In the midst of thoughts I found one that stuck—him and I sweaty from individual workouts, taking a shower, made sense. Shower together, that was easy, safe, clean, sexy without requiring any specific act. Once that was confirmed, I had the mental picture and it was something that wouldn’t crumble or throw up any flags if my brain twitched the wrong way. In that scene, I could reach down, and—there weren’t any ‘no’ flags thrown up in my way.

Satisfying, both to navigate the labyrinth and find my way to safe ground, and satisfying to dwell in that scene where I had reached down and satisfied him, heard his breathing change, felt him move in reaction. Powerful and nice and…

I shifted my footing.

He lay slumped there, eyes momentarily closed. He’d pulled down his shirt, not because he’d noticed my glance, and now his hands were folded over his belly button.

Anne Lynn paged through my notebook.

My thoughts had been going a mile a minute. Not that much time had passed. My thoughts were still going a mile a minute, painting a slow-moving scene I didn’t want to let go of, because it had been so hard to get to. Getting here meant getting past walls that were in place for very good reasons, and it then meant navigating the labyrinth of red flags and dark places.

And now I was here and I wanted to keep going, somehow. I knew Ethan. I knew he was interested, and he knew me and that I had issues navigating issues.

I knew that if I asked him to his face—ridiculous notion but still—if I wrote him a note or sent him a text—less ridiculous notion—saying I wanted to take him to the nearest unoccupied shower, strip his clothes off, that I wanted and needed to take the lead and for him to do what I said, he would say yes.

Nevermind that I had no idea how or where that shower existed, nevermind that I didn’t want to get kicked out. I could, and that added a deep-inside me jolt of real that brought a whole new life to the imagined scene.

I shifted my footing again.

Woo.

“Ethan!” the voice was loud enough that I jumped. A woman peered from around the edge of the wall that separated the punching bags from the rest of the rehab center.

“What?” he asked, in a slow, easygoing way that did not line up with how high strung I felt. His eyes remained closed. I felt irrationally annoyed at him.

“Can I borrow you?” the woman asked.

He sat up, hopped down from the stack. “She works with some older patients, so I’ll probably have my hands full. See you later, Antares?”

See you, Anelace, I thought. “Yeah.”