“Sure. I haven’t seen this in forever.” He raises one eyebrow at me, as if he can see inside my head and knows what I’m doing.

But joke’s on him, because even I don’t know what I’m doing.

For the first time in a long time, I don’t bother setting the alarm on my phone. Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” stays silent, and instead I wake up to sunshine streaming through the French doors, despite the thin white curtains covering the windows. All I have to do is flip over onto my side and I can see the rippling water of the cove outside. I hop out of bed for a quick second to push open the curtains before burrowing back under the soft quilt.

I didn’t sleep in the hoodie, although I sure as fuck thought about it. And I may or may not have brought it to bed with me. It may or may not be tucked under my pillow.

I may or may not be losing my actual damn mind right now.

I don’t know what’s happened to me over the past several months, but I’ve never mooned around over a man before. Okay, maybe “mooning” is a strong word for it, but there’s definitely something stirring around inside my brain—and my heart—that’s unfamiliar and unsettling. I’ve never done relationships, never once felt the need for a guy for more than a night or two. I have the best friends in the entire world. I’ve always had a job I was good at. And I never had trouble getting off when I wanted to—with either a willing participant or a battery-operated friend. Why would I ever want that to change?

Enter Jack Thomas with his perfect house and charming smile and undeniably pure heart, and all of a sudden there are things happening inside my body I just don’t know what to do with. The lust is there, which is all well and good. But I can’t just ask my roommate if he wants to bone, because then what happens after?

Or, what happens if he says no?

And, like, I’m not sure I want to just bang him and be done. Which is the strangest feeling of all. Sometimes when I lie alone in bed, I think about Jack’s lying next to me. Not pre- or postcoital, just lying there. With me. Sometimes my head is resting on his chest, his hands running through my hair. Sometimes my fingers trace little flower patterns on his stomach. Sometimes we talk. And sometimes we just enjoy the connection between us.

I should want to make these feelings stop, to turn them off like the tap when the bathtub is about to overflow. But I don’t actually want to do that, I just feel like I should.