‘You’re wrong.’ His arm is touching mine now, just a tiny bit.

My heart is racing, and I open my eyes.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway. We live together, it would be too hard. Too messy. There are rules. It wouldn’t be like it was that night. It would be a mistake,’ I say, firmly.

I wish he would kiss me. It’s a thought that pops into my mind often these days, but it’s never been stronger than now, and I need to whack-a-mole it down in case he can read it on my face, in case he can feel it in my skin.

He nods.

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘It would be a mistake. But—’

‘But what?’ I say.

‘What if we pretended again? Just one more time, just for one minute.’ Our arms are pressed together now, our faces close.

‘For one minute?’ I say.

‘Just one minute.’ He gets out his phone, sets a timer for one minute, starts it, and puts the phone down. I almost laugh at the absurdity, but my heart is going too fast for the laugh to escape.

‘Okay,’ I say.

It feels like we’re playing a game, again, and it’s not real, again. But I can’t help myself. I’ll take any scenario, any chance to kiss him again. I know this but he can’t be allowed to know this—no one can. I close my eyes, sensing him getting closer. I feel his hand on my cheek, and I open my eyes and look at him. He takes my face in both his hands and then he kisses me, and it’s somehow even better than when we kissed at the bar.

I slowly move from sitting up to lying down, and Jesse follows, leaning over my body, kissing my neck. Then the oneminute alarm dings, and he stops kissing me, turns it off, takes off his glasses and puts them beside the phone, and comes right back to kissing me.

I don’t want it to end. Kissing Tristan was always nice, but that’s it. Just nice. Kissing Jesse isn’t even in the same realm. They don’t even seem like the same activity. Kissing Jesse is making me feel things I’ve never felt before. It’s like someone has flipped a switch and turned on nerve endings I didn’t even know existed.

I want to stay like this forever, but my brain starts interrupting me. With chatter, with anxiety, with warnings.

We live together.

It won’t work.

You’re going to get hurt. Again.

The house rules!

I pull back from him.

‘This doesn’t change anything,’ I say. ‘It was a moment of weakness. A minute of weakness. A few minutes. That’s all.’

‘Okay,’ he says, and then kisses my neck again.