The next morning, I awake to the cheerful chirping of birds outside the bedroom window. I smile and stretch, then turn over in bed to reach for Ben, hoping to pull him close and snuggle up to his warm, hard body.

But then my heart sinks. The bed next to me is empty.

For a split second, I’m worried, until I remember that he’s already headed off to work this morning early. I totally forgot that he wanted to get there before the morning shift starts to do some paperwork and planning for the week.

I sigh wistfully and grab his pillow, clutching it to my chest and inhaling the deep, musky scent he left there.

I can’t help but miss his presence. I’ve gotten so accustomed to waking up next to Ben that I feel a little lonely without him there. Deep in my heart, there’s a warning bell clanging, reminding me not to get too attached.

He’s my boss, after all. And what we’re doing isn’t even exactly dating. In fact, I realize as I sit up in bed, I’m not really sure what our label would be.

As I sit there wondering about it sleepily, my phone starts buzzing on the bedside table. Thinking maybe it might be Ben calling to say good morning, I hastily grab it and slide the screen open with a goofy grin on my face.

“Hello?” I answer cheerily.

“Hi honey!” comes the reply, and I do a double take at the phone, realizing it’s not Ben.

It’s my mom, for some reason. Normally she’s not one to call so early in the morning, since she’s usually neck-deep in a Pilates or spin class by now.

“Oh. Hi,” I say, startled into a daze. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” she repeats with a giggle. “I could ask you the same thing!”

“What do you mean?” I ask, starting to feel suspicious about this impromptu call.

“Well, don’t you have some exciting news to share with me?” she hints.

I frown, wracking my brain for an inkling of what she might be talking about. I come up empty and respond, “No? I don’t think so.”

She sighs exasperatedly and blurts out, “You and Ben! You’re dating, right? It’s, like, official now! You have to tell me all about it.”

“We’re what?” I splutter. “No, Mom. That’s—that’s not true.”

“Oh, there’s no need to keep it a secret from me! I’m your mother. You can tell me anything! I know you’re a very private person, dear, but between the tabloids and what Ben told his mother the other day—”

“Hold on, what did he tell her?” I interrupt, getting annoyed.

“Oh, just that you two have been spending nights together lately. Don’t worry, I know you’re a grown up and you can make your own choices so I’m not going to lecture you about any of that! We don’t need to discuss the gritty details. I just want you to know how happy your father and I are for you, dear,” she gushes happily.

“Oh, God,” I grumble, leaning my face into my palm.

“It’s just so nice to know you’re finally seeing someone, especially a guy like Ben. He comes from such a great family and he has a bright future ahead of him and I just know you two will be so happy together. And after you’ve been alone for so long . . .”

My heart is racing and I feel anger boiling up inside me. “Uh, listen. Mom, I need to hang up, okay? I’ve got to go get ready for work,” I lie.

“Oh, okay! Talk later?” she suggests brightly.

“Sure. Yes. Definitely. Bye,” I answer, hanging up before she can even reply.

I stare down at the phone in disbelief for a moment. How the hell did things go so wrong?

There’s a reason I haven’t told my parents about us yet. Actually, there are lots of reasons. A multitude of perfectly good reasons.

And now, apparently, Ben has flippantly made the decision to tell his mother we’re sleeping together? What the hell is he thinking?

Ben and I haven’t even discussed the details of our— whatever this is— together yet! We have no idea if it’s going to be anything serious.

I haven’t made a big deal out of it because I don’t want to jinx it, and if things were to go south, that could potentially cause a rift in my parents’ decades-long friendship with the Grahams.

There’s just too much at stake, I decide, as I slide out of bed.

It’s high time Ben and I had a real, open discussion about all this.

All morning, I text Ben, asking him to talk to me about what happened. I pace around his apartment like a crazy person, checking and re-checking my phone for a reply. I even try calling him over and over again, but only his automated voicemail message responds.

I hate being that kind of girl. I never want to have to chase after a guy. I’ve always told myself that if someone wants to talk to me, they’ll reach out and make it happen.

And yet, here I am, furiously typing away on my phone, firing off text after text.

Finally, I get showered, dressed, and ready for the afternoon shift.

All the way to the restaurant, I fume about it.We have to talk. We’re adults, right?

Just as I’m pulling up to the parking lot, I get a text from Ben. At last.

I whip out my phone and read it over, only to let out a snort of disgust. To my annoyance, he doesn’t even address the questions I posed. It’s the blandest, least helpful response in the world, and it’s not good enough.

Hey. Busy at work. See you soon.

Instead of calming me down, his reply only intensifies my anger. I groan with frustration and get out of the car, marching up to the back of the building to walk into his office there.

I knock sharply at the door, and when I don’t immediately get a response from inside, I knock even harder.

I’m just raising my fist to knock for a third time when the door suddenly swings open to reveal Ben standing there with a bewildered frown on his face.

“Jesus, Claire. What is it?” he asks.

“No,” I retort, crossing my arms over my chest. “I am not okay.”

He sighs and ushers me inside, closing the door behind me. “Alright, what’s going on with you?”

I roll my eyes. “What’s going on with me? What’s going on with you?”

“Claire, you’re going to have to be a little more specific here,” he says.

“Fine,” I reply, glaring at him. “First of all, you’ve been ignoring my messages and calls all day.”

“Right, yeah. It’s been really busy here.”

“Really? Too busy to type out a text and send it to me? That takes, like, five seconds, tops, Ben. I think you could find the time for that,” I say. “When you ignore me like that, it stresses me out and makes me feel like you don’t respect me, you know? I just want an answer so that I know everything is okay. I mean, what if it had been something really urgent?”

“Was it urgent?” he asks, narrowing his eyes and leaning back against his desk.

“Yes! Kind of,” I groan. “Ben, my mom called this morning to talk about how you and I are apparently dating now. All because you told your mom about us.”

He winces. “Shit. I should’ve known she would tell your parents.”

“Why did you tell her in the first place?” I ask, throwing up my arms.

“Well, to be honest, it just kind of slipped out. I was on the phone with her and just . . . happened to mention that you were back at the apartment still sleeping,” he sighs. “It was a total accident, Claire. I was trying to multi-task here at work and talk on the phone at the same time and it just happened. I really didn’t think it’d be a big deal.”

“Well, it is.” I massage my throbbing temples. It’s okay, I try to tell myself. He made a mistake. But my emotions are waging war inside me. There’s so much at stake here and I haven’t taken the time to sort things out and now suddenly it feels like I’m thrust so far forward I’m going to fall flat on my face. I take a deep breath. In a calmer voice, I say, “We haven’t even discussed that stuff yet ourselves, Ben. Don’t you think you and I should talk about what our relationship status is now before you alert the parental authorities about it?”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right. Of course,” he relents, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I screwed up. I swear it was an accident, but you’re right. I should have been more careful.”

“It’s just that we need to communicate better about this stuff if we’re going to make this— any of this—work. We already have a pretty unconventional situation here, but if we can’t be a team, it’ll all fall apart, you know?” I point out, feeling my anger subside, now that he’s right in front of me and not somewhere unreachable, ignoring my attempts at reaching out.

I can’t stay mad at him long. Not when he’s looking at me with those gorgeous dark eyes and those sensuous lips.

“Of course. I apologize, Claire. Truly, I’m sorry,” Ben says softly as he walks over to hug me. He nuzzles his nose into my hair and kisses the top of my head. “I’ll do better, I swear.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“I do want that too, you know. For things to work out, long term.”

He’s being so sweet. And I guess this means we’ve just made things official. We’re really together now.

But my heart rate doesn’t slow down.

It still freaks me out that just having him ignore my calls and texts for a few hours had gotten me so worked up.

Now that everything’s cleared up with just a few simple words from Ben, I see how crazy I was all day.

I swear I don’t normally act like this with any other guy. I’m usually a lot more sane than this, a lot more level-headed.

I’m the cool girl, the one who never demands a guy to pay attention to me because I’m typically busy doing my own thing anyway.

But Ben dominates my mind so completely I can’t direct my thoughts anywhere else when something—even the smallest thing—goes wrong.

I don’t know when but somewhere along the line, I’ve given Ben the power to ruin me.

It terrifies me. Scares the shit out of me. Petrifies me so much my legs are already itching, raring to go.

My head is leaned against Ben’s chest, listening to his regular heartbeat—the sound soothes me.

But at the same time, my feet want to carry me far, far away from him. I long to escape before this whole thing blows up in my face and destroys me.

Okay, maybe there’s more than a small chance I’m just being crazy and everything’s going to be amazing. But I can feel myself losing control and I can’t help the way I feel about it. I’ve never had anybody affect me so intensely before.

Being with Ben can be the most wonderful thing in my life. But it also has the potential to be my worst nightmare, if things go wrong.

For now, while my brain is still somewhat in control, I can tell myself to chill and take it one step of a time. Stop being so anxious and high-strung, for once.

I just hope, for the sake of our new relationship and my sanity, that my fear won’t grow so monstrous it takes over.