"Harper, we need to talk."

With a low groan, I cracked open my eyes and met the nondescript white ceiling, whose only details were a few areas of chipped paint. I rolled my head sideways and saw, Li's eyes stared right into me, then passed down my body but what she looked for, I wasn't sure.

"I know..." I mumbled, stretched myself awake, then climbed down my bed ladder. A loud sighed rushed out of me while I flopped down in my still horribly uncomfortable desk chair.

Almost a week had passed after Li had walked in on my personal happy hour and bolted out of our room like her ass was on fire. Since then, Li had avoided any and all discussion about my masturbating as well as prolonged eye contact with me, which included any time longer than two seconds. The silence between us over the few days that followed grew until it was beyond uncomfortable.

"Harper," she started with her voice flooded with hesitation.

Since I knew I'd made her probably the most uncomfortable she'd felt in her twenty-two years, I kicked aside my backpack on the floor near my desk, sighed quietly, and cut her off, "It's okay, I'll pack."

"Right, I - what?" Her dark brown eyes blinked at me a few times. "Are you... moving out?"

"I assume you want me to." I reached for my phone to call Dad since at this stage, a hotel room was my only short-term option. "Sorry I made you uncomfortable."

No fucking way am I living in Jake's room.

"Wait, no, I don't want you to leave!" Li's eyes blinked rapidly and welled up with confusion as one her hands literally scratched the top of her head. "Unless you... you want to?"

"No, I don't." Now we both were confused and tension pressed into my forehead when my eyebrows drew together. "I just thought... what you saw... made you uncomfortable."

What I hadn't said was that I was sorry for what she'd caught me doing. Masturbation was normal, healthy, and unnecessarily way too taboo of a subject that it didn't deserve an apology. I still felt slightly bad at how I'd freaked out Li, especially to the point where she wanted a different roommate. But I'd played with myself within the confines of privacy, or at least what I'd thought was privacy, and no part of me felt ashamed for scratching my annoyingly persistent itch.

"You've been cursed with a very horny roommate Li." My nose cringed slightly at my admission, particularly the conversation I'd had last night with Jake.

Thankfully, Li was asleep when I got home, or at least she pretended she was. While part of me secretly died to know how her not-date with Kieran went, I was relieved because the entire drive back from USC wasn't long enough for my brain to form a coherent explanation of what Jake and I had agreed to.

Not sure I still understand it myself.

What I did know was that the edge of tension I'd felt towards the end of last week had been dulled after one finger-fuck session with the cocky asshole. And, contingent on his dick swab q-tip results being negative, for now he was safer than random hookups with strangers.

The baggage though... Not going to lie, I'm internally shitting myself about that part.

"But I promise not to be one of those roommates who brings random guys here, that's not in my rule book."

Forgot to mention rule number three, article a, subparagraph one to Jake, i.e., no sex at my place.

"No." Li's small hands waved frantically at me, then she rubbed one of them over her eyes. "I'm a BioPhys major, I know how bodily functions work. Wait, scratch that. I'm not explaining very well, here this might help."

Before I responded, she reached into her desk's bottom side drawer, spread out her tampon supply, and unearthed a small, pink cylindrical shape.

"A bunny rabbit?" I recognized the tiny vibrator right away and almost cooed at the nostalgia since that model was my first one. But then the realization that it was nestled inside Li's hands hit me and my mouth dropped open.

Asian Ellie status revoked.

"Li!" I squeaked out as a smile spread across my face. "I had no idea."

"Not all of us moan loud enough for the entire hallway to hear," she mumbled as her cheeks turned a similar color to her dildo. "Besides -" she pointed it at me like a gun. "This one sounds just like my electric razor."

And here I thought she was just as obsessed with being hairless as I was.

"Right, but have you..." My lips pressed together as I searched for the right word that answered the question that burned in my mind without coming off as insulting. "Been with a guy?"

She nodded as her cheeks flushed crimson, but kept Pinky pointed at me and added a valid point, "Not after my roommate got pregnant, no way that happens with this option."

"Li." I gaped at her with a whole new recognition. "Now you definitely have to tell me about your date with Kieran."

As if I'd flipped a switch, Li's entire face, neck, and part of her chest I saw under her light pink UCLA hoodie turned red and splotchy.

Has to be a good sign.

After many, many moments where she chewed on her lower lip, she finally admitted, "He is a nice boy..."

"Liiiiiiiii," I groaned out her name, slacked the back of my neck, and tipped my head up to the ceiling. "You have to give me more than that. Did you get coffee?"

"Yes, I met him at Kerckhuff." She averted her eyes to, of all things, her dildo now cradled in her palms, and smiled more to herself than me. "We studied a little, talked a lot, then he wanted to take me to the bookstore. We actually have a few things in common, same major, we both like chill out movie sessions, and he's an only child whose parents are both doctors."

My shoulders leaned back in my seat as she continued to describe a Tinder-like profile of Kieran. The more she spoke, the more a smile creased my face because her eyes and smile both brightened. By her reactions, she seemed like she liked the guy and obviously Friendzone felt more than study partner feelings towards her.

If I type-casted Kieran Meade, at least what surface-level information I knew about him from high school, if he wasn't here at UCLA on an assumed football scholarship, then his medical-field parents could've easily afforded the tuition. Kieran was a mostly solid guy, never sought out the spotlight, happily took a step back under the limelight of football while he kept his head down and put in his work. He'd had a few drunken misjudgments in high school but he was definitely a few notches below the asshole player his best friend was.

That said, I knew practically nothing about the guy personally except he was no longer Jake's friend. While I'd never personally experienced being cheated on, I sympathized with how much that probably hurt but couldn't wrap my brain around the idea that Kieran wanted retribution against Jake for that.

Not pointing fingers, but if his girlfriend Brittany cheated, then it was also her legs that opened.

"So that's the reason for the bookstore visit?" My eyes lifted up towards a UCLA number eighteen poster, fully clothed in his football uniform and helmet, that now graced one of the few bare spots on Li's wall. "Feel like you're omitting a detail here, Li."

"He... picked me up here," she mumbled and buried her face in her hands.

A loud snort left me at what she implied. "So he saw your..." the words 'Jake shrine' dissolved on my tongue under loud laughs that erupted from my mouth, so I just lifted one hand towards smirks one through seven.

"He did!" She moaned quietly from behind her hands, then lifted up one and pointed it to Kieran's addition to her lineup. "So embarrassing. He bought me this after we got coffee. And..."

"Don't bail on me now, Li," I warned her with narrowed eyes but my smile stayed locked in place.

"He said he'll get another one every time we get together, until I have to take Jake's down."

If I had a heart then it would've swooned at her words.

Ridiculously, bubblegum pink cute...

"I'm happy for you Li." My eyes slid closed for a moment under the waves of gooey budding romance she crashed over me, but flipped them open when another question burned in the back of my brain. "Did he kiss you?"

"N-no..." she spoke the word so slowly, none of me believed her answer. "I kissed him."

Obviously under the influence of Li's squishy love life, I squealed out loudly. "Li!"

"Before you tease me," she palmed her still-very-red cheeks. "It was nice."

"Like I said," I returned her smile with a tight-lipped one of my own. "Happy for you, Li."

Shine inside and out.

Interesting motto, considering why I'm here.

My eyes focused on the words over and over from where they were painted on the small header wall over the reception desk at the Arthur Ashe Student Health Center.

I'd walked around the three-story building, where most of the brick was covered with ivy, half-brown and half-green at this point in the early fall. Li had walked over here with me for my designated appointment slot. I assumed she would've dropped me off and spent her Sunday afternoon doing anything more interesting than being here, but she plopped down into a tan-leather covered lobby seat next to me.

The standard women's health clinic clipboard sat in my lap while I painfully filled out my information. I'd declined UCLA's insurance and stayed on Dad's, so I pulled out my card and wrote down the numbers, along with my contact information, health history, and current birth control methods used. Since I'd actually told Li I was here for a regular annual women's wellness exam, once she leaned away and shuffled through a stack of magazines on the table next to her, my pen checked the form's box for STD testing.

My lips twitched at the sexual history section and internally felt relieved that it was a series of checkboxes and not open-ended.

Zero. Laughable.

One to two. Only for Ellie goo status.

Three to ten... Li?

My eyes flicked momentarily sideways, where Li's nose was practically buried in the Time magazine she'd picked up.

Ten-plus? Bingo.

After I checked the last option, finished the rest of the health history portion, signed, and returned the form to the front desk, I rejoined Li and sat in my lobby seat. Her eyes shifted sideways off her article on a breakthrough microbiologist and she offered a small smile. A slow sigh escaped my lips because this process was definitely the downfall of my detached, promiscuous life.

Better safe than sorry though.

"So... this weekend," Li started quietly, which I wasn't sure why because the two of us and one other person were the only ones here in a fairly large lobby. "I was thinking of going to QUISET."

"Quiz-it?" I echoed with raised eyebrows and her head nodded excitedly.

"Yeah," she grinned widely. "It's a quantum computing hackathon. My friend Phan is participating."

"So..." I tapped my index finger against my lower lip. "You want to go and watch computer geeks type on their computers all day?"

"I, well... oh, I guess that's what it looks like," she murmured quietly. "But it's super competitive, part of IBM's Fall Fest, and my friend -"

"I get it." My hand lifted as I flashed her my palm, although that sounded like the last kind of fall festival I wanted to take part in. "Have a great time."

"I just meant..." Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper, her dark eyes darted around to the reception desk ladies, who minded their own business, and the corner chair black guy with headphones in his ears, eyes closed, and head tipped back like he was asleep. "If you wanted the room alone..."

Once Li gestured her hand in a small jerked motion, my head was the one that tipped back and loud laughs escaped. Tears beaded up in my eyes and shakes rippled through my shoulders.

"Li!" I sucked in a deep breath and palmed her closest arm. "I'm not that bad, am I?"

"I didn't know..." was all she mumbled and hid her pink cheeks behind her magazine.

"I'll tell you what..." I murmured and pulled my phone out of my purse. "If either of us need the room for whatever private reasons, we hang something on the outside door handle?"

"Sure." She nodded but her eyebrows drew together. "Like a sock?"

"Works for me..." I paused and flashed her a coy smile. "I've seen enough of what Kieran's packing to last me the entire year, thanks."

While a string of quietly muttered Mandarin curse words hit my ear, I glanced down at my phone. A quick scroll through my text history showed that while Jake hadn't shared his STD test results yet, he had sent me his football schedule, which included the start times for all his games this season.

After Jake's away game at Colorado and yesterday's home opener against Stanford, where Li had swooned over his very existence during most of the game, USC actually played Notre Dame next weekend at home, then traveled to Utah, was at home for Cal and notably the University of Washington, then away for three games, only to end the season hosting a home game to...

UCLA.

"Hey Li," I peered over my phone screen at her. "Who would you want to see USC play against, Notre Dame, Cal, UW, or UCLA?"

"Oh gosh." She dropped her magazine in her lap with a soft flop, her eyes pulled wider, and a big smile broke out on her thin, pale lips. "All really but Notre Dame and UCLA will be epic. U-Dub would probably be good too, like a rematch from last year's PAC-Twelve playoff game."

"Epic, she says..." I mumbled while she pulled up her phone, then her face notably fell. "What?"

"My parents called me earlier today, they want me to come home more so they can check up on me. Starting this weekend, so no Notre Dame."

"Check up?" I echoed with a slight frown because last I knew, Li was twenty-two and the only checkups any UCLA student needed was right here in the Health Clinic. Thankfully, her parents lived in Santa Monica, a twenty-minute drive away at the most, but I was honestly surprised we hadn't had more impromptu visits from the Wei family.

A few strands of Li's black hair swished around her ears as she nodded. "Yeah, they also want me home the weekend of the UW game, before they vacation in China for Golden Week."

Before I asked Li what Golden Week was, her other reference jarred a reminder inside the back of my brain.

"UW... oh. Oh!" My free hand rubbed the back of my neck. "I should probably tell you... My friend Ellie, Jake's sister..." I paused and pointed at smirk number five in her poster lineup. "Ellie's boyfriend plays for UW. "

"Who... It's not... Logan Hightower!?" she squeaked out his name, nearly jolted herself off her seat, and her magazine slid off her lap towards the floor. When I nodded, her eyes stretched wide, mouth dropped open, and released a tiny squeak. "How do you know all these football players?"

Good question.

"I wouldn't say I know them..." I paused for a moment and searched for the appropriate description. "More like trying not to know them. Ellie asked me about staying overnight here for that game, but I can tell -"

"Yeah, fine." Li flicked her hand in a nonchalant gesture, bent forwards, and snatched up her magazine off her ankles. "Sorry I won't meet her. And Logan, oh gosh I'd melt into a puddle if I ever met him. He's -"

"Yeah, I know," I interrupted with a slight cough.

While not personally my type, for the obvious 'one-thousand-percent-whipped-over-Ellie' factor, Logan's blonde hair, ocean-blue eyes, and massive 6ft5 frame of muscles had earned him the nickname Adonis from me for a reason.

Still the biggest simp I've ever met though.

"Ms. Reynolds?" My new clipboard owner, a tall, thin woman with gray hair pulled into a tight bun and white scrubs called out from where she stood at the receptionist's desk.

With the enthusiasm that I faced a vaginal firing squad, I stood and dragged my feet across the lobby's carpeted floors towards the nurse.

"I'm Kathy, I'll be your nurse for today's visit," she greeted me with a smile that looked too bright for someone who worked on Sunday and led me behind a closed wooden door into a standard doctor's office setup. We stopped at a weigh-in station, where I toed off my shoes so she recorded my still-5ft10 height, 134-pound weight that I knew was mostly in my breasts, and my usual, near comatose blood pressure of 104/72.

"Very good," Kathy murmured to herself, jotted down, then pointed at a closed restroom door. "Cup's inside for the pregnancy and urine-based tests, label it, and put it into the door slot."

"Awesome," I mumbled. Behind the closed doors, I went through the usual wipe-down, squat-hover over a cup at the toilet, kind of filled it with pee, and cleaned up as needed routine. I nearly screamed when I pulled back the small silver door next to the toilet and Kathy's face peered back at me.

"Fuck!" I cursed and nearly dropped my pee cup.

"Sorry, there were a few still in here," she apologized but reached her hand through, palm up, where I placed the cup and sincerely wished this was the last that I saw of this woman.

Even if I have my limits on embarrassment, back door pee exchange is pretty close.

A quick head shake, pulled up pants, which I promptly pulled back down after Kathy escorted me into an exam room, I sat down on the exam table. My arms and legs broke out in goosebumps from the public-toilet paper-ply-width paper gown that draped over my 'socks-only' body, with the gown's seam open to the front of course.

My eyes scanned around the nondescript room, where the light blue walls were only broken up by a few women's health-related posters hung on them, along with a UCLA Bruins testing schedule. A white-cast model of a uterus sat on the cabinet counter, along with a tray of the usual women's exam torture equipment.

Right when my nose cringed at the archaic metal speculum, a knock at the door preceded its opening. A bright, cheery, Asian woman in navy scrubs under a white doctor's coat walked in.

"Ms. Reynolds?" When I nodded, she shut the door behind her, pulled out the stool from under the desk, and sat down. "I'm Doctor Fukomoto Zappaterreno."

"Hi." I waved one hand because there was no fucking way I'd have gotten her name right even if she paid me. "My hopefully clean vagina is at your services."

"Let's see... Looks like you're up to date on your annual pap, which we don't actually recommend needs to be done annually anymore..." She hummed to herself as her eyes roamed over my form. "Happy to check your IUD while I'm in there but just an STD test today?"

"Yup." I swung both legs into the stirrups of shame, shifted slightly back, leaned my head down with a crinkled sound under the paper, and spread myself open like a Thanksgiving turkey ready to be stuffed.

"Wow, okay then." Dr. Fuko-what she'd said set the clipboard down, snapped on gloves and a face mask, then scooted her stool between my thighs.

I mentally thanked the doctor for her warm hands, speculum insertion countdown, silent but quick pokes, prods, swipes, reassurance that my IUD was still locked in place and covered me for another two to three years, and a breast cancer check that, like every time, felt like the weirdest, finger-dimpled massage. By the time she finished, I shivered from the goosebumps that covered every inch of my skin except what was covered by my socks.

"It'll be two days for the urine results, the cultures take five to seven days, depending on the logjam at the testing lab." Her dark brown eyes rolled as she snapped off her gloves then tossed them away. "No judgment but definitely takes longer once basketball, volleyball, and football seasons start since they have mandatory weekly testing and that's performed every Monday."

Before I asked which teams were the most frequent customers, she just shrugged and glanced at the wall calendar above her tray of my now swabbed out samples. "Our lab delivery guy comes at four on Sundays so we should get yours in before the Monday crowd rush. You'll get a text update when the portal results are available."

"Thanks," I mumbled quietly.

Once I redressed, dropped my discharge form off at the front desk and paid my copay, I fisted one hand into the communal condom fishbowl, and winked at the surprised look on the girl's face behind the desk. Since none of them were for me, only for comedic effect, I was rewarded by another soft squeak when I dropped the pile onto Li's open magazine. They rained down and tumbled over each other like candy out of a vending machine, cascaded towards the lower center seam of her magazine, then inched lower towards Li's lap before her head snapped up so quickly that my neck tensed in sympathy.

"Harper!?" she whisper-yelled up at me then cupped her magazine pages around the condoms before they slid into her lap. "What the -"

I couldn't have smiled wider if I'd tried. "Consider them a gift towards your not-interest in Kieran."

"Nǐ zhēn èr!" She groaned out each word that sounded nonsensical to me, held up the magazine in outstretched hands directed at me, and rustled the condoms as she shook it a few times.

I just winked at her, turned towards the exit, and smirked at the string of Mandarin curse words that followed me out... along with the condoms Li had tucked into her pockets.