I follow her lead entirely too quickly.

Chapter Twenty-Two Lily

I’m trying to act confident about this, but as soon as I walk into my bedroom, I lose every bit of the confidence that got me in here.

It’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone. Probably since right after getting pregnant with Emmy. I haven’t had sex postbaby, and I haven’t had sex with Atlas since I was sixteen, and both of these thoughts start swirling together to create this monstrous invasive-thought tornado in my mind.

I’m standing in the middle of my bedroom when Atlas appears in the doorway a few seconds later. I put my hands on my hips and just… stand here. He’s staring at me. I feel like I’m supposed to make the next move since I’m the one who just invited him into my bedroom.

“I don’t know what to do next,” I admit. “It’s been a while.”

Atlas laughs. Then he saunters toward the bed because of course he can’t just walk in an unattractive way. Every move he makes is sexy. Him removing his suit jacket right now is sexy. He tosses it onto my dresser and then kicks off his shoes. God, even that was sexy. Then he sits down on my bed.

“Let’s talk.” He leans against my headboard and then crosses his ankles. He looks very relaxed. And sexy.

I can’t imagine lying down on that bed in this dress. It would be uncomfortable, and probably not very much fun to try to remove if we get to that point. “Let me change clothes first.” I walk into my closet and close the door.

I turn on the light, but nothing happens. The bulb is out. Shit. I can’t get dressed in the dark. I don’t have my phone on me, so I can’t use the flashlight app to help.

I do my best, but it takes a minute to get the zipper down. When I finally do, instead of stepping out of the dress, for some reason I pull the dress over my head, and of course it snags in my hair. I try to set my hair free, but the dress is heavy, and it’s taking forever in the dark, and I can’t walk out to find a mirror because Atlas is out there. I keep trying to untangle it. After a few defeating minutes, Atlas finally taps on the door.

“You okay in there?”

“No. I’m stuck.”

“Can I open the door?”

I’m standing in my bra and panties with a dress halfway over my head, but this is what I deserve. This is closet karma. “Okay, but I’m not really dressed.”

I hear Atlas laugh, but when he opens the door and sees my situation, he immediately springs into action by flicking the light switch. It does nothing, of course.

“The bulb is out.”

He moves toward me to inspect my situation. “What happened?”

“My hair is stuck.”

Atlas pulls out his phone and uses the light to help him see what I’m tangled on. He tugs my hair and my dress in opposite directions, and then, magically, my dress is on the floor.