She settles between my legs, opening me wide, like I belong there.
Her mouth is hot, tongue slow and unhurried, coaxing pleasure until it builds and builds. She licks a stripe up the center, circles me, making sure I feel every bit of it.
I can’t hold back—I moan, hips jerking, hands tangled in the sheets. She’s grinning, nosing in closer, tongue relentless until I’m shaking, every thought gone.
She slides a finger in, then two, then three, filling me, stretching me. Her mouth sucks at my clit, gentle and then sharp, irresistible. I’m close, so close, the world going white. I want to warn her, want to say something, but all I can manage is, “Fuck, Maddie, I’m gonna—I can’t, I’m gonna come, don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop.”
She doesn’t. She keeps going, fucking me through it, tongue and fingers until I break apart, coming so hard I can only scream her name, again and again. When I come down, I’m wrecked, limp and dazed, boneless.
She kisses back up my body, slow, wipes her mouth with a smirk. “Not so tough now, are you?”
I try to answer, but only laughter comes out, shaky and wild. “You’re a menace,” I manage. “Should’ve known.”
She settles in beside me, leg thrown over my hip, hair soft against my chest.
“Was it good?”
I blink, then actually laugh. “Maddie. I barely know where I am right now.”
She smiles, triumphant. I wrap my arms around her, greedy for her, and pull her in tight. We’re tangled up, skin stuck together, heat between us.
She draws lazy circles on my stomach, kisses my shoulder. Her touch is gentle now, almost reverent, like she’s trying toremember every bit of me. I tuck my face against her hair, breathing her in until my pulse finds its way back to normal.
For a long moment, it’s just this: our bodies coming down, the hush of our breaths, the drift of quiet.
She doesn’t mention Drew. Doesn’t mention the store, or tomorrow. She just kisses me, again and again, until everything else falls away.
Chapter 7
Iwake to sunlight casting a hot stripe across the room and the heavy, unambiguous weight of a body beside mine. Jordan’s arm sprawls over my waist, their face buried half in my pillow, and for three whole seconds I just stare, unable to comprehend the tableau in front of me.
Light slips through the gap in my curtains, painting Jordan’s cheek and temple, catching the sharpness of their jaw now softened by sleep. Their sandy hair is breaking free of its bun, messy strands clinging to flushed skin. A tattooed forearm lies exposed above the duvet—the inked mountain range just inches from my nose, boldly on display. Their breathing is deep, even, their mouth slackly open, every line of their face relaxed and young and so utterly unguarded. I never see them like this.
My palms go damp, cold. I twist the duvet between my fists, knuckles whitening, and drag in a shallow, shaky breath. But it isn’t regret that fills my lungs; it’s not the hollow ache I know so well, but something else: wildfire-bright, consuming, terrifying in its enormity. This is the aftermath, the unignorable reality of last night, and Jordan Vale is drooling on my pillow and I cannot bring myself to care.
I leave the bed like I’m diffusing a live explosive, one leg, then the other, the duvet eased back inch by inch, careful not to make a sound. Jordan doesn’t move. They mumble some nonsense, their arm seeking me in the empty space, and my chest splinters and blooms and I have to press a palm there to keep the confetti from spilling out. I stand at the edge of the bed, tugging on a t-shirt and underwear, toes still bare, and just watch them, struckby the absurdity of it all. Maddie Weiz, self-certified disaster, hovering over her own bed, watching the person they had sex with the night before drool onto her pillow.
Sex. I had sex last night. Not only was it the first time with someone since Drew died, but, it was so much more than that. I doubt even Jordan realizes the enormity of what we did last night.
I’ve known I was bi since high school, but I never had the nerve to actually act on it, and before I ever had the chance, I met Drew. Last night was my first time with someone… fuck what is the correct phrasing? I’ll have to ask Jordan what they prefer. Female-bodied? That doesn’t sound right. Jordan is non-binary and masc-presenting, so even assigning the word female to them doesn’t sit right. Assigned female at birth? I guess? Regardless of the correct term, last night was my first.
The kitchen is still a mess from dinner, but I can’t muster the spoons to care. I start the coffee because my hands have to be doing something or else they’ll tremble. I measure grounds, pour water, press the button. The machine huffs and rattles to life. I lean against the counter, staring at the wall like it might offer a solution, but all it gives me is the truth: it’s just a wall. Drew picked the paint. Sage Green, semi-gloss, and I remember because I sold it to myself.
I scrub a mug clean. Then a second. Then pause and stare because I know, with bone-deep certainty, that I’m making coffee for two. This knowledge lives in the air now, thick and inescapable, filling the kitchen between the sink and the coffeemaker. The confetti riot in my chest intensifies, and I fight it off by rearranging the dish rack with unnecessary force.
Jordan shuffles in a few minutes later, barefoot, hair a disaster, eyes stubbornly squinty, still in yesterday’s jeans and their gray undershirt. They don’t even bother to wipe the sleep from their lashes as they reach for a mug beside me, theirshoulder brushing mine, and the scent of them comes all at once: coffee, woodsmoke, linseed, cedar, and something purely Jordan, earthy and warm, seared directly into my nervous system.
“Morning,” they rasp, voice shredded by sleep as they pour coffee with the practiced ease of someone who’s done this in my kitchen a hundred times.
“Morning.” My voice holds steady, somehow, which feels like a tiny miracle.
“You sleep okay?”
I did. Better than I have in months. Years. But I can’t say it, so I don’t. “The coffee’s strong today. Just a heads up.”
Jordan takes a brave sip, flinches, then grins at me. “Jesus. You could strip paint with this stuff.”
“That’s the point. Some of us have standards.”
