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I blow out a breath. I’m so scared of all this talk, but it’s exhilarating, too. I have control. I have power because Gage understands what Ash did to me and he told me whatever we do would always happen my way.
I sip my coffee to wet my mouth. “Do you think I would be over it if Ash hadn’t locked me up and drugged me?”
“Nope. What he did is going to be with you forever, so you might as well get used to that. I still have nightmares of him hitting me, of him trapping me in his building. Those things, thosebadthings, mold us and shape us into who we are. If Gage likes you now, it’s because those bad things are a part of you. If he ever falls in love with you, he’ll love all of you, just like I love all of Zane, even though he has bad things inside him.”
“Trust me, honey, we all have bad things inside us,” Lucille says, picking up our plates and scraping off the uneaten coffeecake. “You’ll find his.”
Leaning my head against Stella’s shoulder, I say, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Since you’re going out and about, I’m going to campus for a bit. Do you mind?”
“No. We can ride together. I’d like the company.”
“Okay. I need to run upstairs. I’ll be right back.”
Stella kisses my cheek, pushes through the kitchen doors, and they swing shut, hiding her as she walks down the hallway.
“She’s a smart one,” Lucille says, clearing my coffee mug off the table. “I know you got advice coming out your ears, but I’ll tell you one more thing. There’s no harm in going slow, having fun. Stella said it. Foreplay. But not just sex, you hear me, younglady? You have fun in this relationship you’re starting with your young man. He’s good people. I’ve seen that for myself. Let him show you a good time, in and out of bed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I shove on my boots and winter coat, my heart singing. I don’t want to push Gage aside because of his connection to Max, but a conversation about his brother couldn’t hurt. Clear the air. He must feel funny wanting to date me knowing Max and I had...something. I can’t say what. I was too drugged up to understand what we were doing or where he wanted us to go, but he made me feel safe at a time when I needed it, and that will always be important to me.
Stella and I chat about clothes and lingerie on the way to Jerricka’s office, and when Douglas drops me off in front of her building, I know exactly what I want to talk to her about.
Her receptionist shows me into her office, and Jerricka’s standing at the window waiting for me. “You’re looking well this morning, Zarah.”
She looks better, too, and I’m more comfortable. I don’t know what was wrong with her the other day, and I never got around to asking. The topics we covered didn’t leave room in my mind for anything else. She wouldn’t have told me anyway, she’s always been careful to keep her life private, but I relax despite not knowing. We’re back to the way things were.
“I have a couple of questions I want to ask you,” I say, shedding my coat and dropping my purse onto a chair neither of us sits on.
“First I want to apologize about our last session. I may have been too hard on you.”
Imagining Gage forcing himself on me and throwing up in her bathroom wasn’t one of my finer moments, and in a moment of clarity, I wonder if she did it on purpose. To prepare me in case I ever felt like I had to take my clothes off to keep him with me. We hadn’t had our date yet, he hadn’t given up his bed or held me while I had my panic attack. No matter how much he wants to have sex, I have a difficult time believing he would deliver that kind of ultimatum.
“It’s okay. No one said therapy is easy. I’m seeing him again tonight. I spent the night at his apartment a couple of days ago, and he slept on the couch. It was nice.”
Jerricka raises an eyebrow. “He didn’t try to initiate anything?” She sinks onto her side of the sofa, but after the hour-long ride into the city, I prefer to stand. I shuffle back and forth across her office.
“No. He lent me a t-shirt to sleep in, and he didn’t go into his room until he needed to wake me up the next morning.”
She notes something on her tablet. “When he didn’t indicate he wanted more, did it make you feel undesirable?”
I frown. “Should it have?”
“I’m asking you. Does he touch you in other ways?”
“He kisses me. Sometimes. I had a panic attack and he lifted my shirt and pressed his hand to my side.” I show her where. “It made him hard.” I blush.
“So hedoeswant to be intimate with you,” Jerricka says.
“I guess.”
I hate hate hate talking about this. Sex is supposed to be between the two people who want to do it, and here I am talking about my sex life with Zane and Stella, Lucille, and now Jerricka, and even the conversations Gage and I have make me wiggle with shame. I’m not normal.
“How do you handle knowing that?”
“I feel good, as a woman, that he wants me, but I worry about what he’ll want to . . . do . . . to me.”