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Liz sighs. “Ugh, I don’t want to talk about him anymore. It’s destroying my buzz.”

“No objections here. My dick is shriveling at this topic.”

Liz turns to the side and tucks her hands under her cheek. “So, what makes for good pillow talk?”

I push a strand of hair off her face. “Well, telling you that this was the top sexual experience of my life. That’s an appropriate topic, I think.”

She smiles shyly. “Same here. It’s like... It unlocked a completely different level for me. I didn’t even know I could feel all the things I felt just now. With you.”

I keep stroking her cheek and don’t say anything.

She lowers her gaze and brushes her fingers across the forearm stroking her face. “And not just in my body, although definitely in my body, but, like, everywhere. I felt you fucking me in my soul, if it makes sense? And I’m not even sure I believe in a soul.” She reaches out and twists her fingers in my chest hair. “Like you were deep inside my body—”

“Well, I was pretty deep.”

She swats me playfully on the arm. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know. I felt it too. Ever since we met, actually.”

Her eyes widen. “Really?”

“Really. This is not a joke, Liz. This thing between us.”

Her turn to stay quiet.

“I know you’ve got a lot going on, all the upheaval, moving, new city, new job... But when something like this comes along, I don’t think you just discard it.”

She turns away from me and onto her back, interlacing her fingers on her belly. “I know...” She turns her head to the side to look at me. “But I can’t, Joe. When I think of dating someone right now, my chest constricts.” She curls her hand into a fist and taps her breastbone twice. “Right here, Joe. I feel this pressure, like someone is crushing my chest right here. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“Shit,” I say and cover her fist with my hand. “Okay, okay. No more talk of dating. But do you at least understand why? What it is about imagining you and me, going out for tacos or something, that makes it so scary?”

Liz sits up in bed and crosses her legs at the ankles. She’s completely naked, as am I, and her hair screams freshly fucked, falling in messy waves over her shoulder and breasts. I wish I had a camera to take a picture and show her how gorgeous, how ethereal she looks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “The idea that you would expect things of me. That I would have to show up for you. That I would have to make concessions to you.

“That you only like me because you don’t know me. That if you got to know me you would no longer like me, and that it would hurt.

“That you are simply happy to fuck someone after a long drought, and I’m here and willing and that you’d feel the same about anyone else in my place right now.

“That I don’t know who I am or what I want to do with my life, but that I want to figure it out and I don’t want to have to mold myself to someone else again before I know who I am and what I want.”

Liz says all this in a breathless torrent. When she’s done, she looks at me with such desperation, like she’s begging me to not make her do this, this thing that hurts her.

“Hey,” I push myself up on my elbow and cup her cheek. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. I get it. If you can’t, you can’t. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push. I just think you’re amazing and would like to get to know you, that’s all.”

She smiles. “I would like that, too. I’m so relaxed around you and you give amazing head...” I grin, feeling pretty good about myself at the moment. “But I can’t be anyone’s girlfriend right now. I need to try being on my own, for real. Do you know I’d never lived alone before?”

My eyes widen. “Seriously?”

She nods as she uncrosses her outstretched legs, then crosses them again. Her eyes are focused on the folded hands in her lap. “I never moved out for college. I lived with my parents until the engagement two years ago, then moved in with my fiancé...” She turns to look at me. “Even now, I’m not living in my own place. I’ve never had to contact the utility company to set up or disconnect service. I’ve never had to hook up a TV or set up a wireless router. In so many ways, I feel like I’m not yet an adult at all.”

I laugh.

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I mean, yeah, these are all rite-of-passage experiences, but you are an adult. You’ve been out in the world working for years and supported yourself through college. Your path was harder than many people’s.”

“You think so?” She looks at me from underneath her eyelashes, her mouth tilting up in the corners.