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it?” I’m not usually a daring, bold sort of girl, but I place my hand on his shoulder. My thumb glides along his toned muscles.
    Our bodies close in. He nods. “Yeah.” His breath is heavy.
    “It’s at my apartment, but it’s just a couple blocks away.”
    His hand moves to my hand on the bar. The condensation from his beer lingers on his palm and it’s cold. I shiver. He pulls away, forehead furrowed. “You sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    We finish our drinks mighty quickly. I’m sure it has nothing to do with our plans. As Luke pays, I rummage around the bar looking for Mandy. But she is nowhere. She doesn’t answer her phone. I bite the inside of my cheek, but swallow any anger. She must have just forgotten to tell me she was leaving.
    I walk back toward Luke. As he says goodbye to Sally, her playful expression winnows away. She reaches her hand to his. She holds it for a second, hard enough that the knuckles on her fleshy hands get a little white. He squeezes back. They’re clearly having a moment. I want to ask about it, but not as much as I want to leave it pure, unhindered. “God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle,” Sally says. “You know that.”
    “Yes ma’am,” Luke says. She releases his hand. She looks at me as she talks to Luke. “I’m sure you’ll like Quinn’s beer. It’s some of the best in Allan.”
    We exit and Luke looks good in the moonlight. Despite the cold, warmth flushes through me. I swallow as his hand finds the small of my back. We pass the Methodist Church. There’s a large balcony three stories up, latched on to the sanctuary. “I’ve heard you can see the whole town from up there,” I say.
    “You can,” he says, and laughs. “When we were little, my sisters and I used to crumple up bits of the program and throw ’em off the balcony after the service. We made it snow.”
    “Sounds like a good idea. Who wouldn’t like snow?”
    He shrugs and bares a bashful grin. “The old, serious sorts didn’t like it when paper bits got in their hair. Our mom would get real mad.” As he looks up at the church, the humor leaves his shoulders. His mouth is straight.
    The rest of the walk is weirdly quiet. And, given how I thought it started off, oddly devoid of physical contact. The mood has slithered away.
    When we get to my house, I usher him past the peeling red paint on the fence and the abundance of honeysuckle in the front yard. I push him quickly through the messy living room that has a bunch of half-spent candles and a shaggy orange carpet. In the kitchen, I open a bottle of the lager for us to split.
    He points to a photo of Main Street during a sudden rainstorm my freshman year. Students are holding book bags over their heads, running to the cute shops and cafés for shelter. Some people are standing under awnings, clutching their valuables: recent purchases and small children. “Is this, the one with the crazy guy in the middle, another of your pictures?” Luke asks.
    I remember thinking, before I pulled out my camera, how I loved that there was one guy who wasn’t fleeing. He just stood in the middle of the rain and let it fall on him. He spread his arms and looked to the heavens and opened his mouth as though only this sudden rainstorm would quench his thirst. After I took the picture, I ran up to him.
    That’s how I met Conrad.
    “Yeah,” I say to Luke, pointing at the crazy-looking guy in the middle as I grin. “We’re enjoying his beer recipe.”
    Luke laughs. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
    “It’s okay.” I step closer to him to show it. He looks at me as though I’m an abstract painting and he’s trying to discern the artist’s intent. He moves slowly but it feels quick. He puts the beer down. His hand is on my hip and his other hand runs through my hair. I place my hands on his shoulders and try to tame my breaths, until I realize his breaths are fast, eager too. We mirror each other again. Just as I close my eyes, ready to taste him, we