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“Another one?” Sean asked a few hours later when she appeared at Bryce’s front door.

“You’re early.”

“Traffic wasn’t bad,” Sean said as she walked in. “And a third blog about her?”

“Sean, just drop it. No one forces you to read my blog.”

“Normally, it’s about food,” Sean replied as she sat on Bryce’s sofa. “I like food.”

“It will be about food again, but you probably should’ve guessed by the title of this one that it wasn’t food-related.” Bryce sat down next to her. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?” Sean asked as she leaned back.

“Why does it bother you so much?”

“I told you.”

“Yes. But you said it was because we were together for two years, and I never talked about my feelings for you like that.”

“And that’s true.”

“But is it the whole truth?”

“What are you asking me, exactly, Bry?”

“I’m asking you if we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“You know,” Bryce replied. “Sean, do you still…”

“Oh, God.” Sean stood quickly. “Don’t bring that up.”

“The way you acted at the bar that night when I met Sophie, and every time I bring her up or someone I’m going on a date with, you–”

“Act like a good friend who doesn’t want to see you get hurt,” Sean interrupted.

“Megan and Kels do that, too, but they don’t act how you’re acting.”

“Bry, they weren’t your first girlfriend; the woman you lost your lady virginity to; the woman you fell in love with first.”

“But…” Bryce paused as she tried to figure out how to say this. “You know we’re better off as friends, right? We both decided that back then.”

“No,youdecided that,” Sean replied. “I went along with it because it was easier than telling you that I was about six months away from asking you to marry me.”

Bryce swallowed and fell back into the sofa.

“Yeah…” Sean added. “You heard that right. The day after you broke up with me, I had a reservation for us where I was going to ask you to move in with me, and the plan was to go ring-shopping after that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why would I want to embarrass myself like that?”

“Sean, we hardly ever had sex. We were basically friends already.”

Sean sat back down beside her and said, “When we got together, I knew you’d never been with a woman before. And don’t get me wrong, I loved having sex with you, Bryce, but you wanted it a lot more than I did. I don’t mean that you wantedmemore than I wantedyou; just that my sex drive wasn’t as… active. I don’t know if that’s the right word. I liked it once a week or a few times a month. I like the long, all-night lovemaking where you wake up sore and exhausted and need a week to recover, and I like snuggling in between. You loved it practically all the time. When things started to slow down in that department, I thought we’d settled into the relationship part. Sex is less frequent once you’re out of the honeymoon period. And when we got to that place where it was once a week or even every couple of weeks, I wasn’t complaining. Did I ever complain?”