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“Being away from him.” I collapse onto a barstool at our tiny island, where a sliced loaf of focaccia waits alongside a little ramekin of olive tapenade. There are a couple pots on the stove; one bubbles with tomato sauce. An empty wine glass waits for me on the counter, which Keira quickly fills with Pinot Grigio. She hands me the glass, along with a napkin for my tears. “Thank you so much. Smells amazing in here.”
Keira picks up a wooden spoon and gives the sauce a stir. “I figured you’d either be hungover or worn out from a weekend of very intense, very athletic sex. Either way, I knew you’d be hungry.”
My eyes tear up all over again. I slather a piece of focaccia with the tapenade. “I love you.”
“I love you.” Keira sets down her glass. “Now spill it. I can tell something happened. You look different.”
I sip my wine. The Pinot Grigio is ice cold. Refreshing.
I tell Keira everything. The bonfire. The kiss. The sex and the food and the lesson in putting on a condom. The conversations. Confessions. Keira’s eyes get wider and wider the more I keep talking. When I tell her what he said about me getting on birth control, she claps.
“I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
She rests her chin in her hand. “Y’all would feel each other in every sense of the word. It was inevitable you’d lose your virginity to him.”
“What? Why—”
“I saw it when he came to pick you up.” She sips her wine. “The way he looks at you. Guys don’t look at people they want to be just friends with like they want to devour them. He looked like that smiley face emoji with the hearts in its eyes, combined with the little purple devil one. Throw in your extreme horniness, some booze, and a swanky hotel room . . . and bang.”
I laugh. “I heard sex was good, but I had no idea it could be, like, existentially excellent.”
“Existentially excellent.” Keira taps her glass against mine, smiling. “Girl, you’re into him. No wonder. I’ll be real with you and say that not all sex is like that. In fact, some of it can be pretty damn awful.”
“All of my sexual experiences were awful until Brooks.”
Keira meets my eyes. “So your first time was really, really good then. Any pain, or . . .?”
“It hurt a little, yeah, but the pain didn’t last long. Like, at all. Brooks took it slow and had me talk to him the whole time, telling him how I felt. It ended up being . . . just. It was the best, Keira.”
Her smile softens. “I’m happy for you. You’ve waited a hell of a long time to ditch that V-card, and I’m glad you were able to do it with such a stand-up guy. Makes all the difference.”
“I can only imagine how awful it would’ve been with one of the random guys I’ve picked up over the years.” I slide my palm over the base of my wine glass, trapping the stem between my first and middle fingers. “Honestly, Brooks might’ve ruined me for anybody else.”
Keira scoffs. “Great problem to have. Or maybe it won’t be a problem at all. Do you think there’s a chance y’all will end up together?”
There’s a big, hard pinch inside my breastbone. A desire so big and so urgent it’s deliciously painful. “I would love that, yeah. I told him as much. I mean, God.” I wipe my eyes with the napkin. “He’s been gone for, what, less than an hour, and I already miss him like crazy. This is . . . probably not healthy. Not after spending only three days together.”
“It’s real, though,” Keira says softly. “And that’s something.”
I look at her. “Am I being an idiot? Putting myself out there like this? Expecting a good outcome when there’s so much that could go wrong? I feel like I’d be getting away with something if I actually got what I wanted with Brooks.”
Keira frowns. “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a scoff. “The sneaking suspicion I don’t deserve someone like him, I guess. So many guys have passed on me before. Literally all of them.”
Her turn to scoff. “Fuck those guys. Don’t let drunk idiots at bars determine your self-worth.”
“I know, I know. But it still gives me pause. Makes me doubt myself.”
“Makes you think you don’t deserve nice things. Or anything at all.”
“Yup.” I smile tightly, twirling the stem of my wineglass in my fingers. “I’m just not used to being treated this way. Like I’m worth it. Worth the effort, you know?”
“Aw.” Keira says. “Now you’re going to make me cry. If that’s how Brooks treats you, I’m already a big fucking fan of his. Because you are worth it. Always have been, despite what you’ve been taught to believe about yourself.”
