I’m a person with a plan. Someone well on his way to securing the stability he’s been chasing all his adult years. And fresh out of a relationship that was supposed to end in a long-lasting commitment. But maybe I should stop pedaling the life cycle and hit the pause button. Continue to focus on my career. Resume the multistep to-do list a little later. In the meanwhile, I can spend time with Solange on an exclusive basis—for as long as she’ll have me. I’d even travel to Ohio to see her if she wanted. Given how busy we’ll both be, maybe a long-distance relationship is the solution. Would she want that, though?

Solange groans as she snuggles farther into my embrace. “You’re doing it again. I wish you’d stop.”

“Stop doing what?”

“Overthinking. The surgeon general warns against it.”

Is this what it’s like to have someone know you well enough that they can guess what’s going on inside your head? I like it. A lot. “You’re right. We need a reset. So how about that movie?”

She disentangles herself from my arms and rests on her elbows. “Which one did you have in mind?”

“When Harry Met Sally.” I shrug. “It just feels like it should be our thing.”

“Our thing?” she asks, her lips jutting out as if she’s skeptical of the phrase. “We have ‘things’ now?”

“Yeah,” I say, tapping her nose. “It feels like our inside joke. Or it should be. Something that’s only between us.”

She shakes her head and pretends to grimace. “I don’t know, Dean. Are you feeling okay? Because that sounds kind of romantic.”

It does, doesn’t it? And I bet she doesn’t appreciate the mixed messaging. “Well, you and Brandon have ‘things,’ right?” I say, making air quotes. “And you two are friends.”

She swallows. “We do, and we are.”

“So this is the same idea.”

“Riiiight,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re absolutely right. Got it.”

“Okay, then,” I say, sitting up. “Let’s move this party to the living room, where surround sound and high resolution await you. We’re doing this.”

“Be right back,” she says. After planting a soft kiss on my lips, she slips out of the bed and walks her naked ass out of my room. She returns less than a minute later, her bag in one hand. “It’s a lot lighter now that it’s no longer holding enough contents to serve an entire bar.”

A bunch of stuff happens at breakneck speed: She dashes into the bathroom; emerges in a cropped tee and sweats; drops onto the bed to throw on socks; and gathers her hair into a messy bun, then jumps up. It’s a dizzying scene.

I crawl out from under the comforter. “You’re a damned tornado.”