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And that made all the difference to me.
The door closed behind them. I sat up to fix my dress.
Consent should have been pretty simple. When you knew you’d enjoy something, you gave yourself willingly.
When you didn’t and you said no, the other person had to step back.
That was it. And the no could come at any second. Even a second before the very act itself.
If the other person didn’t understand that, they had no business being around you.
I feltsafewith my three professors.
Consent could seem about as interesting of a topic as a visit to the DMV, but at this stage, I understood how much it meant to me.
It verified that I’d been right to wait before plunging in and just giving my virginity away like it was a cake in the oven for far too long. I’d come to a point where I worried no one would want that cake.
You know, because it’d taste like a burned biscuit.
I didn’t feel that way anymore.
It was like what Chelsea had told me when I’d bemoaned about dying a virgin.
“Rors, you don’t let someone make love to you because they want it. That’s a textbook mistake, and it’s one of the things we keep forgetting. It’s like... you’re at a bar, and you’re full-on making out with someone, but they’re not telling you whether they like it.”
“Way to boost my confidence, Chels.”
“Lemme finish. What would you do? Would you just go on slobbering on them or stop to ask if they’re okay?”
I’d paused to think. “I’d ask. A hundred times over, I’d ask.”
“Then you wait for someone who does the same fucking thing for you. It’s as simple as that. And it’s what’ll separate a lover from a creep. No one wants a creep. Sex isn’t an exam you need to ace. Don’t make it one.”
Of course, I hadn’t known sex could be this wonderful. Sure, I’d hoped it would be nice.
This was... well, you know when you’ve cut yourself the perfect slice of pie and you put it in your mouth and the cream isfrothy, the filling iswarm and unctuous, and the crust is a buttery biscuit that disintegrates and melts into your mouth?
I’d found my perfect pie.
I’d saytouch wood, but I was pretty much sitting with my ass down on it.
I got down from the table and fixed my hair before opening the door. Elijah and Noah were lost in a deep conversation.
Once again, I couldn’t help wondering whether Elijah had something he wasn’t letting me in on. Maybe he would, with time.
He was... both Benjamin and Noah had something that cut across their age. A kind of frivolity—something easy.
Elijah looked like someone who’d been run over by a truck, had somehow survived, and was now looking for the truck’s driver like a real-life Avenger.
I shivered. I wouldn’t want to be that truck driver.
But it was his darkness that made him so human. There was something ravaged about it, like a man who was a storm and the calm sea rolled into one.
He turned as I walked in, and the haunted light in his gray eyes turned into something soft.
It made me weak in my knees.
Yes. Elijah Taylor looked like he was a keeper of many secrets.
