We exchanged keys and he knew I was on the pill even, but we still used condoms. At work he made it pretty obvious we were involved. He made no move to hide it whenever he kissed me before leaving for out of office meetings or whenever he would give me that smug, secretive smile during a conference if a quickie was stolen during our lunch break. The staff seemed to have no problem with it. Well, all except Paul. Unsurprisingly, his smirky face got even more smirky once he realized Brock and I were seeing each other. During one of the meetings when we announced that my father was considering converting the two rooms on the second floor into dance studios, his eyes rolled so far back I feared they’d roll out of his head. Whatever.

Things went beyond the physical with Brock—how everything changed.

I relaxed around him. When I smiled, I didn’t think about how it looked and I worried less about what people thought. Instead of hoping people ended up on my left side during important meetings, I made sure that they were.

I added to the books I’d brought back with me, and it wouldn’t be too long before I needed a new bookcase. I hoped Brock would offer to put that one together and I hoped it ended the way it had last time.

Everything had changed, but still, things remained the same in little ways. We didn’t dwell on the night our lives changed. It wasn’t exactly laid to rest. I think both of us acknowledged it was there, that it would always be there. It was a part of us, but it would no longer be between us, and Brock still didn’t talk about his relationship with Kristen, not even when I poked around the subject. I couldn’t help it. I was curious about why they stayed together. Why they really broke up.

Brock was skilled at evading all conversations that started to veer into territory about her, and I wasn’t sure exactly why. Obviously, I had a feeling there was something there he wasn’t fond of discussing. I didn’t like it, but I did like the way he veered those conversations. It usually involved those talented hands and mouth.

With each passing day, the wiggle of doubt that this wasn’t going to last, that what we had wasn’t real, faded. It didn’t haunt the time I spent with him or keep me awake like the nightmares used to. It was fading, but it lingered like the acidic scent of scorched wood.

The doubt remained the same, lessened and almost gone, but it was still there.

* * *One Monday night, Brock helped me set up and decorate my artificial Christmas tree. We set it up in front of the window that overlooked the parking lot below.