I don’t want it to be over. I don’t want to move off her but for as long as her legs are, she easily weighs eighty pounds less than I do and so I roll to the side, falling beside her on the mattress.

“You know how gross hotel comforters are, right?” she says, breathless.

I close my eyes, still feeling warm and liquid beneath my skin. “What?”

“People who have sex in hotels—”

I reach over; press my palm over her mouth. “Shh.”

She giggles under my cupped hand and licks me and fuck, I’m over her again, tickling and pulling her arms over her head and sucking at her jaw and her neck and her breasts. The relief hits me in a burst, like the wind has knocked open the window and blown across the bed: I’m here with her. The business may not have been saved in the way I wanted, but we won’t lose our boats. My life is moving forward and I have the love of my life naked beneath me and everything will be okay.

But then I halt my mental uncoiling, because there’s one thing we haven’t discussed at all. “How’s your mom?”

She stills under me, giving me a look that tells me the best time to ask this was maybe not when I was nuzzling my face between her breasts.

“Sorry, I swear I wasn’t thinking about your mom’s chest. I was thinking about how relieved I am and how everything seems to be sorting out, and then I thought about what you’re going through. We haven’t talked about it yet.”

Harlow pulls my face up to hers and kisses me so thoroughly I have to pull away to get some air. “Thanks for asking me that.”

“Well?”

“Let’s get dressed,” she says. “We can talk about it over beers.”

She stands, and I follow her into the bathroom, sitting on the lowered toilet seat and running my hands up her legs, resting my head on her navel while she rubs some lotion on her face, ties her hair up in a messy bun. Now she smells like she did before, but also like the clean smell of her sweat and sex.

“You’re thinking about how much you love me right now, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Yep.” I run my palm over her hip and between her legs. She shivers when I slip my middle finger into her, stroking slowly. Kissing her stomach, I mumble, “Fuck. Fuck that’s hot.”

“What?”

I look up at her. “I can feel my come in you.”

This makes her laugh. “You’re a dirty, dirty man.” But she doesn’t step away. And she can’t hide the way her chest flushes and nipples grow tight.