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Show 355 him as though contemplating the next day's problem and how she was going to approach it and solve it. Finally he hadn't liked the way she had avoided the question of where he was going to sleep tonight. He had had to bring it up himself. He was also a little put off by the expression on her face when she had gotten up to go see if Floyd minded if he crashed in the basement for one night. He had his own sleeping bag, he'd explained. That was good, she had said. There wasn't a spare bed. He hadn't exactly expected her to make a joke about his sleeping between them, but he could remember a time when she would have. He had listened intently to try to pick up words or phrases in the distant buzz of conversation, but he couldn't. He wasn't even sure what room it was coming from. She had come out eventually and informed him it was all right, and he had thanked her and asked her to extend his thanks to Floyd too, but he suspected the irony was lost on her. All this had been settled by nine o'clock, and it was apparent that if he had not been staying here this would have been the appropriate time to leave. She needed to put in a couple more hours of studying, she had said. Lorin had not given her the chance to drop the hint twice. He was feeling pretty hammered himself, he had said. He guessed he would just grab his sleeping bag out of the car and go on downstairs and stay out of everyone's way. Go to sleep early. Big day tomorrow. Lying there on the cold concrete floor in the dark next to the ping-pong table on which he had laid out his toothbrush and comb for tomorrow, he listened to the creak of footsteps overhead for a couple of hours, and doors opening and closing, and occasional muffled voices, and thought about what he was in fact going to do tomorrow. He started to masturbate once but stopped when it occurred to him there was a chance her behavior |