“Don’t, it hurts,” I told him. True, although that’s not why I pulled away. Ashley would have received the kiss, but Ash was too horrified to allow it. I knew if I was going to survive this, though, I needed to trust Ashley. My actions and my responses had to be directed by who I was now, not who I used to be. She had to guide me, inside and out.

“How bad is it?” Layton asked. “Can I see?”

I hesitated, but in the end, I lifted the side of my T-shirt to show him. I thought he’d be taken aback enough to keep his distance and give me some space, but instead it was the opposite. “Aw, baby,” he said, then knelt down, giving my bruised side the softest kiss. “I wish I could make it all better.”

I found my hand involuntarily stroking his hair, but stopped abruptly, feeling horrified that I was touching any part of Layton Vandenboom and liking it.

Stop it, Ash, you’re not helping, I wanted to say. Well, Ashley, running your fingers through his hair isn’t really helping either, is it?

“We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to,” Layton said. “We can stay here today.”

I was confused for a moment, then remembered that we were supposed to go to the harvest fair today. Tilt-a-Whirls and corn dogs. Not happening.

“I just want to stay home,” I told him, and although that statement didn’t include him, he assumed that it did.

So we sat in the family room, close as couples do, and watched a movie. In this world the house didn’t have a home theater; Dad had moved out before getting that particular idea, and home theaters are more a dad kind of thing. I was grateful, because in a dark theater closed off from the rest of the house, Layton might have wanted to do a little more than snuggle, and I definitely didn’t want that today. All versions of me were in agreement there.

His arm felt heavy around me. But it also felt warm. But it also felt restrictive. But it also felt comforting. But it also felt stifling. It was impossible to make sense of all my conflicting emotions, and they kept changing moment to moment, like I was spinning and lurching on the harvest fair Tilt-a-Whirl after all.

“What happened to you last night never should have happened,” he said, then shifted to look at me with soft, soulful eyes. And with a gentle stroke of his hand on my cheek, said, “That’s why you should always pay attention to the game.”

When I was a guy, I thought Layton was an open-and-shut case. Football Jock Who Abuses His Girlfriend. I mean, so obvious, he could be an action figure villain. But Layton wasn’t the kind of monster I thought he was. He was a different kind.