When I was sprawled in his bed, completely naked, feeling precious and powerful, he circled the mattress like a caged tiger, watching me from all angles. He flipped open his wallet, which was sitting on his nightstand, and yanked out a condom.
“You were going to hook up with someone here, anyway, weren’t you?” I murmured, following him through half-lidded eyes.
“Not one of them would have been half as memorable as you.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“I can’t believe we’ve waited so long,” he replied.
He made a show of rolling the condom over his penis, and I took a ragged, anxiety-filled breath when he poked my entrance.
He kissed my eyelids, then my forehead, then my cheek.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with so much bullshit, but I promise I won’t allow anything you don’t want to happen between us.”
But I already knew it not to be true, because my heart flipped upside down every time he looked at me, and I knew I would never allow myself to have him.
I was too scared.
Too fragile.
He kissed me as he entered me. At first, it hurt like hell, and I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto him for dear life. Even though I should’ve felt pathetic—a twenty-nine-year-old, single mom virgin—he made me feel beautiful, valuable, and rare.
When he began moving inside me, my heart did dangerous, joyous, anxious flips inside my chest, and I was eighty-three percent sure I was having a heart attack.
I rarely thought about it anymore, but what had happened with Rob truly screwed me up. Every time I closed my eyes, flashbacks would zip behind my eyelids.
Rob sticking his hand down my panties and chuckling gruffly as Cruz spotted for us.
Rob sticking it in me while I closed my eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts, because I was his girlfriend, and I wanted to keep him, and Molly Hough told me he would dump me if I didn’t give him the goods before he went off to college.
Rob telling me it’d be okay. That no one got pregnant their first time. And that anyway, I just finished my period, right?
Rob shaking his head when I finally managed to corner him outside his house door, frantic and in hysterics.
“Look, Nessy, it’s nothing personal. I’m just too young, okay? Do what you gotta do, but leave me out of this.”
Tears began to slide down my cheeks.
I was worried Cruz was going to stop, but he didn’t.
Cruz kissed each and every one of them, sliding in and out of me, not because of his own pleasure, I suspected, but because he knew if we stopped, I’d feel like a complete failure and couldn’t face him or myself anymore.
“I’m sorry.” He kissed my nose, and I believed him.
“So sorry.” He kissed the side of my jaw.
“Terribly sorry.”
But then after the first few minutes, it became pretty good. Not insanely good. I was still much more comfortable with Cruz Costello eating me out than coming dangerously close to putting a baby in me.
But still, A for effort and B+ for the way it made me feel. Full and fuzzy and sated.
I didn’t come, but I came close.
He did, and just as he promised, as soon as he knew his boys were swimming north, he pulled out, gave himself a few yanks with the condom still on, and found his release inside it.
Afterwards, we just stared at his ceiling silently. His arm was flung under my shoulders. Annie Hall was playing on mute on the TV in front of us. I was torn between crying and picking a fight with him.
I did neither.
Instead, I tugged at the curly blond hairs on his chest and murmured into his armpit, “Will it be okay if I spend the night here?”
He kissed my hair, but he didn’t answer.
I took that as a yes.
The next six days were unexpected bliss, full of quality time with Bear during the days and scorching hot nights with Cruz.
Our families did a lot of things together, but I managed to bail out of most of them, citing the fact that I wasn’t the one the Costellos truly needed to get to know and I had a teenage son who didn’t find bridge and golf too entertaining.
（That part was a lie. I mean, it wasn’t, Bear didn’t find bridge and golf entertaining. But he was with Landon most days, leaving me to work on my tan and read whatever books Trinity had brought along with her.）
Since Bear was still rooming with Mamaw and Papaw, I had the stateroom all to myself. I still made sure to always visit Cruz for our sexcapades.
Our families blindly trusted Cruz’s virtue （and sanity） to not want to touch me, so no one could have guessed how much time we were spending together. Especially when they still all thought he was with the perfect Gabby. Not even when it became apparent neither of us ever went to any of the meetups for after-dinner drinks.