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“Lex,” I said carefully. “Do you know what you are asking?”

“Yes.”

“I do not think you do.”

“I have a general idea!”

“You are twenty-six years old. You have never been with a man. You have known me ten days. You told me yourself, on the ice, that you did not know what you wanted.”

“I know what I said.”

“Then—”

“I don’t need you to tell me.” His hands were fists at his sides. “I need you to not do the thing where you disappear. You do it every time. You get this look, like you’ve decided what’s good for me and gone to stand in the corner. Don’t. Just for one minute. Be in the room.”

I was in the room. I had never been so completely in a room.

I wanted to tell him: I have never done this either. I wanted to say: the things I know about touch I learned from watching strangers through windows, and I am terrified I will be bad at it. It rose in my throat like a bird.

I swallowed it.

Instead, because I had been afraid and stubborn for a thousand years, I said the wrong thing.

“I do not do that,” I said. “Not with men. I am not—”

I meant to say ready. I meant not yet. But it came out in the dry, precise voice I use when I am hiding, and it came out sounding exactly like the sort of cruel little joke Lex had endured all his life.

I saw it land.

His face closed. All the openness went out of it, quick as a shutter, and something hard and hurt and very young came down in its place. He straightened his shoulders.

“Right,” he said. “Sure. My bad.”

“Lex, I—”

“No, it’s fine. You’re not gay. Great. Got it.” He shoved off the door and swung wildly at me. It was a real punch, right at my ribs, with everything he had.

I could have stopped it. I could have taken his fist out of the air without looking. I did not. I let it land. It hit me in the chest with a solid thump and I let myself rock back a step, because he needed it, and because I deserved it.

“You’re such a dick, “ he said, and his voice cracked. “You’re so— I say I want you and you go I’m not gay like a—”

“I was joking.”

“It wasn’t funny!”

“No,” I said. “It was not. It was cowardly.”

He stopped.

“I said it because I am afraid,” I told him. “It is not true. I have never wanted anyone the way I want you. I am afraid of the wanting. I am afraid of what I will do when I have it. I am most afraid that I will hurt you, or bore you, or that you will see me and be disappointed.” I heard my voice fray. “I apologize. It was a poor joke and I made it because I did not know what else to do.”

He stared at me. His eyes were very bright.

“Say it plain,” he said.

“I want you.”

“Louder.”