I airdropped the photos to my phone, then I may have accidentally swiped up a few times to get a quick glimpse of other photos he’d taken. Most were from job sites.

“Did you get them?”

I jumped and fumbled his phone, trying to hand it back to him. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Sure.” He stood and tossed the folder back onto the pile on the floor. “Well, I’m out of here. I’ll catch you later.”

It killed me, as in physical pain clawing at my chest, to not say more to him.

Where was he?

Did he sleep with her?

If so, why?

Was it his MO to sleep with women on first dates?

Was he planning on seeing her—having sex with her—again?

So many crazy, irrational, and completely inappropriate questions chased each other in my head. But all I could do was smile like a sane person, like the adult teenager I was, even if a streak of insanity buzzed just beneath the surface.

* * *

Over the next week, Fisher tortured me by mowing the lawn without a shirt, eyeing me way too long in all the wrong places, and dropping slightly crude remarks at every chance. Then he’d buy me coffee and treat me like an equal for two seconds before the torture started all over again. I looked forward to every morning, even if all we did was banter and sling questionably appropriate comments at each other. (He was such a bad influence). And I liked the evenings when I’d take a walk only to return to him washing something in the driveway or watering plants—sans a shirt.

The wandering eyes.

The cocky smiles.

The slow wetting and rubbing of his lips together.

It felt like a game of cat and mouse, but I wasn’t always sure who was the cat and who was the mouse.

The evenings I didn’t like were the ones when he was gone … the nights I assumed he was with the orthodontist. Every cell in my eighteen-year-old brain hyper-focused on my new crush in bed with another woman. Despite its extreme irrationality, it sucked.

And it sucked the most at my first party. Well, my first adult party at Hailey’s house on Friday night. There must have been fifty people there, and she called it a small gathering. A lot of the guys from work showed up, some with wives, girlfriends, and even a few with boyfriends. That made me a little uneasy, and I hated that it made me uneasy. Fisher’s words replayed in my head. Now you can fucking think for yourself.

That was hard for me. All my beliefs seemed to be interwoven with scripture, parental lectures, or sermons.

“Hey, you came.” Jason playfully elbowed me before taking a swig of beer as we stood on the deck overlooking the backyard cluttered with people, yard games, kegs, and loud music.

“Hey, yeah. Good to see you again.”