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“I cleaned this, but do you want a condom on it?” she asks.

Fuck, I don’t know.

“Whatever you want,” I reply.

“Okay.” She slips one on. I don’t know if she’s paranoid or if this is normal. “So I think the most contact I can give you is if you’re on your side. Same as before. I’ll go slow, and you tell me if you want to stop.”

I roll onto my side. Valeria is working her magic behind me. She reaches ahead of me and grabs the lube. Her arms wrapped around me, I watch as she squirts a liberal amount onto her hands and pulls them behind me. I take a deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

My throat’s tightening by the second. My heart is hammering. In a painful way.

She presses one soft kiss on the top of my spine.

My dry fucking overused eyes are filling with tears again. I blink furiously. Take a deep breath.

She takes my hand with her free hand, interlacing our fingers. Her fingertips run against my knuckles, spreading a sticky film onto my skin. The hand-holding should calm me down, but it just reminds me of Romy.

But I can feel the strap, and it’s not even in yet.

I don’t want it to go in.

Jesus, fucking fuck, I don’t want to do this.

The tears run down my cheeks.

“Wait!” I say, squeezing my eyes shut.

And just like that, the strap is gone. Valeria’s warmth is off me. “Is everything—?”

“We have to stop.”

I hear the slick of the harness loosening. “Of course. No problem. We can—”

I don’t want to do this. I’m not ready for this.

“Everything.”

The word hangs heavy in the air, poisoning it. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, barely sopping up my tears.

Valeria turns me to face her. My heart breaks as her expression slips from shock to panic to acceptance in a few silent seconds.

She leans over and wipes away the tears I missed. “Nothing else. That’s okay.”

There’s a weird sort of peace that falls over the house as we pick up the pieces of what just happened. We put our clothing back on. Valeria volunteers to sift through my car to find the pajamas I packed in an overnight bag. She lets Eustace out of whatever room she left him in, and she hands me water while Eustace drinks from his bowl. She tosses me a makeup-removal wipe from her bathroom as well.

We end up in her bedroom, between million-thread-count sheets that feel more luxurious than those at a five-star hotel. The first time I’ve ever spent the night. It could be the most sexually charged thing we’ve done yet, but the energy’s been spent. It’s like sharing the bed with Romy.

Although, thinking about that kiss, I’m not so sure what that means anymore.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Valeria asks as Eustace curls up on her pillow.

I sigh. “I don’t know. I just…froze, I guess. Like I couldn’t picture it happening, and I suddenly couldn’t stand the thought that it would. I thought—I don’t know, I thought it’d just be easier. I like you. So much. But I guess that didn’t matter.”

Valeria bites her cheek a moment. “How long have you been out? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Two months or so.”