Jack’s fiery eyes flash in the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom. “I guess that’s the rule of the game….” She lifts her right hand, like she might reach out for the tip of my braid, but lets it drop before we touch.

And I, like a bold idiot, do what I’ve wanted to all day. I push the wet clump of hair off her forehead. Her skin is clammy beneath my fingers, but she leans into the touch. It hits me, all at once, that none of the past six hours have felt like friendship. Jack is right here, close enough I can almost taste her, and Jack isn’t a footstool. She’s not just some person who’s being nice to me because I’m having a bad Christmas Eve.

“Are you… I mean, have you ever considered…?”

“If I’m aromantic or asexual?” she fills in for me, her smile widening. Her body arches, and our hips line up beneath the air dryer, parallel but not touching. “I have. I think I was just a late bloomer, though.”

She’s close, so close, I would barely have to move to kiss her. She would barely have to move if she wanted to kiss me. Her fingers come up to wrap around a loose strand of hair escaping from my braid. “I’m demi,” I say. Then, stupidly, I clarify, “Sexual. Not demiromantic. Or a demigirl. Or a demigod. Like Hercules.”

She doesn’t move away from me, but she does release my hair. “I didn’t think you were coming out to me as the mythological hero Hercules.”

“Sorry, I don’t always know what other people know about the asexual spectrum. I don’t experience sexual attraction like most people do, but I wanted to tell you because—” Because you look like you’re about to kiss me, and I want you to, so badly it aches. And I’m terrified of what that means, so soon. It’s only been six hours.

“Because although I really want to kiss you right now,” I force myself to admit, “I also don’t want to kiss you. Not yet.”

Jack flashes her quarter-moon smile. “I don’t want to kiss you in this Burgerville bathroom, either.”

I recoil from her, taking three giant steps backward until I bump against the opposite wall. “Shit. That was presumptuous. We’re just spending the day together as friends, and—”

“Elle.” That one syllable, one letter, rolls off her tongue like a summoning. “Stop.” Her voice is a growl. “I’m not interested in just being your friend.”

I swallow. “You… uh, you’re not?”

Jack shakes her head and stalks forward like a panther, closing the distance I put between us. “And I really want to kiss you. I just don’t find public restrooms particularly sexy.”