughing. “Maybe I’m loosening up.”

Dan snickered. “Or at least some part of you is,” he said, glancing down at my lap.

I blushed hotly. “Oh my god, Dan!”

Dan laughed. “That’s the second time I’ve gotten that out of you,” he said. “You’re too fun, Molly.”

I smiled. “Glad you’re amused.”

“So this guy…what’s going on? Give me good tea,” Dan said. “I’m so bored of studying that it’s actually killing me.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Tea?”

“Gossip,” Dan said. “Like you know, put tea on, I’ve got stories?”

I laughed. “God, I feel out of the loop. And the guy…I don’t know. I’m so confused. He took me on a real date after last time, though. I mean, I asked him to. But he still did it.”

“Ooh, fancy dinner? Twilight bay cruise?”

“Ice cream.”