“Staying here tonight?”

I look up from my plate. Josh looks like he really is just curious, but he knows Mom and Dad (mostly Mom) consider my relationship with Blake “living in sin,” since I spend more nights in his bed than my own. Mom clears her throat but, thank God, doesn’t say anything.

“Um...I don’t think so.” I stab another bite of pasta and kick him under the table, like old times.

After dinner, while Mom makes brownies for some church function, I carry the empty batter bowls into the living room, scooping what she left behind with my finger and licking it off.

“What are you watching?” I sit on the armrest of Dad’s chair. He has his glasses on, but still squints at the screen.

“Documentary on the Cold War. Care to join me?”

“That sounds riveting.”

He laughs and swipes some of the batter from the bowl just before I get to it. “Fine, don’t watch it with me.”

“No, I’ll give it a chance.” I sit on the loveseat beside his chair, the bowl perched between us on my armrest. Dad makes “hmm, that’s interesting” noises whenever the narrator talks. Mom clanks in the kitchen, singing Manilow. Josh steals some batter straight from the pan on the counter and gets himself a dishtowel snap.

It’s nice, I realize. I’ve missed this, even though all I’ve wanted since I was a teenager was to get out.

When I drive back to Blake’s, high on that home feeling, the contrast as I pull into his complex’s lot is startling. I’m not happy to be here, like I was at my house. I don’t feel unsafe, but I don’t exactly feel welcome, either. Our argument from last night is still fresh in my head.

“Hey,” I call, receiving silence as I shake my key out of the lock and slip it back in my purse. I kick my shoes off. “You here?”

“Yeah. In the bedroom.”

I smell the candles before I open the door: vanilla and lavender, casting a pretty glow around the room. Blake lies on his bed—perfectly made, as usual—with his hands behind his head, nude. A jewelry box is in the exact center of my pillows. The pillows I use when I’m here, anyway.

“What’s the occasion?” I drop my purse, shrug off my cardigan, and cross the floor towards him. He hooks his chin over my shoulder to watch me open it.

Inside is a diamond necklace, glittering in the candlelight. The pendant is cut into a small heart.

“Oh, my God, Blake. Is this real?”

“Half a karat,” he says, lifting the chain from the box and undoing the clasp. I hold my hair up as he puts it around my neck. “Nothing fancy.”

“I’ve never had a real diamond...anything.” I cradle the pendant in my palm. “Seriously, why’d you get me this?”

“Do I need a reason?”

I thought, maybe, it was an apology gift—not that I need anything so big. A simple “I’m sorry” would be more than enough.

Actually, hearing the words would be better.

“Thank you,” I whisper, and find myself thinking, as he takes off my shirt, of the neighbors’ chickens and that sweet, gray cat.

His mouth stamps its way across my skin, from behind my ear to one shoulder, then over my spine to the other. Down one arm and to my hand, all the way to the fingertips, until he’s pulling me backwards and taking off the rest of my clothes, unwrapping me down to nothing but the necklace.

I can’t tell if he’s been drinking. Deciphering him is like picking out the edges of a puzzle that’s always changing, and lately I’m realizing...I’m tired. I’m tired of squinting at it, of tilting my head to make sense of all these strange, jagged pieces.

“Tell me what you want me to do to you,” he breathes against my stomach, each of my hipbones cupped in his palms, pinning me down.

“Thought you liked being in charge,” I quip, swallowing the weird lump in my throat.

“I do.” He kisses my navel. “But tonight, I just feel like pampering you...making you feel good. Okay?”

I stare at the ceiling fan. “Okay.”

I don’t want to do anything right now. It feels obligatory, because of the necklace, even though I know that’s my own hangup. Relax, I order myself. He just wants to make you feel good.

He cares about you.

I get on top and hold the headboard. His hands grab my hips and pull me down, hard, against his mouth.

“Blake,” I cry out. My face presses against the wall. Just like that, I’m into it. He’s pulled me under.

I feel bad for our fight earlier, hence the necklace, the oral. I like to think I would have done those things anyway at some point, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t motivated by this morning.

I’m not going to lose her again. She’s the only good thing in my life right now. I need her.

I can change.

My tongue glides into her and circles back out, over and over in an infinity symbol. I add two fingers, then three. She almost finishes right away, but I stop just in time.

“Lie down,” I tell her, patting her leg until she lifts herself off me. We reposition ourselves while she catches her breath, and she holds it as I push inside.

She relaxes against the pillows. I reach between us and rub her in circles, slow, but forceful.

She bites her lip and whimpers, “Blake, you’re….”

“I’m what, baby?”

“You’re…you’re gonna make me come,” she says, too wrapped up in the pleasure to be stubborn. When I’ve got her this close, feeling this good, she’s usually all too happy to play by my rules.

“Then do it, Mellie,” I order, leaning over her to drive as deeply as possible. I rub her harder. “Scream for me, baby. Scream my name...tell me I’m doing this to you, making you come.”

“God, Blake, yes!”