“KATIE!” Aaron yelled, throwing his arms around her and twirling her about in a very cheesy movie moment.

“Ah, it’s the dateless wonder,” Katie replied, smirking through her toothbrush.

Aaron smiled at her and closed the door behind him. “Why aren’t you dressed? I have a really busy day planned for us.”

Katie looked at the clock on the wall (which was one of those cat ones with the moving tail - a Christmas present from Aaron several years ago) and then looked back at him. “I have class in fifteen minutes.”

He made a face and shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “Can I come?”

She turned around and began rummaging through her drawers for some clothes. Her hair was still wet, but pulled up into a bun at the top of her head; a pen was sticking out of it and Aaron resisted the urge to both laugh and pull it out and throw it at her.

“You wanna go to Art History?”

Aaron shrugged and bobbed his head up and down (causing his huge blond mop of curls to move all over the place). He tipped his head to the side and ran a hand along his chin, which was sprouting quite a bit of stubble. “I could use some education.”

“You’re in college,” she reminded him, sliding some socks on her feet (mismatched; one had frogs on it and the other was adorned with skating polar bears).

“I know, but I just…want to hang out with you.”

She stepped into the bathroom, but didn’t bother to close the door as she got dressed. It didn’t matter to her, as they’d seen each other naked before (granted, they were about 3 at the time and their mothers had them in the bathtub together, but still). “What about…what’s her face.”

“Amanda?” Aaron said, wandering over to her desk and picking up little trinkets and then setting them down again.

“The one with the weird, manly last name.”

“Beard. Yeah. I don’t know what anybody’s doing today.” He picked up a silver instrument and played with it momentarily. “Why do you have a device that’s used to torture tiny animals?”

Katie poked her head out into the room, her hair hanging all over the place as it dried. “Um, that’s an eyelash curler.”

“You don’t torture animals with it?” Aaron questioned, clicking it together a couple of times. “Could have fooled me.”

“You’re so weird,” Katie replied, laughing and then coming out of the bathroom fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. “Okay,” she said briskly, picking up a dark blue messenger bag and throwing it over her shoulder. “You can come, but pleeeeeeeease try not to distract the other girls in my class with your hotness.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Aaron stated in falsely scandalized tones. “Can I curl my eyelashes on the way?” He put the curler up to his eye, but poked himself before he could try it out properly. “OW! Jesus, that’s dangerous. They should recall those things.”

Katie grabbed it from him, smiling. “Just try putting on eyeliner. I‘ve caused myself many blind eyes that way.”

Aaron shot her a sardonic look as she took a jacket from a hanger by the door and stuffed it into her already dangerously bulging bag.

As they walked down the stairs to the street, he asked, “Are you sure your bag’s not gonna break?”

Katie glanced down at it momentarily before walking briskly to the subway station one block from her apartment. “I’m pretty sure; it’s been holding up for a couple years.”

“All the more reason to replace it before you lose all your girly things in the streets of Manhattan.”

Katie cast him a cursory glance as they walked down the stairs to the subway. “That better not happen.”

“With your luck,” Aaron said, pulling out his wallet and paying for some tokens before Katie had a chance to protest, “Your bag will split and tampons will be all over the streets and it’ll be on the news. The headline story: ‘Girl Loses Tampons In Street - Causes Two Deaths.’”

“The cameraman’s?” Katie questioned, grinning slightly.

“Yeah, and the poor fool who tries to help you pick your stuff up.”

She scowled at him. “I’d prefer to pick up my own feminine hygiene products, that’s all.”

Aaron held up a hand, his thumb curled against his palm so it looked like he had four fingers. “I remember. You tore my poor thumb off that tragic day, five years ago.”

They got on the subway and took the last two empty seats. “Dude, you pulled on my backpack and the whole thing ripped in two. My math book was doodled on! People SAW the doodles! My tampons were all over the hallway and I had just gotten an F on an English test! My BEST subject! It was mortifying.”

Aaron slid an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. “It’s okay, Katie. Talk it out. I’ll be your psychologist. Also, who cares if you doodle on your math book? I doodle on everything.”

Katie frowned. “Do you remember WHAT I doodled all over that book?”

He considered this a moment, but shrugged; he had no idea what she was going on about.

“Katie Harper hearts…” she trailed off, giving him a look.

“Ah,” Aaron put his face in his hands and groaned. “Josh Young. I seem to recall a KH + JY = true love forever, with a numeral four.”

Katie sighed heavily and leaned back in her seat. “Yup. Ruined school for me. I was teased horribly for years. Remember when he asked me to the prom as a joke?”

Aaron chuckled. “Yup. I remember beating him up. Now THAT was good times.”

She turned to him, her brow furrowed. “You beat Josh Young up?”

He swallowed and averted her gaze. “Uh, maybe not. Maybe I just fantasized about it.”

“Aaron,” Katie put a hand on his arm and he turned a bit to face her. “When he came to school the next day with the black eye and swollen lip, he said he’d gone cow tipping and the cow had gotten angry. Were YOU the angry cow?”

Aaron ran a hand through his hair and then ruffled it up a bit before speaking. “I might have been. And I might have told him to lie about where he’d gotten the black eye from. I have to say, though, that he was only too happy to oblige.”

“I can’t believe you beat Josh Young up for me.” Katie leaned back again, staring at a poster on the other side of the train. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! After all these years. After we went to the prom together! I wasn’t aware that we even HAD secrets from each other.”

Aaron glanced at her, watching her as she stared at the map of the subway route, her eyes out of focus. “Yeah,” he said softly, leaning back and continuing to watch her. “I can’t believe it either.”