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“My wallet thanks you,” Nina said, returning to the fittingroom.
“You didn’t answer me about thecondom.”
Nina sighed. Karen wasn’t even trying to bequiet.
“Yes, we used a condom,” Ninasaid.
“And you’ll use one with Liam too, right? Our eggs might be dwindling but who wants to take a chance on kids at our age?” There was a pause on the other side of the door, then a quiet curse under Karen’s breath. “Dammit. Sorry,Neen.”
“It’s fine,” Ninasaid.
Her childlessness had been a sore spot for a long time, but she was relieved to find that the wound no longer felt tender. Karen was right: Nina was finally coming into her own, figuring out who she was and what shewanted.
The time for her to have children waspast.
“Anyway,” Karen said, “even if you did want to roll the baby dice, you’d be rolling the STD dice too, at least until both guys gottested.”
“How do you know I’m not the one with a disease?” Nina said, surveying the remaining stack of clothes withdespair.
“Because you were practically a nun the last few years, and while I’m not a champion of Peter, he’s not acheater.”
Peter. The name seemed plucked from a history book — long dead, part of a life so distant from the one she lived now that it might as well have beenfiction.
“Point taken,” Nina said, sitting down on the bench in the fitting room in herunderwear.
“So both men wear condoms, everybody’s safe, it’s none of Liam’s business if you’re fucking someone else. If he wants to know, he canask.”
“Is that the Cliff Notes version?” Ninaasked
“It’s the only version youneed.”
Nina thought about Liam: always kind, always interested in her, hot without eventrying.
He was young and successful. He was beautiful inside and out. He made her believe all the things she thought were past her were still a possibility, that the world was still waiting, that love was stillwaiting.
If anyone had told her a year ago that she’d be dating someone nearly fifteen years younger — that he would by all accounts adore her, that he would want to take her to bed — she wouldn’t have believedthem.
Then again, Jack would have seemed equally out of reach, and after their night together, she was only more intrigued, not just by Jack himself but by the feelings he awoke in her, the glimpses into her own sexualpsyche.
It would be a mistake to rush into something monogamous with Liam — assuming that’s even what he wanted — until she’d fully explored the feelings Jack had brought to thesurface.
As much as she cared about Liam, she wanted to be sure — for herself and for him. She didn’t want to be right back where she’d started by making the same mistakes she’d made with Peter, and she didn’t want to hurt Liam — and she would hurt him if she ignored the cravings that had roared to life in Jack’sbed.
“You’re not trying anything on are you?” Karen said from outside thedoor.
“No,” Nina said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Just move your ass. I’m starving and I need adrink.”
Nina laughed and reached for anotherdress.
