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They laughed together then, and that felt good. Easier.

‘Do you think you’ll talk to her about it?’ Poppy asked.

Norah mulled that over. ‘Going on experience, in about six months, we’ll talk about it for one minute, and then it will never come up again.’

Poppy nodded and then swallowed. ‘Do you thinkweshould talk about it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Norah admitted. ‘I’m all over the place right now.’

‘Me too,’ Poppy said. ‘But I just wanted to say it’s OK. If that’s it, I wouldn’t stop being your friend.’

Norah found herself suddenly even more afraid. Was that all Poppy wanted? Had she tried it out with Norah and decided,‘Ya know what? That’s about all I need from her. Job done.’ Had Norah been disappointing?

That turned Norah’s stomach because she hadn’t been disappointed. All kinds of crazy thoughts had slipped into her head last night during that kissing session. Norah recalled that she had gotten so turned on that she had made a decision that she wanted to lose her virginity to Poppy. If her mother hadn’t walked in, she would have gone ahead and done just that, if Poppy had been willing.

‘Is that what you want?’ Norah asked. ‘To just be friends.’

Poppy’s brow creased. ‘No,’ she admitted quietly, touching the back of her neck anxiously.

Norah let out a small sigh of relief. She knew this was the moment to stop panicking, or it was going to be over before it started. She needed to make herself brave, or she’d never kiss Poppy again. She couldn’t have that. What had happened was good. In her gut, she knew that much.

‘I don’t think I do either,’ she said to Poppy.

Poppy’s eyes widened in utter surprise. ‘Oh!’

‘You didn’t think I was going to say that?’

‘No,’ Poppy admitted. ‘I honestly thought... I had this feeling that you were going to say you were getting busy with exams coming up, something like that.’

‘God, thatishow I would handle it,’ Norah admitted, revolted with herself. She was more her mother’s daughter than she’d have liked to admit.

‘So, is this... Are we...’ Poppy said, gesturing with her hands as though she was going to be able to conjure the exact right word out of thin air.

After watching it go on for a few seconds, Norah decided she’d better lend a hand. ‘It’s... Well, we could... It’s... We...’

Jesus, what word was the word for this? The exact right word that walked the line between wanting to be together without any pressure whatsoever. Nobody wanted to say too much or too little.

But Poppy had her own way around the linguistic hole. She started laughing. ‘Can I just say... the reason I’m bad at this is that boys just... ask you out. Or you snog them, and then they assume you’re their girlfriend unless you tell them otherwise. I’ve never had to do this bit before.’

Norah smiled. ‘Me neither.’

‘I don’t mind it, though,’ Poppy grinned. ‘It's kind of nice to be... nervous.’ Poppy’s grin slid away abruptly. ‘Sorry, that sounded stupid.’

‘I think it’s nice, too,’ Norah assured her.

Easy, breezy Poppy was sweating this. It scared Norah a little, but it also electrified her. She wanted to kiss her right there in the hallway—not that she really would, but the thought was exciting.

Norah couldn’t believe that twenty-four hours ago, she hadn’t known she wanted this. And now she couldn’t stop looking at her lips.

‘What shall we do?’ Poppy asked.

‘Ummm....’

‘I mean, should we... Go out? Together? Date... stuff?’ Poppy asked.

‘Maybe we can just do things like normal?’ Norah said. ‘I like it the way it is.’

Poppy nodded, looking happy. ‘You’re right. It was already good, wasn’t it?’