Funny thing, though. I can breathe. It’s not even an issue.

And now everyone’s gone to bed and Dom is in our room, and I’m putting off following him in there because I’m convinced that either I’ve constructed what happened in the bar as some sort of elaborate fantasy and it didn’t happen, or it did happen and Dom is waiting for me in the bedroom so we can talk and kiss and maybe (probably!) get down to business, and all I can picture is that huge fucking dildo in the drawer and what if he wants to use that? On me? Or on him? Do I have to put a condom on it? Is it even clean? Can you get STDs from rubber dongs?

Yeah, I know. I sound ridiculous. But I can’t help it.

So instead of taking charge and getting what I’ve been waiting for all this time, I’m sitting in the dark in the living room on Sandy’s couch replaying that kiss in my head over and over and over again. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

The light switches on overhead.

“Gah,” I say. “Gah flarg!”

“Because that makes sense,” Sandy says with a yawn. “I thought I heard some noise out here. What are you still doing up? Can’t sleep? Me either. Takes me a while to calm down after a show.”

“He! Did stuff! To my face!”

“Uh, come again?” he asks. He sits down next to me on the couch. “Who did stuff to your face? Did someone hurt you at the bar?” I can hear the steel in his voice. Helena’s never too far away.

I shake my head and clear my throat. “No. Kissed me!”

“Who kissed you?” Then a smile splits his face. “Well, I’ll be fucked. Did someone perchance find out what a certain officer of the law tastes like?”

“Holy shit!”

“Holy shit, indeed,” he says. He reaches over and wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. Holy crap, do I need this. I curl up against him, and he laughs quietly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” I ask, because I’m failing to find any humor in this situation whatsoever.

“That didn’t take long,” he says. “I expected you to last at least another week or so.”

“It wasn’t me! He did it!”

“Even better, then. It means he got tired of waiting for you to open your eyes. Gotta love a man who takes the initiative.”

“I’m so confused,” I mutter.

“Why, baby doll? You’ve got what you wanted. Dom is, at the very least, interested in your cute little ass. And at most, it’s what you’ve been waiting for.”

“I don’t even know what that means!”

“No one does. That’s the beauty of it. You’ll find out together. The big thing that you need to do is just go with the flow and not overthink it.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a ‘go with the flow’ kind of guy,” I remind him.