I knew I was veering into serious overthinking territory here. But the thing was, it wasn’t just romantic prowess I lacked. Dan had highlighted in a particularly painful way how bad I was at relationships, but he came at the tail end of several decades’ worth of failed relationships. I either wanted the wrong things, or wanted too much.

And so over the last year, I had decided to turn wanting into a game. Because I was tired. I felt committed now to wanting in a way that was safe: silently watching Lily at Moonie’s all those previous nights of the last few years. Finding quiet, luxurious joy in the mornings when my favorite barista was on shift, pulling my espresso shots with those perfectly toned, artistically tattooed forearms. Understanding that my station in life wasn’t likely to change at this point in the game, that I would keep teaching undergrads who seemed increasingly far away from my own life experiences with each passing year, until I could one day retire and wile away my time watching travel documentaries about places I would never be able to go.

But it didn’t feel sad, necessarily. Sometimes the wanting felt like enough. Wanting gave you things to look forward to. I looked forward to Pretty Barista’s forearms, to the lightning flashes of possibility at Moonie’s. Thirst was a perfectly good reason to wake up every day, in my estimation. It was when you thought you actually had the things you wanted that the future loomed with inevitable disappointment and devastation. I was too old for all of that now.

But somehow, by accident, I was here. Sharing glances with a woman who made wanting—real wanting, a visceral escalation of quiet, secret wanting—feel easy. Justified. Comfortable and safe, somehow.

Even though the tiny voice of reason that existed somewhere in the recesses of my brain was shouting at me that none of this was safe at all. That I was doing it again. Pretending something was bigger than it was.

By the time Lily flounced back into her seat next to me, I was taking slow, steady breaths through my nose to get myself together. Trying to picture giving her a simple hug goodnight. A friendly greeting the next time we met at Moonie’s.

And then she looked at me, and her brown eyes were so bright and alive that my mind went kind of melty and soft. The tiny voice of reason in the soft tissue of my brain was all but extinguished. And without thinking about it, I reached out and ran a finger over her knuckles, resting in her lap.

“Need that minute to get chill again?” I asked. “I can pretend to not want to stare at you, if it helps.”

But she shook her head and smiled. “Nah,” she said. “I’m good this time.”