After that once, the girls didn’t talk about Library Guy again, but without the sense any longer that there was something unspoken lying between them. A week passed, and Ellen allowed herself to imagine that maybe he wouldn’t show up again. Like maybe they weren’t that important, maybe he had other stuff going on. What if he was forgetful. What if he wasn’t even from around here. What if he went around giving people random assignments when he got bored and then just, moved on and left them to their lives.

There was no question about the girls keeping up makeout practice. Ellen wondered if they’d get tired of it after a while and drop off, if they never saw him again, or if they’d be like forty and still feel that need to hook up every day. She didn’t want to get tired of it though, not anytime soon. Now that the cloud had lifted it was a new kind of closeness between them. They made up little kissing games to play with each other. How far could Ellen get with her poetry recitation while Tracy was frenching her ear. (Not far.) One time they’d gotten very silly licking the letters of vocabulary words onto each others’ cheeks for some reason and trying to guess them.

That one really intense kiss they’d had though they hadn’t repeated. Ellen was resigned to it being a one-off, a thing in the past. She told herself she was okay with that, though often when she went to bed at night the kiss unrolled for her again, and she could only find sleep with her hand between her legs.

Ellen sighed, shut her eyes to the afternoon glare and flopped her head back against the headboard. It was late, and she was trying not to stress. They’d quit coming back together every day; their different class schedules made it awkward, and anyway neither of them wanted to give people ideas. But that left Ellen at the mercy of her girlfriend’s sense of time.

Ellen felt her impatience shimmer and collect to a still small point, while the afternoon turned to amber around her. And then an undulation passed through the mattress, and when she opened her eyes it was Tracy, kneeling next to her on the bed.

She wanted to say something annoyed but her friend had never looked more beautiful, and all she could do was smile like a complete dope and go, “Hey.” And Tracy kissed her, hard, and all of Ellen’s impatience widened out into an eagerness. Tracy was fumbling to shed her backpack with their mouths riding each other and Ellen trying to help with the straps and it ended up somehow with her hand cupped over one of Tracy’s small, perky breasts. Tracy paused at the touch, and Ellen’s world slowed to an apprehensive crawl. But she was only gathering herself to make the kiss go deeper.

“Like, it’s not like our heads would explode or anything.”

Ellen’s head was resting on Tracy’s shoulder. The last few buttons on Tracy’s shirt had come undone. Ellen had hold of one and was plucking at it idly between her thumb and forefinger, imagining Tracy’s nipple there.

“You know, stroke of midnight or whatever.” Tracy sighed. “I did start getting anxious, though. Like, whatsername just kept droning on and all I could think about was what if I didn’t make it before your mom got home, like I was literally making up schemes about how I’d have to sneak into your bedroom from the outside after dark.”

Catburglar Tracy. Ellen had a very hot vision of her girlfriend naked under a skin suit wearing little tufted ears. She frenched Tracy wetly in her favorite spot at the top of her neck. Tracy starting panting and whimpering, and for a while that was the only sound in the room. The light declined. Time was passing, Ellen knew, but it seemed not to have anything to do with her.

She looked up just as the bedroom door pushed open, and her mother’s head poked in.

“MAAAAAaaaahm!” Ellen screamed, spinning around to bury her face in the pillow.

“Hey, Trace,” her mom said, sounding unperturbed. “Hey, Mrs. M,” Tracy answered in a shellshocked monotone.

“Joyce sweetheart, please.” Ellen’s heart was pounding. She had a hunk of pillow clutched in her hand, and she was torn between wanting to turn and throw it at her mother and wanting to burrow all the way through it into the bed and under the floor.

“Honey, I’m sorry I’m so late,” Ellen heard her mom say. “I got Indian. I’m gonna go warm it up, what’s say ten minutes?

“You too, Tracy, stay and eat with us, I bought way too much food.” Tracy made some inarticulate demurring noise and Joyce waved her off, “No, nonsense, I won’t hear of it, you’re staying for dinner. I’ll let your mom know,” she called, already out the door and on her way back to the kitchen.

Dumbfounded, Ellen raised her head off the pillow. Tracy was sitting upright now, staring vacantly towards the far wall. Her shirt was still unbuttoned. “Dude,” she rasped.

Ellen got herself onto her knees and stared through the gap in the door. Not that there was anything to see. How were they possibly off the hook with this? “Did she not—“ she started.

Tracy turned, and there was a weird gleam in her eye. “Dude,” she said breathlessly, “your mom was naked.”