Page 88 of Becoming Us

“I miss the little things. Like the breakfast singing. Like sleeping together.” His voice cracked slightly. “I really loved those things. And they didn’t feel bad.”

“They didn’t feel bad to me either, sweetheart,” I said, pressing my lips gently to his shoulder. His skin was warm through the fabric of his shirt.

“And it’s not just about getting off,” he continued, quieter now. “It’s that I want to be closer to you. You always used to want that too. And now…there’s this wall, and I don’t know what changed.”

I let go of his hand and cupped his face. His eyes were red around the edges, and it hit me like a punch to the gut.

“First of all, if you’re worried I don’t feel the same way about you,” I said. “I want to make it abundantly clear that the vast majority of my thoughts throughout the day—every single day—revolve around your dick.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, a small, helpless laugh escaping. “Noah…”

“I don’t just mean that in the creepy, imagine-it-all-day way,” I added, grinning. “I mean in the active, interactive sense. Which, now that I’ve said it, sounds worse—but my point is?—”

He tried to cover his face with his hand.

I tugged it away, smiling softly. “My point is, this has nothing to do with wanting you less.”

His laughter faded, and his expression turned serious again. “Then…?”

“I do want us to be ready,” I said. “And what I meant before is…it feels like it’s coming from fear. The way we’re pushing into things, it feels anxious. And that doesn’t feel like you.”

He pressed his lips together, considering. “I am scared.” His gaze dropped to his lap. “I’m still terrified that this isn’t going to work. That I’ll have to go through getting over you again.”

I ran my fingers through his hair. “Me too. But as my therapist wisely pointed out, we can’t build a relationship on fear.”

He smiled faintly. “What else did he say?”

“That we need to grieve our past and build something new.”

He nodded, eyes flickering back to mine. “The rules?”

“The rules,” I echoed. “We’ll find a new us, Atty. It doesn’t always have to be this strict, but we needed a little help finding our footing first.”

“So that’s why you don’t want to have sex?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to?—”

“You know what I mean,” he interrupted. “Is that all it is?”

I looked at him for a long moment before shaking my head. “I’m scared to.”

His expression softened immediately. “Why?”

I dropped my hands from his face and rubbed them over my own. “Because sex has always been complicated for me. Even with you. And I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“How are you going to do that?”

I pressed my palms to my knees and shifted on the bed before facing him again. “That conversation we had at the gym? Before we got back together?”

Atty nodded slowly, something shifting behind his eyes.

“I don’t want you to ever think I’m trying to use sex to keep you. Or to quiet your doubts. Or to make you forget when I fuck up. I wasn’t trying to do that—to fuck you into submission, to use you like that.”

His eyes widened slightly with understanding.

“I know I did it, though. And I’m sorry…I’m so sorry it ever got to that. I know my relationship with sex isn’t exactly healthy. I’ve tied too much of my worth to it. And I did that with you. Too much. Because I didn’t know what else I had to offer. Why you’d want to stay.”

“Noah…”