I try to slide off his lap as gracefully as possible without tipping backward off the couch. He extends a hand to me and weaves his fingers through mine. He stands and leads me down the dark hallway, opens the bedroom door, and shows me inside. Half of me feels glowing, seductive, lit up with desire, wanted. I want him. The other half of me feels victorious. My plan is working.

• Chapter 8 •

Blake has great sheets. Bright white, ultra-crisp, marshmallow soft like the touch of an angel. Blake also has a great body, as I learned last night, and a great, sunny view from his fourteenth-floor window that is currently pulling me out of a delicious slumber. I shift to stretch out the crick in my neck that formed overnight from lying in his arms, and he pulls the arm snaked around my waist even closer.

“Don’t go,” he mumbles, still half asleep.

I twist around in his arms to lay my head on the warm expanse of his chest. My insides feel like liquid gold. I’ve been single for four years now, and despite all the very real perks of a relationship—it’s easier to meet the minimum delivery fee on takeout orders and sure, you can, like, share your entire life with someone—this is the one thing I miss the most. I savor the cozy sensation of snuggling up to Blake, from the lazy brush of his fingers against my bare hip to the way my cheek fits flush against his collarbone. He strokes my hair and tucks a loose piece behind my ear. My shoulder, crumpled under the full weight of my body, aches. But I don’t dare move and break the spell until his phone’s alarm trills a while later.

Blake groans, props himself up on his elbow, and hazily stabs a finger at his phone’s screen to silence it. He drops back onto the bed and rolls over, leaving a good few inches of polite space between us.

“Morning,” he says. His voice is all business again—no longer the sweetly sleepy voice that begged me not to leave a few minutes ago. He drops his gaze from mine. “Hope you slept okay?”

Yeah. The spell has been broken. Whatever last night was—fueled by an intoxicating combination of adrenaline and mezcal and Cabernet Sauvignon—is gone. In the light of day, there’s a slight awkwardness between us. The easy comfort that bloomed last night has evaporated.

He offers me a white, fluffy bathrobe and averts his eyes when I slip it on. He makes me coffee, offers to make me eggs, and asks if he can call me an Uber back to my place. The question catches me off guard. My most recent hookup, a graphic designer training to be a tattoo artist, simply requested I leave so he could “chill.”