“You see the Red Wings?” he said as Nicole gave him her coat on the landing. “Eight to three. It was awesome. Wait—do you like sports? You probably don’t like sports, do you?”

Nicole gazed at him for a second too long. “Not really.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume—”

“Ha! No. No, honey, I don’t like sports. You can assume. In fact, how about we say that whatever you want to assume about me, you’re probably right. Okay?”

“O-okay.” Ant bustled to the kitchen, a nervous boy, a hoodie scuttling in front of the fridge. “Do you want something to drink?”

“What do you have?”

“Beer, wine, vodka.”

“Do you have seltzer?”

“Vodka seltzer coming up.”

Nicole sat on his couch, which was black and shiny and faded all at once. A flat-screen TV was bolted to the wall. A grey cat sniffed her feet. “Hey kitty. Hey honeybean. Hiiii.”

“That’s Sasha.”

“Hi Sasha. Aren’t you just adorable? Oh no, you look so angry, don’t you?”

Sasha haughtily stepped back and glared at Nicole, then jumped on her lap and settled in, purring.

“Oh, she likes you!” Ant tramped back with their drinks. “She doesn’t like anybody.”

Nicole cheersed with a wan smile. “I ain’t anybody.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s a joke, friend.”

She laughed, genuinely relaxed, feeling this indescribable emotion in intense, increasing rays. It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t perfect. It was just a deep, stable, good feeling. A feeling that said: This guy actually likes me. And jeez, do I like him. The nervousness coming off Ant, such clear, sweet concern that he needed to win Nicole over. She was overcome with a desire to soothe him, like Shhh, shhh, honey, it’s okay.

Nicole petted his cat, ignored her vibrating phone, and listened to Ant talk more about his life and what it was like growing up in this town. “It was rougher,” he said. “It’s more peaceful now. I grew up on the West Side.” Nicole threw her arm up on his couch, stretched out while he went back and forth from the kitchen, eventually returning with spaghetti bolognese.

They kissed once he cleared the plates. When he unzipped her dress she gasped, “Your bedroom. Take me there, please.”

It was plain: mattress and box spring, nightstand, hardwood floors, art prints of maximalist, line-heavy drawings on the walls. Heavy green curtains. They made out and groped, Ant in his jeans, Nicole a little buzzed, with her tits out in her silver half-slip. There was something strangely innocent about it, something she cherished and didn’t mind.

He stopped. “So I have something to tell you about what I like.”

“Okay,” she said dreamily.

“I like getting spanked?”

“Do you?” she said with a lazy smile. It’d been tame, what they’d done so far, but she had noticed little twitches that added up to this making sense. Tugs or grasps where his flesh would yield just a little sharply.

Nicole was an honest-to-God switch. And this info about Ant began to click deliciously into place. “Do you like getting spanked hard?” she said.