Chapter 38

“Well, where do you live? Could we get together over the summer? Or is that too weird? I mean, I don’t even know how you know me…”

I was out the door, about to stride down the aisle as quickly as I could without drawing attention from the other library denizens.

“Wait,” this other Jeremy whispered from the bathroom. “You haven’t even told me your name yet.”

* * * *

Mindy and I were on our way to our Love, Lust, and Desire in Italian Renaissance Art final exam a few days later. We’d spent the night before reviewing the ideals of beauty, the male gaze, and the fetishization of foreign bodies—which, had this been anything but an elective university course, might have made for a diverting evening.

“I feel for you gay boys, I really do,” Mindy informed me around the straw of her oatmilk vanilla bean mochaccino. “I mean, like ninety percent of your potential hook-up pool isn’t attracted to you in any way. Fuck, that must be awful.”

“Thanks, Min.”