We drive toward campus in a comfortable silence, and despite the fact that I'm driving a female student to campus in the middle of the night, I feel at peace for the first time since I left town. She shivers noticeably, and I can't help but peer down at her long, bare legs. Her skirt is so short I can't even see it under my sweatshirt. I turn the seat warmers on.

"Are your seats heated?" she asks a few minutes later. I glance at her from the corner of my eye and nod. She runs her hand down the warm leather and hums appreciatively. I don't know that I've ever been so jealous of an inanimate object.

"Yes. You can adjust them here if it's too hot." I point at a knob on the dash.

"Honey, it's too hot in here, but it has nothing to do with your fancy pants car," she drawls. She stretches the word "pants" out to two syllables. Her accent is more pronounced when she's drunk. I chuckle.

"Don't laugh me at!" Her tone is all business.

"Okay, I won't laugh you at," I repeat. She doesn't catch the mistake, which is somehow even funnier.

I get more on edge the closer we get to her apartment. Her being seen stumbling out of my car at three in the morning could cause problems for both of us.

"Are your roommates home?"

"Should be."

I swallow. "You think they'll be up?"

She examines my face, then chews on her cuticle. "Take me to my mom's house."

I'm not sure her mom seeing us is much better, but she's more likely to be asleep at this hour. And off campus, it's less likely anyone will recognize my car. I turn the car around.

"You can park at Martha's if you're worried." It's as if she reads my mind.

I turn onto Hummingbird Lane and imagine her stumbling across the street in the dark in her condition. I pull into her driveway. "No, it's fine." I put the car in park and force myself not to stare at her ass as she exits the passenger side.

She bends down and taps the window. I roll it down.

"Thanks for the lift. I owe you one." I watch her weave her way toward a door on the side of the house. She reaches for the door handle, but it doesn't turn. She knocks on the door, then drops her hand. She shuffles through her purse for a few minutes before she abandons the task and starts kicking the flower pots that line the walkway. One by one, she kicks each one over and rolls them to the side with her toe. She stumbles over the second-to-last pot, and contents from her purse spill out onto the piles of potting soil and chipped terracotta now littering the path. I roll down the window.

"What are you doing?"

"Lookin' for the key. I left mine at the apartment, and Brenda's not home." She sits on the ground and huffs. "I know there's a spare hidden around here somewhere."

I get out of the car and look under the last remaining flower pot and find the spare key. I hand it to her, then bend to pick up the contents that fell out of her purse, including a prescription pill bottle. I read the label, and as happy as I am to see her taking control of her anxiety attacks, I'm immediately concerned. Mixing an SSRI with alcohol is dangerous.

"Did you take any of these tonight?" The words come out harsher than I intended. She rips the bottle out of my hands.

"That's none of your business." Her voice is defensive, but she looks more embarrassed than angry. She turns and tries, but fails, to insert the key in the lock.

"You're right. No judgment, I just want to know if you mixed them with alcohol."

She shakes her head and tries for the lock again. She stabs the key into the door, about an inch and a half to the left of the door knob. "Of course not. I skipped today," she slurs.

I don't typically trust drunk people, but that checks out considering she just had a panic attack.

"Here let me," I gently take the keys from her hand.

"You can try, but I think it's broken."

The key slides in and easily turns. I open the door and stand back, but she lingers in the dark doorway.

"You going to be okay alone here tonight?"

She nods. I look her over. She's drunk, but not so drunk it's unsafe. She takes a step over the threshold when there's a loud thud and clatter from the back of the otherwise dark and still house. I reach out and grasp her upper arm, halting her movements.

"You sure your mom's not home?"

"Not 'sposed to be."

"Stay here," I tell her, stepping in front of her and pushing her back lightly with my forearm. She follows me through the house anyway. I turn the overhead light on and look around as I move toward the back of the house. Everything looks fine until I flick on the bathroom light. I pick the shower curtain rod off the floor.

"That damn tension rod," she huffs.

"You should really fix that."

She grins. "Yeah, you know a guy?"

"I do." She reaches up and lightly places her index finger on my breastbone. Her eyes roll over my chest, and her finger follows, tracing an s-shape lightly across my torso. Her touch is light. Not nearly enough while somehow also too much. I know I need to get the hell out of here, but the way she's looking at me has me frozen in place.

"The last time we had this conversation you were less clothed."

I nod, unable to speak. Her touch circles back to the center of my abs, and she slowly trails her finger downward, the pressure still so light I can barely feel it.

"Yes," I choke out. It's all I can manage.

"I liked that better."

I imagine what her touch would feel like against my bare skin. I would like that better, too. But imagining and doing are two entirely different things, so when her fingertip reaches the waistband of my sweatpants, I wrap my hand around her wrist and slowly pull it back, cursing myself the entire time.

"I don't like that at all," she pouts.

Me neither, but it had to be done. If she gets her hand on me, there's not a rule or consequence in this world that could stop me from ruining us both. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "Blaise, we can't." The words are physically painful. God, I wish we could.

I keep my eyes closed because I'm afraid if I look at her my willpower will crumble. She doesn't respond, but I know she walks away. It's not just that I can hear her footsteps fade down the hall, I can feel it in the way the air around me changes. It's thinner and less charged.

When I'm alone, I finally open my eyes and return to the bathroom to fix that damn curtain rod. It takes longer than it should to adjust the rod to the right length and get it to hang straight. I have half a mind to come back next weekend to install a glass door.

I call her name when I don't find her in the kitchen or living room, and she calls to me from the other end of the dark hallway. I fill a glass with ice water and grab an Advil from the bottle I find on the kitchen counter. The floorboards groan under my feet as I make my way down the hallway.  The door at the end is slightly ajar, and a sliver of soft yellow light spills into the hallway. I linger by the door frame, not daring to even look in.  I knock lightly.

"You can come in." Her voice is deep and breathy.

"Are you -" my voice cracks and I have to clear my throat and start over. "Are you dressed?"

She laughs. "Of course."

I exhale a sigh of relief and take a cautious step in. I see her first in the reflection of the mirror sitting on top of a white wicker dresser. She's sitting on an unmade bed, propped against the headboard, slowly releasing her hair from the braids. She's still wearing my sweater, but she's changed into sweatpants. Her knee socks are in the middle of the floor, and a dresser drawer is still hanging half open.

I cross the room and reach over to turn on the lamp next to her. She catches me staring at the dusty surface of her nightstand and smirks.

"Are you going to get all eye twitchy?"

I chuckle as I nod my head and place the glass and pills on her table.

"You'll feel better in the morning if you take those and drink that before you go to sleep."

She nods.

"I better go. You okay here by yourself?"

She hesitates, but nods again. When I turn to leave, she reaches out and grasps my wrist. The air crackles almost instantly. A warm buzz flows through my body.

"James?" I turn toward her, but she doesn't speak, just looks up at me with a frown. She's taken the braids out of her hair and now it falls in soft waves over her shoulders.

"Yes?"

"Thank you," she finally says, looking down and breaking our eye contact. I reach over and remove a pink pom-pom looking thing dangling from the ends of her thick, dark locks, then brush the wild hair behind her ear. I'm too close again; the smell of her minty shampoo is overwhelming.

She looks back up at me, eyes dilated and heavy lidded.

"You're welcome."

When I turn to leave, she grabs my wrist again. "James," she repeats. I freeze.

"Do you want to stay?"

Yes.

God, yes. I've never wanted anything more. I'm so tired of fighting this. I keep my back turned to her while I wrestle with and attempt to justify my thoughts. We both want this. We're alone. We're off campus. Nobody would ever have to know.

I finally turn and look down at her. Her lips are lightly parted and full and perfect. I've never wanted anything as badly as I want to kiss her. Maybe just this once. Just a taste.

I look at her eyes. They're dark and yearning and inviting, but also glassy. Unfocused. A sign of her lingering inebriation. She hiccups.

She's still drunk.

I shut my eyes and take a long, deep breath. "No." I finally manage, forcing myself to take a step back. "You know I can't, Blaise."

"Of course," she slides down the bed, covering herself with the pink quilt. "I was just kidding." I see a tear slide down her cheek as she reaches over and turns off the lamp and snuggles into my sweater.

I can't leave her alone and drunk and feeling rejected. I wait until I get to the door to respond. "You know it's not you, right? It's not because I don't want to. We can't."

"Um. Sure." I hear her sniffle.

"There are just lines we can't cross." I remind her.

"I know. I shouldn't have called you."

"You did the right thing." I resist the urge to go back in and comfort her. I take another step back into the hall instead. "I told you to call if you needed anything, and I meant it. You can always call me when you need me. We just have to respect the boundaries."

She sits up on the bed, the light on, reaching for the hem of my sweater.

"What are you doing, Blaise?" I ask, bewildered as she raises the shirt over her head, exposing a thin, pale pink tank top underneath. Her obviously braless chest bounces as she wriggles out of my shirt and tosses it to me. Sweet baby Jesus, she is trying to kill me. This is attempted murder.

"I don't think I should keep it," she explains. "I don't know how I'd answer questions tomorrow."

I nod my head, unable to form words as I gaze at her. She's perfect. Everything, from her wild, messy hair to the curve of her collar bone to the tight nipples poking through that tank top. Perfect. I take a mental picture, desperately trying to store the image in my head, knowing this is the most I can ever get from her. Knowing I can never allow myself to get this close to her again.

It takes everything I have to walk away.