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“Right? It was like I weighed nothing. She just scooped me up and carried me to her bed. If I wasn’t totally in love with her before I would have been right then.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“What?”

“That you love her?”

“Well, no. I could barely think. After she, you know, I fell asleep.”

“So, let me see if I have this straight. Toni suggested role-playing the first night you were together. Said it would be fun.”

“Yes.”

“She mentioned it again, obliquely, yesterday, said it could be fun. You went to the Chicken Head to see if she was sending you a signal.”

“Yes.”

“You two role-played, picked each other up, had amazing sex, you fell asleep.”

“Yes.”

“Instead of just leaving without saying goodbye, Toni wakes you up, tells you she had fun, and leaves.”

“Right.”

“Why would Toni think you wanted anything but fun? She made it pretty clear yesterday when she said ‘It could be fun’ that she wasn’t looking for or expecting anything more.”

“Because that was not ‘role-playing and picking someone up at a bar’ sex. It meant something.”

Willa looks me in the eye for a long moment. “Maybe it didn’t to her,” she says quietly.

I gasp. How could she say something so awful to me right now? That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, that it meant nothing to Toni. That the love in her eyes when she looked up at me was fake, her tenderness when she carried me into the bedroom was part of a ruse, or that the way she caressed my back as I fell asleep in her arms…you didn’t do any of those things with a woman you were just “having fun” with.

My breath catches in my throat. Maybe this is what Toni does. She’s had fun, no-strings-attached sex with dozens of women over the years, many of whom have had a hard time letting go. Maybe she looks at every woman the way she looked at me.

“She’s probably protecting her heart, Audrey,” Willa says. “Can you blame her? It’s only been two months since Christmas. The last time she opened up, and I’m using your words here, you put a stake through her heart. Toni isn’t about to put her heart on the line again. Been there, done that, got the participation trophy. It’s your turn to put your heart on the line.”

“That’s what I did, meeting her at the bar.”

“No, you role-played as different people and picked her up. Did you tell her you loved her?”

“I didn’t have time.”

“You could have told her instead of role-playing,” Willa says. “Why didn’t you?”

I open my mouth to respond, but have nothing to say. No answer whatsoever.

“Yep. That’s what I thought.” Willa stands and puts her computer backpack over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Work.”

“It’s barely six thirty in the morning.”

“I’m trying to beat Greta into the office.”

“Why?” I ask.