He wasn’t alone. He was leaning against the back wall, a jukebox shining brightly between him and the woman he was talking to.

Jamie felt like she was observing a ritual right out from another culture. Something she didn’t understand. Something she never wanted to understand, really. But for some reason right now she found herself captivated by it. The woman had big blond hair, and Jamie wondered how in the world you got your hair—especially when it was straight like that—to stand out from your head with quite that much of an effect.

Hers certainly didn’t do that. She took it out of her braid at the end of the day and it fell limply down past her shoulders, usually one kink about an inch before the end. It certainly didn’t defy gravity and make a little frame around her face.

And then there was her dress. The kind of thing that Jamie would never be caught dead in. It looked like she’d wrapped herself in pink tinfoil, the shiny gown clinging to her curves like another skin.

And Gabe was looking at her.

Intently.

The same way that he had looked at Jamie earlier. Except... No, it wasn’t the same.

Jamie tilted her head to the side, transfixed and unable to redirect her focus.

Gabe chuckled, shifting and leaning in, reaching out and running his fingertips along the other woman’s jaw.

And something inside Jamie burned.

The place where he touched earlier tingled, and she fought the urge to reach up and touch her own face. The woman tossed back that shimmering blond mane and treated Gabe to a big smile.

And Jamie couldn’t help but think of the way that she had reacted to him earlier. Angry and irritated and like a porcupine ready to shoot quills into him.

Are you okay, honey?

He’d called her honey and now he was talking to this woman.

Said woman took a step toward Gabe, and he reached out, placing his hand on her hip this time, just the way he had touched Jamie earlier. Except this wasn’t clinical. And the expression on his face didn’t have any anger or irritation.

And suddenly, she just felt suffocated. By this. By everything. By a crushing sense of...being lost. Being ignorant.

Of not knowing anything about sex, just like Bea and McKenna had said.

She’d never experienced this feeling in her entire life. It was so intense that she couldn’t breathe.

She’d just been thinking how simple men were. How basic the interactions between men and women were. And yet right now, looking at this and comparing it to what happened earlier, it all felt anything but simple. And she didn’t feel like she understood it. Not even the tiniest bit.

Jamie had always been confident in herself. Because that was what it took to stand on her own two feet. To make sure that she fit in with her family. That she wasn’t needy. That she wasn’t a burden. She prided herself on being no-nonsense. On being tough. On being a pragmatist, which made certain things self-evident.