I’m very much regretting opening up about this. “I did.”
Jules watches me. Really watches me, like she’s trying to piece together the puzzle. “Was it not good?”
“Oh, it was good,” I quickly say. Too quickly, I think.
“Did you fall in love with her?”
I think about the two months we spent wrapped around each other. How she was five years older and much more experienced. Of all the things she taught me about myself and how to take care of my partners. How infatuated I was with her and the clear lines she drew between us.
“No,” I tell her honestly. I give her a pointed look that I hope indicates that’s all I’m going to share tonight. “Your turn.”
She snags her tea and shrugs. “I almost slept with a girl last week.”
I almost choke on my drink. “What? You had sex with a girl?”
Jules flushes and shakes her head. “I said almost.”
Almost.
My mind races. She almost had sex with a girl? Since when has Jules ever been interested in girls? Then it dawns on me. “The girl in all your pictures. The one who gets handsy. With the dark wavy hair?”
“Emily,” Jules confirms and doesn’t bother correcting me about the getting handsy part.
“You like her?” I ask, a weird feeling twisting in the pit of my stomach. Jules shrugs. She doesn’t deny that, either. “What happened?”
She watches her finger trace the rim of her glass. “Things got very heavy very quickly. Things that I initiated. I ended up panicking and rushing out.”
Her smile falters, as if she’s embarrassed or ashamed, and I ache for her. I’ve been there. Wanting something so bad but not being sure how to take it. “Why did you panic?”
“Because I didn’t know what I was doing,” she confesses. “I thought I was going to mess it up or not be good at it.”
She panicked because she lacked experience and not because the idea of having sex with another girl appalled her. My mind reels. How long has she felt this way? And how the hell didn’t I know? Is this her way of coming out to me? My throat goes dry at the thought. “Did youwantto sleep with her?”
A thoughtful expression passes over her face. “Yes?”
“Are you asking me?”
“I mean, my body did. Itreallydid, but my head?” The crease between her brow returns. “I don’t know, it would’ve been my first time with a girl and just…I don’t know. It was too fast.”
“I get that,” I tell her with a nod because I’ve been there, too. I don’t regret my first time; in fact, I think about it fondly. But if I could go back and do it all over again, I probably would’ve slowed it down.
We sit quietly, and I let the conversation roll around in my head. I watch Jules stir the ice in her tea, a thoughtful expression still on her face.
“So…you want to kiss girls?” I ask after a beat.
She laughs. It’s the same question she asked me when I came out to her when we were fourteen. “It would depend on the girl. But, yeah, I’d be open to it.”
We finish our drinks in silence, and when the bartender asks if we want refills, I turn to Jules. “Any other confessions?”
She looks at me seriously. “I cried three times during the ceremony, not two.”
I hum, not surprised, but that’s not at all what I meant. I think about rephrasing. What I really want to ask her is if she’s ever thought about kissingme.
By the time it hits midnight, we’re both trying to hold back yawns. The place has gotten relatively quiet, and with nothing else to do, there really isn’t a reason to stay.
“Now that we’re significantly more sober, are you ready to head out?” I ask, paying for our drinks.
Jules crunches on an ice cube and glances around. “I guess so. It’s that or watch Mason shove his tongue down Sarah’s throat.”
