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think it’s probably kismet,
anyway.   That you and I are here at
the same time, I mean.”
    “Kismet?”   I raise an eyebrow.  
    “That’s fate, Calla,” he tells me.   I roll my eyes.  
    “I know that.   I may be going to a state school, but
I’m not stupid.”
    He grins, a grin so white and charming
that my panties almost fall off.
    “Good to know.   So you’re a college girl, Calla?”
    I
don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about why you think this is
kismet.   But I nod.  
    “Yeah.   I’m leaving for Berkeley in the fall.”
    “Good choice,” he takes another sip.   “But maybe kismet got it wrong, after
all.   If you’re
leaving and all.   Because apparently, I’ll be staying for a while.   That is, after I find an apartment.   A good one is hard to find around here.”
    He’s so confident, so open.   It doesn’t even feel odd that a total
stranger is telling me these things, out of the blue, so randomly.   I feel like I know him already,
actually.
    I stare at him.   “An apartment?”
    He stares back. “Yeah.   The thing you rent, it has a shower and
a bedroom, usually?”
    I flush.   “I know that.   It’s just that this might be kismet
after all.   I might know of
something. I mean , my father is going to rent out our
carriage house. I think.”
    And if I can’t have it, it should definitely go to someone like Dare .   The mere thought gives me a heart
spasm.  
    “Hmm. Now that is interesting,” Dare tells me.   “Kismet prevails, it seems.   And a carriage house
next to a funeral home, at that.   It must take balls of steel to live there.”
    I quickly pull out a little piece of
paper and scribble my dad’s cell phone on it.   “Yeah.   If you’re interested, I mean, if you’ve
got the balls, you can call and talk to him about it.”
    I push the paper across the table,
staring him in the eye, framing it up as a challenge. Dare can’t possibly know
how I’m trying to will my heart to slow down before it explodes, but maybe he
does, because a smile stretches slowly and knowingly across his lips.
    “Oh, I’ve got balls,” he confirms, his
eyes gleaming again.  
    Dare
me.     
    I swallow hard.  
    “I’m ready to ask my second question,” I
tell him.   He raises an
eyebrow.  
    “Already?   Is it about my balls?”
    I flush and shake my head.  
    “What did you mean before?” I ask him
slowly, not lowering my gaze.   “Why
exactly do you think this is kismet?”
    His eyes crinkle up a little bit as he
smiles yet again.   And yet again,
his grin is thoroughly amused. A real smile, not a fake one like I’m accustomed
to around my house.
      “It’s kismet because you seem like
someone I might like to know.   Is
that odd?”
    No,
because I want to know you, too.
    “Maybe,” I say instead. “Is it odd that I
feel like I already know you somehow?”
    Because I do.   There’s something so familiar about his eyes, so dark, so
bottomless.   But then again, I have been dreaming about them for
days.  
    Dare raises an eyebrow.   “Maybe I have that kind of face.”
    I choke back a snort.   Not
hardly.
    He stares at me.   “Regardless, kismet always prevails.”
    I shake my head and smile.   A r eal smile. “The jury is still out
on that one.”
    Dare takes a last drink of coffee, his
gaze still frozen to mine, before he thunks his cup down on the table and
stands up.
    “Well, let me know what the jury
decides.”  
    And then he walks away.  
    I’m so dazed by his abrupt departure that
it takes me a second to realize something because kismet always prevails and I’m someone
he might like to know.   
    He took my dad’s phone number with him.

6
    SEX

 
    Finn

 
 
    Nocte
liber sum   Nocte liber sum
    By night I am free.
    Alea
iacta est   The die has
been cast.   The die has been
cast.  
    The die has been fucking cast.
    Serva me, servabo te .   Save me and I will save you.
    Save me.
    Save me.  
    Save me.