I roll us over so Violet is lying on my chest and rub her back while her breathing slows. Aftershocks make her whimper every so often.

“Your fingers were awfully close to the no-go zone.”

“Sorry.” I rub her back. I’m not all that sorry.

She snorts. It’s an exhausted sound. “Liar face.”

“I would never—” I hesitate, trying to decide what exactly I would never do.

If given the chance, would I get up in there? Fuck yeah, eh. Is it likely to happen anytime soon? Not unless I can convince Violet to let me near Never Neverland with my fingers. “It wasn’t intentional.”

“Yeah, right.”

I gather up her hand, bring her fingers to my mouth, and bite her knuckle. “I only ever want to make you feel good.”

“You make it sound so innocent.” She snuggles in and tucks her head under my chin.

This is what I’ve been missing—the easy closeness we share.

Violet drifts off to sleep, but it takes a long while for my mind to turn off. I have figure skating dreams where I can’t catch my partner before she falls. Performance anxiety dreams aren’t uncommon at this point in the season. But these unsettle me, as if my inability to stop my partner’s fall is a mirror for my reality.

I brush it off.

Dreams are just dreams. They don’t mean anything.

VIOLET

Alex drops me off at the airport, and we make plans to see each other as soon as he returns to Chicago. I sleep all the way home on the plane. I’m exhausted from the weekend of marathon sex. Alex wasn’t lying about his stamina. He’s like a machine, except better because he’s Alex. I wake up from a dream about his penis as the plane is landing. The flight attendant gives me an odd look, so I have to wonder if I’ve been talking in my sleep. Ignorance is probably bliss in this case.

Charlene, being the amazing bestie she is, picks me up the next morning on the way to work. I expect a full inquisition about my weekend with Alex, which I’m prepared to share, but Charlene has had some excitement of her own.

“I have so much to tell you! Darren is amazing. I’ve already merged our faces to see what our babies would look like—you know there’s a website?” She pauses long enough to take a breath. “They’d be so pretty.”

“You’re kidding about the last part, right?”

“Um, no. Why? Is that weird? I did it for you, too.” Charlene drives through Starbucks for us. I’m grateful considering my level of exhaustion.

“No, Charlene, that’s not weird at all.” It is, but I want to see the pictures.

Charlene is very much a romantic. She dives head-first into every relationship. It’s common for her to tell me she’s in love after the first date. Two weeks later, she’s usually over it and moving on to the next guy. It’s why she doesn’t generally fall into bed with them right away; otherwise she’d have a pretty high running tally.

Charlene shares the details of her evening with Darren, including the size of his dick, on our drive to work.

“Wait a second—you had sex with him?”

“What? No! Of course not!”

“How do you know how big his wang is? Did he whip it out?”

“I wish. I grabbed his junk. Just to check—you know? I don’t want to waste his time or mine if he’s got a tiny winkie. Anyway, he was such a gentleman. If I hadn’t made a move, he probably would’ve kissed my cheek and been done with it. He has the softest lips, Vi. We must have made out for like, I don’t know, an hour?”

“Where did this epic make out session take place?”

“In my hotel room. It was just supposed to be a good-night kiss. I got carried away, and I felt him up. He wants to take me out for dinner next week. Maybe we can double date sometime.”

“That’d be great.” I won’t hold my breath, though, just in case Darren ends up in her discard pile.

“What about you? How was your weekend?”

“My weekend was good.”

“‘Good’? You spent the weekend with Alex and that’s all you have to say? What’s this I hear about you staying at his parents’? How was that?” She sucks in a huge breath. “Did you see childhood photos? Was he always super-hot? What’s the deal with his mom’s hair? It’s huge.”

This is more the line of questioning I expect. “It definitely has its own zip code. The childhood photos were epic. He was nerdy hot in high school.”

I expected things to be uncomfortable with Daisy after she caught Alex with his hand in my pants—and they were—but she was a lot nicer to me the next day. Much like my mom, Daisy’s into oversharing. I got to see Alex’s awkwardness up close in all his skating photos.

He was skinny and dorky and completely adorable. The spandex skating outfits were something else; Alex grew into his junk, not the other way around. I can see why the girls in high school would have been afraid of his trouser anaconda.

The following evening, I rush home from work so I can shower and pack an overnight bag before Alex comes to get me. I open the door to discover Buck in my kitchen, raiding my fridge. I don’t know why he does this. It’s not as if I keep it fully stocked for hockey player style eating. I’ve got the basics covered, and that’s about it. Most of it is sugary crap, to be quite honest.

“Did they run out of food at Poon-central, or did you just get tired of eating the same thing over and over?”