Instead he asked, “Do you want to go up to my bedroom?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “It has, you know, a bed and stuff.”

The mood shifted. The evening soured. Every fiber of my body knew I didn’t want to do anything further, and yet surely a bedroom’s sole purpose was further? Kissing was so great. I’d had such a great time kissing him. Wasn’t a first kiss enough of a milestone for one day? I decided to dodge the question. “My favorite book is 1984 by the way,” I told him which wasn’t true (it was Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret) but I thought 1984 might impress him more. “Have you ever read it?” He only half nodded. “Don’t you find it, like, super weird that it’s already happening? With CCTV and stuff?”

“Hmm.” Liam scratched his ear and started biting his nail, clearly bored. Panicked, I lurched over and started kissing him, both of us falling backward from the velocity of my lurch. His lips parted and he was with me again. We crumpled onto the carpet, our legs beginning to entwine like vines, his hands traveling up my side. He pressed his whole body against me and I felt a strange stiffness prod my thigh, and it took a moment to realize this was his erection. Oh my God, I’d given a boy an erection and it was on my leg. I really wished I could pause the moment, run into a cupboard and freak out a bit at how grown-up this all seemed. It all felt too fast, too aggressive, and also too...unromantic. Didn’t Liam want to know anything about me? I was kind of pissed off at him for not caring about my favorite book. I wiggled my lower half away, so he switched to pulling up my top. His cold hands crept up my stomach, bringing the fabric with him, exposing my breasts, in their shit New Look bra. It hadn’t occurred to me this bra would be unveiled that evening. I didn’t want him to see my bra if he wasn’t interested in my opinions on George Orwell. A spike of anger ran through me. No. Also, if he took my top off, he’d see my scars, and I didn’t feel safe showing them yet. I stiffened and he paused, a hand one millimeter over my breast.

He raised his eyebrows as a question.

“It’s late,” I said. “I should probably get home.”

I swear, there was a flare of his nostrils, a reddening of his eyes at me for not giving him what he wanted. For a second, he clearly hated me, and my chest tightened before he nodded and wiped his anger away. “Yeah, of course,” he said, smiling and making me doubt his reaction. “I’m shattered from the gig anyway. Come on, I’ll walk you.”