“Yeah, and it was definitely a lot of—”
Katy assumed that Zeke had been about to say “fun,” but something had stopped his train of thought in its tracks. She turned, following his wide stare back toward the auditorium’s door, where a very pretty Middle-Eastern woman was walking up to them. Katy had noticed her in the audience while she was on stage—she wasn’t one of the club’s normal attendees. Had she come to support Zeke?
“You guys cracked me up,” the woman said in a sweet, melodic voice. “Great job!”
David, Cassie, and Katy smiled and nodded, but Zeke was still frozen like a deer in headlights. David elbowed his friend in the side, though he was obviously trying not to make it too apparent.
“Um, thanks,” Zeke said. His round face had gotten quite red.
“Do you have plans right now? I was thinking maybe we could study for the poli-sci final if you’re free,” the woman went on.
Zeke paused.
“He’s free, Nur,” David offered in his friend’s stead. “We’re all just a little spacey from performing.”
Seems like Zeke has a great friend, too.
Nur smiled, either oblivious to Zeke’s awkwardness or not minding it. Katy assumed it was the latter. “Great. The coffee shop in the quad?”
Zeke finally smiled, seeming to exhale visibly for the first time since Nur had approached. “Sure,” he said, his voice sounding cautiously cheerful.
Nur waved a polite goodbye to the rest of the group and made her way down the stone stairs of the auditorium to the street level. Zeke turned to follow her, and then looked back at his friends.
“See you guys around!” he called out with a grin, like he couldn’t believe his luck.
Katy watched as the two walked off in the direction of the quad together. It was certainly an eventful day for romantic overtures. Speaking of . . .
She turned back to face Cassie and David. Cassie had a knowing little grin on her face that warmed Katy’s heart. She seemed so accepting of the new arrangement already. How could Katy have lied to begin with? How could she have ever thought that Cassie wouldn’t support her?
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you two to it,” her cousin said. Katy prayed that she wasn’t about to make any jokes or insinuations about David and Katy. Just because she had permission now didn’t mean she wanted to jump into anything too quickly. Or make things awkward for David.
But luckily Cassie didn’t say anything further. Instead, she waved and made off down the steps and toward their house. Katy turned back to David.
“Well, I guess now we have one less thing to worry about,” Katy said with a smile. But then, realizing that David might think she was talking about Cassie, Katy quickly corrected herself. “I mean, now that the drama project is done.”
“Yeah, but I’ll miss drama group,” David said. “I actually really enjoyed it this semester. Thanks for inviting me in the first place.”
Katy blushed. “Of course.” David had quickly become her favorite part of the meetings, so really, she should’ve been thanking him.
“Oh, and um,” David started, his hand running nervously through his hair, “about what I said on stage . . .”
Katy’s breath almost stopped. Was David about to confess something about how he felt?
“I’m sorry. Slip of tongue. I looked over and saw you and flubbed my line.”
Katy tried not to audibly sigh. Of course it had just been an accident. She had been silly to assume otherwise.
“Don’t worry,” Katy replied. “Happens to the best of us.”
David smiled, but his hand didn’t stop combing through his hair, leaving it more tousled each time. “But I have at least one more thing to worry about before finals. As much as I hate it, the Wolf Club guys are pretty insistent that everyone participate in Primal Scream.”
The emotions that suddenly clutched Katy were a mad rush of excitement, anxiety, curiosity, and panic, all moving through her body so rapidly that it was hard to tell one from the other.
“Don’t suppose you’ll be attending?” David went on.
“Well,” Katy slowly began, trying to organize her thoughts, “Cassie wants to. But I’m not so sure myself.”
“Don’t do it for anyone other than yourself, Katy,” David replied. “I’m sure she’d understand if you weren’t comfortable doing it.”
Did David automatically assume that Katy was too delicate and modest for a little adventure? Cassie had done the same thing when they were talking to Michelle about the tradition. Not to mention, Michelle is always saying you dress like a prude.
A tiny surge of indignation needled from within Katy’s chest. She might be a princess, but she wasn’t a prude!
“Actually,” she said, trying to sound confident and worldly, “why not? I’ll only be at Harvard once. I think I will go.”
David looked a bit taken aback but quickly regained his composure. “Well, that’s awesome. Guess I’ll see you there, then.”
Katy felt her stomach flip with anxiety. But she couldn’t walk it back now. “See you there,” she replied.
* * *
“We should’ve put more effort into our costumes,” Cassie said, examining herself once again in the floor-length mirror in their room. She was wearing her robe with absolutely nothing underneath. A rather cheap masquerade mask covered her eyes and nose, leaving the lower half of her face exposed. She pouted seductively into the mirror.
Katy was sitting on her bed in her own robe, looking down at a similar mask. She felt like she was going to vomit.
Cassie glanced back at her, pulling the mask back off. “You’re sure that you want to do this?”
Katy had heard that question at least a dozen times today. Cassie had asked when they went to the party store to get the masks, she’d asked when they stopped for lunch afterward, she’d asked when she put her robe on, again and again, ad nauseam.
“Sure,” Katy replied curtly. She was sick of answering. Of course she wasn’t sure! It went against every value that her parents and tutors had spent two decades drilling into her. It was also something that she had assured her parents she had no intention of doing. And, on top of all of that, she just didn’t want to! But she was so tired of everyone making jokes about her modesty. And she was tired of the tabloids and her parents making a big deal out of her purity at every turn.
So that’s the whole reason I’m doing this? To either rebel against or please other people? Good thinking!
Katy sighed and lay back on her bed, careful to make sure her robe wouldn’t come open. She was completely naked underneath, and even in the confines of her room it felt embarrassing.
“I know I keep asking,” Cassie conceded, “but I just don’t want you to do this on my behalf. I would be fine going with Michelle.”
And Katy would be fine letting Cassie go with Michelle. She wanted nothing more than to put her underwear back on and stay home. But she had already made such a big deal about how she was totally fine doing this that she didn’t want to prove everyone right by dropping out now. That, and David was going to be there. Katy had told him she was coming.
“I’m just nervous,” she told her cousin. “But I want to do this. So can you drop it?”
Cassie smiled mischievously. “I’ll drop it like you’re about to drop that robe. We need to start heading to the Yard now.”
Katy’s stomach roiled with anxiety. She couldn’t even imagine stepping out of the house in her robe, much less dropping it and running naked with a crowd of strangers. A crowd of strangers . . . and David. But she had committed herself.
You can do this.
Katy stood and looked down at her robe again, checking for the hundredth time that her double-knotted belt was still tight. Not that it’s going to matter soon.
“I think I’m going to run barefoot,” Cassie said, “so I’m just going to wear my slippers and then take them off when we start. What about you?”
Katy couldn’t have cared less about what she
had on her feet. It was all the other parts of her body which were currently concerning her.
“I guess I’ll do the same thing,” she said.
Cassie slipped her shoes on and then tossed Katy’s fuzzy slippers toward her from the closet. “I’m so excited!” she exclaimed. “And you should be excited, too. You’ll get to see David in all his glory.”
Katy blushed. As nervous as she was, the prospect of being naked around David was making her pulse race for an entirely different reason. She had never been naked around any boy, even though Alexei had certainly tried. But while Katy had fought to maintain her modesty around Alexei, she felt like she was fighting not to just cast it off around David.
She wondered what David looked like under his clothes. Was his skin the same smooth and lovely tan complexion all over? Was he as strapping and well-built as he looked with clothes on? And what would he think of her nude body? Katy was small-chested compared to most, and her curves were subtle. Would he find her unappealing? Or would his eyes spark with a passion and eagerness to touch her? Katy could imagine his grip, his fingers tightening against her bare skin to pull her close, and . . .
“Ready?” Cassie asked.
Katy blinked. No, but I’m not going to let that stop me.
Cassie and Katy walked through the house in their robes and slippers, each carrying a masquerade mask.
“Have fun!” a redheaded housemate named Lauren called out from the kitchen. She was dressed in her pajamas, scrubbing a pot clean after dinner. Katy envied her.
At the door, she took a deep breath, slipped on her mask, and stepped out of the house behind Cassie, who hadn’t even paused. It was mercifully dark outside. There was already a small crowd of guys on the sidewalk in front of their house, all walking in the direction of the Old Yard. They were all dressed in bedsheet togas that were obviously meant to be easy to remove. Katy clutched her robe tightly.
And I haven’t even gotten to the Yard yet!
32
David
“I’m just praying that Nur won’t be there,” Zeke said.
David looked over at his friend, his arms crossed against the bitter cold, as they shuffled uncomfortably forward on the sidewalk clad in only their robes and sneakers. Which would’ve looked ridiculous enough, except that they were also wearing top hats and bow ties.
“You never know,” David replied good-naturedly. “That sight might be what cinches your relationship. Hen parties pay good money to see men dressed like you are now.”
Zeke furrowed his brow. “Hen parties?”
“Bachelorette parties,” David clarified. Sometimes he forgot which terms still applied in American English.
“Yeah, well, that’s because those guys tend to look a bit more like you,” Zeke replied. But, after seeming to reflect on the thought for a bit, he added, “Although I have been working out.”
David smiled. “You look great, mate. Don’t sweat it.”
David himself was sweating it. He was frustrated that he had to take time away from the last few hours he had available to study. He was cold, and his outfit was ridiculous. And, perhaps most importantly, he was a bit anxious about running into Katy. And it wasn’t because he didn’t want Katy to see him in the buff. Honestly, he wasn’t overly shy about things like that. He wasn’t completely inexperienced with girls, and he wasn’t ashamed of his body. He would just prefer that when Katy saw him nude—if Katy ever saw him nude—that there wouldn’t be a top hat and bow tie involved. Or the presence of all of his drunken, cheering friends. Or the rest of the public at all, really.
But he was anxious about running into Katy for other reasons, too. For one, he just didn’t buy that she wanted to be there. He worried that she was doing it to appease others, like Cassie, or maybe even himself, though he thought, hoped, that he hadn’t pressured her in any way. He worried that if somehow her identity was discovered, a scandal like this could imperil her future at Harvard. But mostly, he was worried that what he’d accidentally said at the play would color her opinion of him.
He still couldn’t believe he had said that. Sure, he liked Katy. And maybe, with time and reciprocation, he could even love her. But what had he been thinking when he accidentally used Katy’s name in the play? Maybe his subconscious was already falling for her. Would that freak her out? She’d seemed to shrug it off in the immediate aftermath, but what if she had reflected on it and gotten creeped out afterward?
Whatever the case was, the last thing he wanted to do was cavort around in the nude in front of Katy after he had made an ass out of himself just the day before.
“Are you worried about seeing Katy?” Zeke asked.
David turned to face his friend, perhaps a bit too quickly. “Um, no. Why?” Get out of my head, Zeke.
“Well, you did confess your love to her yesterday,” his roommate said with a wink.
David groaned. “An embarrassing slip of the tongue.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” a voice interjected from beside them on the sidewalk. David looked over to see an unpleasantly familiar face.
“You two have been pretty obviously flirting since you joined the group,” Connor said, keeping pace as David and Zeke continued to walk. He was dressed in a swimsuit—complete with scuba flippers on his feet and a shark-shaped floatie around his waist—that David assumed was about to be shed for a lap around the Yard.
“Upset you’ve lost your chance?” David shot back. He had never liked this guy and didn’t care to mince words.
“Well, if what I hear is true, everybody has a chance with her,” Connor replied.
David felt his stomach roil with anger. What the hell does that mean? He stopped in his tracks on the sidewalk, turning to face Connor head-on. Connor stopped as well to smirk up at David.
“Do you think those flippers will come in handy when I throw you into the fountain?” David threatened. For a moment, he had a vision of how awkward it would look if they actually did start fighting: a Chippendale’s dancer versus a spring breaker. He didn’t even care.
“Just trying to help you out, man,” Connor replied smugly. “But since it seems like your mind is already made up, you should at least wear protection.”
David raised his fist, and Connor flinched. But before he could follow through, his housemates were stepping in. Seb grabbed his fist before it could shoot forward, and Max stepped up to push Connor back.
“Don’t you have a pond or something to jump into?” Max said to Connor, his voice intimidating.
“Yeah, Connor. Mind your own business,” Zeke added angrily.
Connor put his hands up in mock surrender, an annoying smirk still plastered on his face, and resumed his march toward the Yard. David was left breathing heavily, trying to temper the surge of adrenaline racing through his limbs.
“We should’ve let you get one in,” Max said, almost regretfully, as Seb released his grip on David’s hand. “Guys like that are yapping lap dogs. One swat on the nose will shut ‘em up. But I didn’t want you to have an excuse to get out of tonight.”
He smiled and clapped his hand down on David’s back in a fraternal way, but David was pretty sure he was just telling the truth. Their Wolf Club mates had made such a big deal about the tradition to make sure David and Zeke would attend. They obviously weren’t about to let them off the hook now.
David exhaled, feeling his heart rate slowly returning to normal. “Probably for the best.”
David wasn’t a proponent of violence unless absolutely necessary. But something about Connor’s accusation had really infuriated him. Besmirching a wonderful girl’s name just because you didn’t have a chance with her? Maybe if you weren’t such a sniveling rat . . .
“Let’s keep moving, guys,” Max turned and said to the rest of their cohort.
David and Zeke dutifully followed the group. There were dozens of people walking around them in the direction of the Yard, many dressed in elaborate costumes. David had been trying not to be too obvious about it, but he ha
d definitely been looking for Katy in the crowd. So far, nothing.
“Can you believe that guy?” Zeke asked him as their walk resumed. “I mean, why lie? Katy doesn’t seem like that type at all.”
David didn’t respond. He didn’t believe it for a second, but he still wondered if Connor had made it up himself or it was an actual rumor going around. If so, who would start something like that about Katy? And why?
But David didn’t have long to reflect on it. They had reached the edge of the Old Yard, with its stately trees and dormant grass, and people were streaming in from all directions.
“Guess we’re really doing this,” Zeke said, a tinge of fear in his voice.
David sighed. “Guess so.” Maybe he’d even wind up next to Connor at some point. With those stupid flippers on, David was convinced that Connor would go down hard if someone, say, accidentally stepped in front of him. And what a shame that would be.
A man wearing only a tight pair of polka-dotted briefs was walking in the middle of the crowd, exhaling puffs of steam in the frigid air and carrying a loudspeaker. As David watched, the man shook his arms as if he was trying to keep his blood from freezing, then raised the loudspeaker to his mouth.
“One minute! Remember to start outside Hollis Hall and run counterclockwise.”
Their small group moved toward the large crowd in front of Hollis Hall. David noticed that some brave revelers had already dropped their robes or had walked over in just their underwear. As they entered the large crowd, David peered around, but to no avail. He still didn’t see Katy anywhere.
Maybe she put her foot down and decided not to come after all. In which case, good for her. Still, David had been excited at the prospect of seeing Katy there in the Yard—mostly because he just enjoyed being around her and spending time with her. But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that a part of him wanted to see her. All of her.
A Love that Endures Page 28
