Charlee has my arm. She has my arm—my arm that’s rigid from pleasure, from her touch—in her little fingers. She holds my other one, too and she’s right there, that sweet candy perfume stripping the rest of the strength from my body, and it escapes in a soft, breathy sigh.

I’m either with you forever, or I’m not. I’m not into games or fucking around. I’ve had enough experience to know what to hold onto when I get it.

Finishing my thoughts aloud meant saying how my dad had passed, and I had failed. How I had smoked joints and lay in bed enabling my hopelessness. I’d been the ugly in my world.

When I’d remember this night in weeks, months, or even years, it wouldn’t be the sex. Sex would fade and so would the need to be filled with him, but right now I felt him inscribe his soul around my chest, and the reminder would be there with every beat for as long as I lived.

You know there’s this gaping space between us, and if I leaned forward I’d grab Dex’s shirt without ever touching him. You know there’s a three-inch-thick glass wall separating us.Now we know, too.

His kiss was light but lingering, like smoke from shivering lips on a freezing winter morning.

He pries me from his chest and drops his hand from the back of my head, tracing my ear, along my jawline. He snatches his fingers a moment before they press into my lip.