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“Shit! We didn’t use a condom.”

She straightens up on the sofa. “Shit! It didn’t even occur to me.”

“And I even bought some before we got here,” I say, panic rising through my body. “Shitshitshit. I am so sorry, Liz. I told you I was rusty. Goddamn it, like a fucking teenager...” My hands fly up to my face.

“Hey.” She grabs my elbow. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. I actually have a contraceptive implant. Benefits of long-term monogamy.” She gives a one-shoulder shrug. “Pregnancy-wise we should be okay.” I sigh with relief, and she continues. “Now as for STDs, if you’ve really not been with anyone in years, it’s probably okay, too.”

I breathe out with audible relief. “Okay. Thanks for being so cool about this. And I’m sorry again. Once your tits were in my face, I completely blanked out.”

Liz smiles and asks, “Where’s your bathroom?”

I point her toward the hallway and she runs there quickly. I hear the toilet and the faucet.

I get off the floor and spread out in the corner of the sofa, leaning against both the armrest and the backrest, one of my legs on the seat. When Liz comes back from the bathroom, I motion her over. She smiles and sits between my spread thighs with her back against my chest, and I hug her around the shoulders. She brings one hand up to lazily play with my arm hair. We stay like that for a long while, neither of us saying anything.

“That was amazing,” she finally speaks. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I say. “And it really was amazing.”

“So what do we do now?” she asks. “I don’t know the etiquette for casual hookups.”

“I don’t know either. We can do whatever you want, I suppose. Do you want to eat? Take a shower? Do you want to spend the night or go home?”

She stiffens. “I definitely don’t want to spend the night. That would be too weird. We just met.”

“If you give me a few minutes we could go again,” I say. “And the bed is much more comfortable.”

But she is suddenly very squirmy. “That sounds very tempting, but I think I should go.”

I grab her by the shoulders. “Hey, hey, wait. What’s going on?

She pulls away from me and twists partly at the waist, so she can see me. “To be completely honest, I am freaking out a little bit, and I think I should leave.”

Several emotions cross her face, all of them so fast I can barely identify them. There’s affection, sadness, confusion, panic. “Of course you can leave if you want,” I say softly, my knuckles brushing her cheek, “but maybe you could tell me why you’re freaking out. I want you leaving all relaxed and floating, not more stressed than when you came over.”

She takes a deep, slow breath, but her shoulders remain stiff even after she exhales. “Joe, I enjoyed this. I really, really did. But I just got out of a long relationship, and I probably shouldn’t have done it because it’s too soon.”

I feel a flare of anger. I did ask her if she was ready. If it was too soon. “I thought you wanted this...”

“I did! I really did.”

“Then who gets to decide it’s too soon?”

“I don’t know. Everyone? You’re supposed to wait and heal...”

“Hey...” I grab her chin and tilt her face toward me. “There’s no supposed to here. You and I met tonight, and neither of us planned it, but we both had a really good time. That’s all that matters. I don’t want to hear about you regretting anything we did together.”

She looks away and takes a few deep breaths before turning toward me again. “Can I tell you something else?” she asks. “Something private?”

“Of course.”

“Promise not to be upset?”

I swallow hard. “I promise.”

“I really wanted to have sex with you. Because of you.” She enunciates the words as her eyes bore into mine. “But part of me, a teeny tiny part, wanted to do it to seal the fate of my engagement. Like, it was telling me there would be no going back after this. Jake would never be able to get over it.”

I am not sure what to say for a moment.