The Ex Talk

The temperature in the room climbs a bit. His eyes don’t leave mine, and his words land heavy between us. Personal. Thud. Intimate. Thud. In my head, personal and intimate translates to languid kisses and the kind of pleasure that gets stretched to its limit before it breaks. Slow and torturous and satisfying. I can smell the sweetness of cider on his breath. I barely know how his lips feel, and that only increases my desire to kiss him again. How would they feel on my collarbone, my throat, right behind my ear?

No.

I set my bowl down on the coffee table and cross my legs tight. When I speak, my throat is dry. “That . . . must be nice.”

“It’s never been like that for you?”

It hasn’t. Not with Trent, my most recent ex, or with Armand, the guy I dated before him, and certainly not with David, my first. Sex has always felt . . . not transactional, necessarily, but far from the intense emotional experience he’s talking about.

It’s too warm in here. I’ll have to see about turning down the thermostat.

“I think we’ve been honest enough for one night,” I say.

A corner of his mouth pulls up into a smile. There’s that dimple. “Aren’t we supposed to be getting to know each other?”

Not like this. Not in a way that makes me imagine Dominic having personal, intimate sex with someone. Probably by candlelight, in a remote cabin on a snowy evening.

“Yes,” I say, getting up from the couch and heading toward the kitchen. “I’m really interested in how you do the dishes.”

20

Dominic stares me down in the mirror as we brush our teeth. The upstairs bathroom is too small, and when we bend down to s

pit into the sink, we bang elbows.

“I’ll report back to Kent what your toothpaste spit looks like,” I say.

“Fantastic.” He places his toothbrush back in its travel case. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your glasses,” he says to my reflection, and I feel immediately self-conscious.

With a hand holding back my hair, I spit one last time before rinsing my toothbrush. “I’m so used to them that I always worry my face looks asymmetrical without them.”

“I like the glasses.” He splashes some water on his face, then swipes a towel to pat it dry. Bedtime Dominic, in his sweatpants and a worn Northwestern T-shirt, might be my favorite version of him yet. The softest, most dangerous version of him, all his armor stripped away. “But you look fine both ways.”

Fine. See, this is what happens: I spend hours on the couch next to him watching old episodes of Buffy, wondering if our legs are touching on purpose or if he thinks I’m just part of the couch, and then he says something like this. Something that convinces me I’m the only one who feels gravity shift between us. Our earlier conversation swims through my head. Something has changed, I’m sure of it.

Or maybe we really are just getting to know each other.

The bedroom poses an interesting dilemma.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Dominic says, eyeing the bed. His breath is wonderfully minty fresh.

“We’re adults. We can sleep in the same bed without it being weird.” I hope he doesn’t hear the tremor in my voice.

“I’m not sure I can sleep next to someone wearing such a ridiculous T-shirt.”

I glance down at it. I packed quickly, and of course I happened to pick this shirt. i’m into fitness—fitness taco in my mouth, it says, with an illustration of a smiling taco.

“It was five dollars at Target.”

“They paid you five dollars to take it off their hands?”

“I think it’s cute!” I cross my arms over my chest, hiding the taco from Dominic’s judgy eyes. I don’t usually wear a bra to bed, but I didn’t want to prance around braless, so I figured I’d finagle it off once I got under the covers.

“You are cute,” he says. “The shirt is not.”

That is a definite compliment, and I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s the same thing he said to me on the night we don’t talk about. I hope it’s dark enough in here to hide my blush.

We creep toward the bed as though it’s a wild animal and we’re afraid to make any sudden movements. Sleeping next to him sounds at once terrifying and thrilling, his long body inches from mine, dark hair fanning across the pillow.