I’m tearing up, and I don’t know why. “You guys didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.” I don’t look all the way up because I don’t want them to see tears. I’d be hard-pressed to explain to them that I don’t know why I’m crying but that it isn’t their fault.

“Then why the disappearing act? Are you embarrassed?” Shane asks. He’s still methodically throwing that ball up in the air, but Fletch reaches out and grabs it.

“Honestly, yes. I’m embarrassed. And it’s not like I ghosted. I’ve just been avoiding...the couch.” Grow up, Winters. “I don’t know how to feel about what happened, so I guess I’ve been pretending it didn’t.”

A minute of silence follows. It’s weird when silence isn’t quiet. It’s like the roar of the Pacific, waves of things unsaid crashing against the shore. But I used the moment to get my tears locked up, adding them to that basement in my head.

“Do you want to know how we feel about what happened?” Shane is actually almost serious.

My eyes dart between them. “Do I?” I shrug. “I honestly don’t know the answer to that.”

“Well,” Shane says, ready to fill me in. “I feel like it was awesome, and I’m not sorry it happened. But it’s not right that we didn’t make you come, too.”

I feel the five-alarm red spreading across my cheeks.

“We’re men of honor,” he continues, ignoring my obvious distress. “We’re not boys. We’re manly men. And men don’t take orgasms without offering them in return.”

Ah. The Knights of the Orgasm Table are worried about chivalry. I blow out a breath. “You offered, remember? There, now your honor is intact.”

Fletch stands up like he can’t keep still and begins pacing. “I don’t want to feel like I’m some kind of lecher who took advantage of you.”

“You’re not!” I insist. “I wanted to touch you guys.”

Wow. This conversation is really happening.

Fletch stops walking and hangs his head, hands on hips. “I feel differently. I feel like we pushed you into something you weren’t ready for, because if you were ready, then you’d have been ready to take pleasure too. Not just give it.”

I rub my temples. We sound like some really weird PSA video they might run for teen sexual awareness. It’s stilted and strange. “I’m sorry that I’m shy. I didn’t realize it would be such a hardship for you both.” I hope the sarcasm comes through loud and clear.

“Shy is kind of hot,” Shane says. “But “not ready” is different from shy. And if you weren’t ready, then we feel like assholes.”