“It’s been a long day of work. I figure we might need to get clean.”

“I...”

“I’m going to go get a condom.”

“I don’t... I don’t know how to do this,” she blurted out.

“You don’t know how to do what?”

Oh, well, she’d said it. She wasn’t going to tell him, but then she’d said it. Because she didn’t have any practice holding back the things that came in her mind. Because she usually just charged forward and said whatever, because she was always confident in her ability to handle things, to be right. To take on any fight.

But nothing about this made her feel confident. She knew that she wanted... She knew she wanted to be with him again. But she didn’t think she could accomplish whatever he had in mind in the shower.

Not without falling and killing them both.

“Gabe, I didn’t want to have this conversation. But I... The first time was my first time.”

She’d said it. She’d said it, and her heart was hitting her sternum so hard she thought it might start breaking apart. She felt dizzy. She wasn’t just admitting to being inexperienced at something. She was admitting to knowing nothing. Absolutely nothing. And as messed up as that was, that was one of the scariest things she could even think of. Having to admit that she didn’t know anything. Having to admit that she was all talk.

That she wasn’t really that tough at all.

That she cried because it had felt huge and scary and different, and she wasn’t really different than other women. She was the same. Vulnerable and susceptible to all the same things.

And no amount of pretending, no amount of posturing and running around lifting hay bales that weighed a third of her body weight, would change it.

“What?”

“It was my first time.”

“You can’t... Jamie,” he said. “Are you telling me that you were a virgin?”

She frowned. “I don’t like that word. It’s a stupid word.”

“Well, were you?”

She sighed heavily. “I guess so. If you want to be technical about it. Or whatever. I guess I was.”

“Shit,” he said. “And that’s why you cried?”

She spread her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe I cry every time. I guess we’ll find out. Unless I have completely freaked you out and ruined this for me, and for you.”

“No,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, you didn’t. Just... Come with me.”

He took her by the hand and led her down the hall after turning the water off, and brought her upstairs, back to his room, and into the bathroom that was connected.

There was a large tub in there that was raised up on claw feet.

“I figure we can change tactics.”

“Oh,” she said.

He turned the tap on and waited a moment, testing the water temperature. Then, seemingly satisfied, he put a plug in the drain. “Go ahead and get undressed, and I’ll meet you back in here in a minute.”