“The thing with messing around is — you slowly work your way toward sex. It starts with hands and then mouths and then before you know it you’re doing all three, all the time.”

She blushed.

“Once you start, you don’t stop. It’s a slow decline toward sex. So, if you’re really not ready to have sex, don’t start doing the other stuff. That’s all I’m saying.”

I opened the bottle of water that was sitting in my cup holder and took a sip. The car wash rattled around us, strips of soapy rubber slapping the metal. I felt those slaps.

She climbed back into my lap. God, I hope she can’t feel my erection. She put a hand on each side of my face and pressed her nose against mine. Her nose was cold. This was the softer side of Olivia. It was the side that caused me to want to stand over her like a dominating Alpha male and bare my teeth at anyone who came near her.

“I’m sorry, Caleb. I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”

My hands went back to her waist. “You’re not messed up, you’re just sexually repressed.”

She giggled. It was so girly and soft. When a woman made that sound, I couldn’t help but smile.

I looked down at her toned legs. All I would have to do was unzip my pants, she was already right-

“You’re going to have to go back to your seat.” My voice was gruff.

She scuttled back looking guilty.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as the dryers came on. I watched the drops of water shimmy across the windshield until they disappeared. What had I gotten myself into? I’d fallen in love with someone I couldn’t fix. My coach called me a fixer. It started my sophomore year when I saw a couple of the freshmen on the team struggling with their game. I worked with them on the side until their defense improved. Coach always used my side projects as starters. My junior year I had ten guys come to me on the side and ask for private practice sessions. I don’t know why, but I was good at it. Now, my need to fix things had transferred onto the women I was attracted to. I thought back to my ex-girlfriend, Jessica. She had been perfect, until…

I clenched my teeth. Maybe that’s why things hadn’t worked out between us. She was too perfect. Olivia was so beautifully broken. The hairline cracks in her personality were more pieces of art than flaws. I loved flawed art. Michelangelo’s statue of Lorenzo with its warped base that rose to accommodate his foot, the Mona Lisa’s missing eyebrows. Flaws were seriously underrated. They were beautiful if you looked at them just so.

I knew I was lying to myself by thinking I could fix her. But, it was too late. I didn’t know how to let go. She broke the silence first.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” she said.

“There’s always the option of asking me.” I put the car in gear and pulled forward. She watched my hand on the stick shift — she always did that.

Car wash — over. Pounding need to be inside of her — not over.

“I feel like you’re always trying to sneak into my mind. You’re like Peter Pan — always climbing in windows and causing trouble.”

She scrunched up her nose. “Did you really just call me Peter Pan?”

“I’ve called you worse.” I eased the car into the traffic.

“A llama,” she said. “I loved that.”

I laughed at her obvious sarcasm, and the lust spell was broken. I was back to just needing to be with her.

“Peter Pan wants to sneak into your mind and know what you’re thinking,” she tried again. She was looking at me so earnestly, I gave.

We pulled up at a red light. I reached over and grabbed her hand. Okay, if she wanted my thoughts, I was going to give them to her. Maybe it would do her good to be inside the mind of a normal, adult male. Maybe she’d play with said ‘normal adult male’ with a little more caution. I raised her fingers to my lips and kissed them. I conjured up an image of her on my lap and my voice dropped low so she knew I meant business.

“If you climb into my lap while wearing a skirt and kiss me like that again, I’m going to pull off your panties and fuck you.”

Her face blanched. Good. I needed her to be scared enough to not do that again. I wasn’t Superman. I was a man — a man that very much wanted to make love to his girlfriend.

She didn’t let go of my hand, if anything her hold on it tightened. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She was biting her bottom lip, staring straight out of the windshield with glassy eyes.

I choked back a laugh. By God, I think I actually turned her on. My little Duchess — always the surprise.

From that day on, Peter Pan was our code word for — what are you thinking?

“Peter Pan.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You invented this game.”

We were lying on her floor, supposedly having a study session. Her lips were still a little swollen from our kissing session.

“I’m covered in Cheeto dust and trying to study. You’re annoying me because for the last forty minutes you’ve been staring at me, and it’s breaking my concentration.” She put another Cheeto in her mouth and let it melt. I grabbed her hand and stuck one of her fingers between my lips, sucking the “Cheeto dust” off. It was a new Oliviaism.

Her eyes glazed for a second, and I dropped her hand.

“Since when do you read the paper?” It was slightly buried underneath her body. She raised her ribcage to let me pull it out and I rolled onto my back.

“I saw it when I was checking out at the grocery store.” She looked half guilty. I unfolded it and looked at the front page.

“Laura,” I said. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but seeing her picture caught me by surprise. I got a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I thought about it.

“New leads in the Laura Hilberson case,” I read. The paper said that one of her credit cards had been used at a gas station in Mississippi. Since the gas station had no video surveillance, they weren’t able to get a shot of who was using the card. The teenager behind the counter was high at the time and didn’t remember anything at all.

“You dated her,” Olivia said. I nodded. She pushed her textbook aside and rested her head on her fist. “So, what was she like? Do you think she would just disappear? Do you think someone took her?”

I scratched my belly. “It was like a week. I didn’t know her very well.” That isn’t true. Why am I lying?

Olivia knew I was lying.

“Tell me,” she says.

“There’s nothing to tell, Duchess.”

“Caleb, you’re one of the most perceptive humans I’ve ever met. Are you really telling me that you have no insight into this situation?”

My brain locked and I wasn’t sure which way to send my tongue. This was such a touchy subject. I was about to tell another lie — or maybe it was the truth, when Cammie came barreling into the room, saving me.

“Oh my god! Did you guys have sex?”

I propped my hands behind my head to watch as they started their usual playful arguing.

Where was Laura? This was crazy.

Laura Hilberson was a compulsive liar. I knew it within three dates. She was a pretty girl, shy for the most part, but everyone seemed to know who she was. It might have been because her parents owned a yacht and she invited everyone on the weekends. Our college was a private one. Olivia was one of the handful of students who attended on full scholarship. No one else really needed a scholarship.

I asked Laura out after we were assigned to a group project in Speech class. Date one included her telling me about her best friend dying from a four-wheeler accident three years earlier. She cried when she told me, saying she was closer to the girl than she was to her siblings. When I asked her how many brothers and sisters she had, she paused only briefly before saying — eight. Eight siblings. Wow! I thought. Her parents must be stretched pretty thin. How did they even manage to hug everyone in one day?