He felt safe in her arms. And protected—and wanted.

And he felt the same way while Marvalyn was kissing him.

Better, even.

And then he started kissing Marvalyn back. Which made the lightness Marvalyn was feeling grow. And it almost hurt—because it made her feel like her organs were shifting. It seemed to be reviving something in her that she didn’t even know was dead. And that scared her. So she broke away from Steve, horrified by what she had just done.

“Oh my God!” she gasped. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I just did that. Are you all right? Are you okay?”

Steve was staring at Marvalyn, dopey and confused.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Marvalyn asked again, more urgently.

Steve touched his lips. “Well … is there any blood?” he asked, which was the question he had been trained to ask.

“No,” answered Marvalyn, touched by the sweet response.

“Any discoloration?”

“No.” Marvalyn smiled with a mix of pity and wonder. “And no swelling, either,” she added to save some time.

“Well, then … I’m all right,” said Steve unconvincingly.

Marvalyn and Steve sat in a stunned silence for a moment.

Neither of them knew what to do.

And then Marvalyn realized that she actually did know what to do: she needed to get out of there. And go back upstairs. To Eric.

“I’m … sorry,” she said as she scrambled to her laundry basket. As she tried to pick it up, it slipped out of her hands and its contents flopped out all over the place. “Come on,” she growled, and she started gathering the spilled laundry so she could go back upstairs to Eric.

She checked in on Steve as she did.

He was lost in thought, trying to figure out what had just happened to him.

“I’m so sorry I did that to you,” said Marvalyn. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No. You shouldn’t have,” agreed Steve. “Because you have a boyfriend.”

“Yes, I do,” answered Marvalyn sheepishly. She had gathered all the spilled laundry and was starting to go—because she really needed to go.

“And you just kissed me.”

“Yes, I did,” said Marvalyn, stopping. And not knowing why she was stopping.

“And it’s Friday night and you’re doing your laundry.”

Marvalyn wished that she had gone to Sandrine St. Pierre’s bachelorette party at the Moose Paddy. Or that Eric hadn’t fallen asleep in front of the hockey game. If either of those things had happened, she wouldn’t have just kissed a kid who she hoped to God was eighteen. “Yes, I am,” she acknowledged.

“And people who love each other, they don’t kiss other people and do their laundry on Friday nights—I’ve learned that.” Steve was working hard to solve the riddle of the girl who had a boyfriend but who had just kissed another boy. “And,” he continued, “people who are in love with each other—they go to the Moose Paddy on Friday nights. And they kiss each other. They don’t kiss other people.”