Like a Boss - Annabelle Costa Page 0,27

this house. I could have torn it down and built a new one, but I didn’t want to go through the hassle.”

I gaze up the stairs. I guess there isn’t much need for one person to have a second story.

“Can I get you a drink?” Luke asks.

“Do you have Perrier?” I don’t know why I asked for Perrier. I don’t even want it. But it feels like the kind of thing you should be drinking in a house like this.

“Perrier?” Luke stares at me. “I’ve got… tap water? Or wine? Bourbon? Vodka?”

“Yes, wine, please,” I say. Lord, I need a drink.

I follow Luke to his small bar (he has a bar—in his home!) and he pours me a glass of wine, as well as one for himself. I’m shaking a bit as I pick up the glass. “You okay, Ellie?” he asks me.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I swallow. I down the wine in about two gulps.

“Good,” he says. “Now go get dressed.”

Luke tells me to go upstairs to one of the fifty billion guest bedrooms he has up there. At the top of the stairs, I see his spare wheelchair leaning against the banister. Unlike the chair he usually sits in, this one looks more like the kind I sat in when I got my tonsils out at the hospital. It’s large and clunky, with wonky footrests. It’s the kind of wheelchair you might see someone’s elderly grandfather sitting in. I can see why Luke doesn’t like to come up here much.

I wander into one of the spare bedrooms and I put on the fantastic black dress. I do my make-up, making my eyes look dark and sexy, and I wear my hair loose and shiny. As I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, I think this might be the best I’ve ever looked in my life. I feel so incredibly sexy.

When I come out of the bedroom, I see Luke has put on a new, black jacket, and he is in the middle of trying to get a tie around his neck. The tie is already tied, and he’s just putting it over his head. He looks so good in that dark jacket. It makes his eyes look very intense. His face is clean-shaven and the vague smell of his aftershave is just as tantalizing as it was sixteen years ago. He seems to even be sitting up a little straighter in his chair.

With his arms over his head, the buttons on his shirt strain slightly against his gut. He didn’t have a gut back in college. He had a perfect body. I know because I’ve seen him naked. Once.

It wasn’t that big a deal. Really.

It was the night of Primal Scream. This is a semiannual Harvard tradition that occurs on the night before final exams. It’s a way to relieve stress. Basically, the students (mostly of the male variety) run a lap around Harvard Yard screaming at the top of their lungs. Also, they’re completely naked.

I wasn’t planning on running Primal Scream. First, I was a girl. Nice girls don’t run around campus naked, even on nights when it’s socially acceptable. Especially when they’re mostly skin and bones. Second, we were in the throes of a New England winter. The temperature was currently sixteen degrees. There was ice on the ground.

But I still wanted to watch it. Delia and I bundled up in our down-laced winter coats, put on our warmest hats, and perched on the steps of our dorm to see the boys run past. Even with all that padding, we were hugging ourselves and bouncing up and down to keep warm. “I’m freezing,” Delia said. “My teeth are chattering. Look!” She showed me her quivering jawline.

We were near the end of the circle so we got to watch as the herd of naked students made their way toward us, desperate to find their friends with clothing. I heard in the spring, they run pretty fast, but right now there was so much ice on the ground that the boys were moving almost in slow-motion in order to avoid falling on their bare asses. I could pick out each individual body, each individual set of genitals. I tried not to look, but it was impossible not to.

“Hey, there’s Luke!” Delia said.

And then I saw him. Luke Thayer, completely naked. And… oh. My. God. If I thought he looked good dressed, he looked incredible naked. He had such a perfect body—slim yet well-defined muscles in his arms and