We hadn’t even taken off our pants yet. Not that the flannel he wore was a real barrier to me feeling him.

I was benched. We’d submitted to higher authority because we’d told ourselves it got us more than it cost us. And in the now, the rule was that Victoria Dallon didn’t leave until there were further discussions.

That was the law, so to speak. Closest we had to one.

Follow the law, when that fails, do what feels right. When that fails, reach out.

Above all else, avoid doing what I might regret tomorrow.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this tomorrow, but I felt like I might regret it. Opening doors, opening the way to being chased by thoughts I didn’t even dare come close to. The awkwardness. Feeling like I was betraying Dean. Feeling like it might hurt my reputation. A hundred other small reasons, and prime among them was the concern that I felt like if I wasn’t careful, I could shed tears. I had no idea if they were happy ones or sad ones.

But that regret was for tomorrow.

He made a noise, just loud enough it might disturb the neighbors. I silenced him by kissing him, taking his hands and putting them where I wanted them, before raising my pelvis so I’d have access to my belt.

This was what I needed now.

Sundown 17.7

I didn’t need the shower, in the sense of getting clean, but I needed it for the static drum of water against my head, the way it was easier to think-not-think in that contained, warm space.

Except I probably needed the shower to get clean. Not in a grossed-out, crawling-out-of-my-skin way, not at all, but in a gonna-be-talking-to-capes-I-respect, don’t-want-to-smell way. I needed to play field goalie in my own head, fending off intrusive thoughts without turning so much attention to those thoughts I left my flanks undefended. Thinking-not-thinking was bad for that.

Maybe I was trying too hard to pull it all together into a neat package that answered why I was presently the way I was. Put in simpler terms, I could sum up my thoughts as: I might probably have been happier if I’d skipped the shower, I couldn’t skip the shower without being crazy with self-consciousness, and I felt fucking weird taking my second shower in a matter of hours.

Whatever.

My hands pressed against the wall, my posture like I was pushing against that wall and preparing to push it down, water running down my head and back, face aimed at the swirl of water disappearing down a black void, no doubt to be recycled, because you didn’t have a complex this big, take the trouble to pump water into it, and use that water once.