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“Not enough.” I brace a hand against the leather couch opposite her. She’s leaning back against an armchair, white silk pooling around her curled legs. “Why have you never found a guy that interests you?”

She eats a chip and looks over at the bookshelves, where the cat has disappeared. “It just hasn’t happened for me.”

I shake my head. There’s more here. There has to be. She was clearly intrigued by the sex we witnessed tonight.Affected, even. “You’re not attracted to men?”

“No, I am.”

“What is it, then?”

“I have issues.” She shrugs a little and stretches out her legs beneath the coffee table. “You know that. I’m working through them. I’m just not very good at feeling something quickly. It seems like everyone else justknowsright away. Sometimes, at least. And I feel like I almost never know.”

“Know if you want someone?”

“Yes.”

My hand tightens around the leather armrest. “It’s not a contest. You don’t have to know right away.”

“I guess not.” Nora rests her head against the armchair. “Once I’m comfortable with someone, I don’t think I have a problem. But I struggle with thegetting tothe comfortable part. You know? Like opening up, talking about emotions, dating, all the expectations…” She shrugs, her movements just as languid as her voice. “Having all those conversations freaks me out. I don’t do it, so I don’t end up in relationships.”

I take a deep drag of my whiskey and think of what a fucking travesty it is that this woman has been taught that her mask is more valuable than what’s beneath it. That showing her teeth means someone might not want her.

“Say something.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. React to what I just told you, or I’m going to imagine that you’re thinking the absolute worst.” She laughs a little. “I mean, you already do. I know that.”

“You’ve had sex before?” I ask her. The idea that she might not have, and I took her to the party tonight… What she saw. The practice lessons. Being Rafe’s sister. My hand tightens around the glass.Please don’t be a virgin.

It would make me far shittier than I already am.

“Of course I have,” she says with a small laugh. “I’ve had moments where the stars aligned. I can get turned on.”

“Thank god.” I run a hand along my jaw. “You’re outspoken in other areas. With me, all the time. And you’re clearly ambitious. You work on your designs every day. I’ve watched you while you work.” When she’s not pretending for someone. “It consumes you.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. With you, well, we’re notdating.” She looks back over at the cat, where a twitching nose emerges out from a bookcase. “And when I’m designing, it’s just me. Me and the clothes. I don’t know… It’s like people always want things from me, and I’m not always willing to give it.”

“Because you’ve been taught that relationships are either-or,” I say. It feels right, the words. “Either you present the image you think they want, or you don’t bother at all. Because the middle ground, of having hard conversations? You don’t know how to do that.”

“Yes. You and Zeina should talk. You both have it all figured out.”

“Your therapist?”

“Yes. Identifying an issue is great and all, but I still have to do the work, and the work sucks.” She reaches for another of those little bags. “Nuts! Sure you don’t want one of these?”

“They’re all yours.” I walk around the couch and sit in front of her. “So your therapist also wants you to practice. Your list isn’t just your own.”

“Yes. It’s called exposure therapy.” She says the term ironically and then laughs a little. Her hair has all fallen to one side, exposing her long neck. I pretended to kiss her there tonight. Caught the warm scent of her skin and grew hard beneath her thighs and still somehow kept my lips from ever touching her.

Now, curled up against the dark leather and oriental carpet, she looks distractingly good. A light in this dark space. “It freaking sucks, though. Sometimes I think that life itself is just one long exercise in exposure therapy. God, these cashews are good.”

My lips curve. “You really are drunk.”

“Oh, yes. Very,” she says, and chuckles again. “I can’t believe you aren’t.”