6

While in that summer Spencer scurried back and forth from New York to shoot, Darcy had his own distractions.

Shortly after he returned from Connecticut, he found his first friend in one Henrik Thorsen, his almost-roommate, and agreed to meet for coffee. Despite having been acquainted over Facebook, Darcy was astonished that Henrik was almost an inch taller than him, and looked even taller from his thinness. After exchanging some introductions, Henrik took Darcy's hand, looked him dead in the eyes and said, "Fuck you, Darcy Kincaid."

"Excuse me?"

His eyes, made frighteningly blue by his very cyan t-shirt, were glittering with mischief. "I said fuck you. If I'd brought my roommate Wilson with me, he'd have clawed your eyes out. Now we have to live with that pretentious prick Garrett because you found someone else. How do you like Cambridge? Having fun so far? Hey, what classes are you taking?" He laughed brightly. "I'm just teasing about the apartment, but Garrett is awful. You're very handsome when you frown – anyone ever tell you that?"

At first glance, Darcy thought that Henrik, with his pale blond hair and cold, delicate beauty resembled Spencer, but a few enthusiastic sentences were enough to convince him otherwise.

They chatted at length about physics and the impending beginning of term, peppered with Henrik's many complaints about his least favorite roommate. At the end of it, Henrik declared, "You should come over and meet Wilson. I didn't know him at MIT, but he's a nice guy and we both hate Garrett." Henrik stood up, towering over their little table. "I have to introduce you to Leilani. She's my best friend. You two will love each other. You're not seeing anyone right now, are you?"

The day after, Darcy did indeed meet Henrik's roommates – Wilson Chang, an incoming math grad student, and Garrett Fairchild, a first year law student who did not seem that bad – and spent the evening at their apartment. In spite of the mess, Wilson was the only Bostonian Darcy knew with an Xbox. But when Darcy returned to his clean and orderly apartment, he sighed with relief and ignored Spencer when she asked him what had moved him so.

As promised, he eventually met Leilani, a first year medical student who lived on the other side of the river, for brunch and mimosas. She was very beautiful, with long black hair, perfectly smooth and clear brown skin, and pinup-worthy curves; she greeted Henrik with a squeal and a hug, and gave Darcy a long, appraising look before shaking his hand coolly.

In their freshman year, Henrik had dated Leilani's roommate, and they were best friends – with occasional benefits, Darcy found quickly – ever since. Just as quickly, Darcy learned Leilani was a state champion in water polo and was an alumna of Punahou, the prep school that Barack Obama attended. If ever there was a gunner med student, Leilani was it, and certainly did not shy from telling Darcy about her accomplishments at MIT and all her research publications. To level the playing field, Darcy bragged about his prep school ice hockey and math competition victories, everything he did and published at Stanford, in equally gory detail. Henrik had been right – noticing the striking similarities between their demeanors, both laughed it off and decided they liked each other.

"You're like a conceited, white male New England version of me," Leilani mused, "And I'm the more talented, native Hawaiian female version of you."

"Every single person I've met from MIT so far has been insufferable," Darcy declared, but with a smile. "And you're especially conceited."

Henrik leaned towards Darcy, eyeing him closely. "How many MIT alumni do you actually know? Me, Leilani, and Wilson?" He held Leilani's hand and showed Darcy their class rings. "There are a lot of Brass Rats in Cambridge, Darcy. Leave it to these beavers to be your best friends." Leilani groaned and buried her face in her hands and advised Henrik to never tell jokes again.

Did Spencer wear her class ring to New York? Darcy could not remember, but laughed at Leilani and Henrik both. They were an interesting pair, Henrik who hailed from some frigid city in Norway and Leilani who came from the island of Maui, and as different from one another as two best friends could be, and each stunningly beautiful in their own way.

The rest of the brunch was hammering out details. Though Leilani was actively searching for her one true love, she counted on her dear friend Henrik for sexual support between boyfriends in what Darcy saw as the purest form of the friends with benefits relationship. Darcy was reasonably full of questions, but Henrik and Leilani were confident that he was the ideal casual sexual partner – responsible, discreet, and logical about separation of emotions from lust.

"And, of course, if I see my future husband," Leilani added, "Darcy, you'll be honor-bound to help me fall into that great romance. I'll return the favor, and Henrik as well."

Henrik nodded briskly. "She's a love expert. Please say yes."

Of course, Darcy said yes.

Every Monday evening between seven and nine, Darcy was to report to Leilani's apartment for their weekly rendezvous – and Henrik on Thursdays – supplement to frequent outings as a trio of platonic friends. It was a new, exciting arrangement with two beautiful people, and another excuse for Darcy to get away from his apartment. With his problem of sexual frustration mostly resolved, Darcy allowed himself to wonder about Spencer's sex life.

There was not much to wonder about – she slept in her own bed every night, and seemed not to date or be intimate with anyone outside of porn.

And during one particularly thorough cleaning session, Darcy found Spencer's drawer of sex toys – three vibrators, five dildos of varying length and girth and material, and three butt plugs – in a chest in the laundry room. That sexy discovery was a happy one, and Darcy felt relief that Spencer, after all, was at least masturbating regularly.

He tried not to wonder what she masturbated to.

Grad school meant hard work, harder classes, thinking about dissertation topics, and too much reading, but Darcy welcomed it all. After bonding with Henrik, they went on an eager quest to befriend every physics grad student they met. Because of their shared classes and similar schedules, Darcy and Henrik often studied together, and went to the gym together with Wilson. With the frequent trips to their apartment and hours spent playing on their Xbox, Darcy helped them with chores, and occasionally mediated disagreements between Henrik and Garrett.

In contrast to Darcy's flourishing social life, it seemed that Spencer had made no effort to make new friends. On one hand, Spencer was introverted and enjoyed solitude…on the other hand, he thought there was something very forlorn about her sitting alone in the apartment while he spent time with other people. They were a quiet apartment as they were in the summertime, interacting sparsely at meals or when they walked to school, and as always when watching baseball games. Darcy kept looking at Spencer's textbooks and asking her questions, and Spencer kept explaining things – that, at least, was quality roommate bonding.

With so much time spent around Henrik and his friends, Darcy felt the strong temptation to ask them what they knew, what they had heard about Spencer Moran. And yet, as much as he yearned for information about Spencer, he refrained from asking.

While Darcy thought that restraint was a mark of his maturity, he could not so justify his reluctance to talk about his mystery roommate. Leilani told Darcy he was welcome to bring "that mystery roommate of yours" to their next outing, and Henrik and Wilson always made a fuss about wanting to meet whoever Darcy abandoned them for. Darcy was able to evade their curiosity and courtesy, and guarded himself from bringing Spencer up in conversation, by name or by reference as his current roommate.

There was nothing about his living arrangement with Spencer that Darcy had reason to hide. It was uncomfortable to admit that even now, Darcy still fantasized frequently about Spencer, imagined her underneath him and crying out his name. But that should not have mattered at all, and he was not proud of this reluctance to acknowledge Spencer's existence with his friends and include her in his social circle.

From what Darcy observed, Spencer enjoyed the beginning of grad school as much as he did, and took to the onslaught of classes and research gracefully. The trips to New York to shoot porn ceased and time spent staring at code increased. Spencer ate lunch by herself on campus but eagerly accepted Darcy's invitation for a coffee break when he asked, and twitched her lips in a half-smile when he called out her name from afar. She went to bed early and rose early for longer runs. When Darcy caught her stretching on a towel on her side of the room, she bashfully replied that she went to a free weekly yoga class at the gym.

After two months of living with Spencer, it was abundantly clear that she was as introverted as could be, and unlikely to make any friends with her own effort. And no matter how Darcy interpreted her solitude, he knew that he as her roommate and one link to the world outside did not help break it.

However, Darcy's willful isolation of and from Spencer would not last. It began one afternoon when Darcy and Wilson returned to the latter's apartment from the gym. They had been chatting about something related to lifting, but when Wilson saw Henrik lounging on their futon, he called out, "Henrik, you'll never guess who sat next to me in my Real Analysis class."

"Darcy?"

Wilson dumped his gym bag on Henrik and said, "Why would you think Darcy? Of course not, it was Spencer Moran."

Darcy barely controlled his surprise, but Henrik sat up, slack-jawed with eyebrows raised. "That's something! Hold on, what happened to working for the CIA? Or Google?"

"Well, she's not working for Uncle Sam; she's doing her PhD here in math and not CS. Anyways, Spencer Moran just randomly sat down next to me in class and said hello, asked me how my summer was. I told her about my Euro trip, and she told me she had a busy summer, pushed out an abstract, did her New York thing…"

Darcy hadn't realized how immersed he was in that conversation until Henrik reached over and lightly slapped Wilson's shoulder. Though the gesture certainly snapped Darcy back into reality, it did not explain the fluttering in his stomach. "It's not polite to talk about people we went to college with and exclude our esteemed guest."

Wilson sighed. "I'm just saying, Henrik. I had a conversation with Spencer Moran. If anything, you're the rude one for playing around with your phone when we're having a conversation." He reached over to return the slap.

"Fuck you." Henrik flopped back down on his back and looked at Darcy, who had just shouldered his backpack. "Leaving already? It's Friday – we can play Battlefront after we study."

Wilson chimed in. "If we don't play today, we can't play until Monday. Thank you, Garrett."

Wilson owned the Xbox, but Garrett owned the TV. Every other Saturday of the month, Garrett had over a Yale friend to marathon Minecraft from morning to afternoon, and spent the Sunday binge-watching Netflix on the big screen. This was an endless source of agony for Henrik and Wilson, who made no effort to befriend Minecraft Guy, as they dubbed him.

Darcy made an excuse to leave, apologized, and walked briskly back to his apartment, heart still racing. How could an overheard conversation barely a minute long be so disarming? There was no disrespect, no undercurrent of attraction or spite in the way Wilson spoke of Spencer, only light-hearted surprise. His own surprise, the way his heart seemed to tremor as he made his way back home, was more alarming than the fact that Spencer, seeing a familiar classmate in her lecture, went to strike up a conversation. Nothing less, nothing more, and when Darcy returned, he leaned heavily against the door.

As ever, Spencer was sitting on her bed. He went to his own desk wordlessly, and then to the kitchen to start on dinner. She was watching him, he knew.

There were onions, celery, and carrots to dice, garlic to mince, and chicken thighs to cube and brown. Out of habit, Darcy played music when he cooked – always his sister playing, as she was constantly sending him recordings and asking him for his opinion on her audition repertoire – and today, he needed it to focus on each knife stroke and drive away that shadow.

The right thing to do would have been to stay at Henrik's and Wilson's and offer, "Actually, Spencer Moran is my roommate," and see where that took them. They seemed to have a good opinion of her, and maybe then Spencer wouldn't have to go through the first term friendless. That was the right thing to do, Darcy knew, but why didn't I say anything?

Is it because I'm possessive? Do I want her for myself? Am I really like that?

"Fuck!"

The knife clattered to the ground and Darcy sucked at the side of his right thumb, which was already streaming with blood. Spencer looked up at his outburst, and appeared a moment later with a little first aid kit.

"That's a lot of blood," Spencer noted with concern as she watched Darcy clean and patch himself up.

"I was distracted. Do we have any latex gloves? I don't want to contaminate any of the food. Damn, the other knife isn't as sharp."

When Darcy reached over for another chef's knife, Spencer took his hand in hers and said, "Let me help. You shouldn't be cooking with a cut that bad." Her touch was light as air, her fingers long and slender and dexterous as she wrapped and taped his thumb.

Darcy felt light-headed, and he felt his groin stir. Oh God, Spencer was so close to him, and he could smell her shampoo, and her skin that he wanted so much to kiss and bite. With a hasty thank you, he rotated the cutting board around for her and said, "Just try to cut everything the same size, and…"

She was staring up at him curiously and he could not think of what the next step was, and which pot to use. "I'll write the recipe down for you. I'm blanking right now."

"You have blood on your lips."

So he did.

He went to his desk and sat down angled away from Spencer so she could not see his lap. It was unfair, he decided, unfair to pretend any longer that Spencer was part of his life, unfair to pretend she was his secret.

Above all, Darcy wanted to be near Spencer again, see her lovely golden head under his chin, and feel her light fairy touch on his skin. He wanted her, all of her. It was wrong.

It was the cut, longer and deeper than he had ever gotten from cooking, that muddled his thoughts so much.