Lucy was seated beside me on the couch as she studied, wearing a blue denim work shirt and cutoffs. We had been seeing each other casually for a few weekends, on “study dates”, as I helped her with freshman calculus. I had always been numbingly shy around girls, but Lucy was two years my junior, with an easy, friendly manner that made me feel comfortable. I still could not muster the nerve to make a non-platonic move, but lately we had been joking a lot about sex, as we both began to feel the potential growing
