Knowing Low’s shift didn’t finish until six, I sat cross-legged on my lounge and tried to distract myself with a book. I’d been hooked by the story last week, but tonight, after reading the same line five times and still having no idea what it said, I gave up. Instead, I nibbled on a thumbnail and stared at the door with unseeing eyes. When a knock echoed through the apartment, I was up and out of my chair, flinging the door open before he could even lower his hand. Or change his mind.

“Hey,” I said tightly, trying to rein in my nervous energy and keep myself from word-vomiting everything I wanted to say.

“Hey.”

When he didn’t move to come inside, I realised I was blocking the doorway.

“I’m sorry, come in.” I moved aside, while scanning his body and face for a sign of how he was feeling or what he was thinking. My stomach was a mess of butterflies, and I clamped my teeth together, reminding myself to be patient and not make things worse by speaking before thinking. That hadn’t worked out so well for me yesterday.

He nodded and strode past me into the apartment, still refusing to make eye contact. I closed the door and took a deep, steadying breath before I faced him. My hands trembled, so I tucked them inside the pockets of my jeans.

Low hovered around the maze of Post-it covered boxes, looking unsure of himself.

“I made us dinner,” I announced, trying to fill the silence. But my enthusiastic, too loud voice seemed out of place, and I snapped my mouth shut.

His gaze travelled around the apartment, before coming to rest on my face. “I can’t stay long.”

My heart sank.

“Oh, okay, that’s fine too.” God, this was so awkward. I didn’t know where to look and I was fighting the urge to fidget. Motioning to the lounge I’d vacated a minute earlier, I asked, “Do you want to sit down? The lounge looks ugly, but I swear it’s comfy.”

He nodded and sat down on the edge of a seat cushion, resting his forearms on his thighs, his eyes trained on the wall in front of him. My apartment was so small, I had few seating options. Either sit on the coffee table, facing him, or on the lounge, next to him. Neither seemed like a great choice. I went with sitting next to him, perching on the other end of the lounge, giving him as much space as possible. The silence dragged out between us, uncomfortable as hell. I didn’t know how to begin.

“Look, I’m—”

“Low, I—” We said at the same time. He shifted his body to face me. The sadness in his eyes tore at my heart.

“You go first,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” I blurted out. “I reacted without thinking. I just didn’t expect you to say anything even close to...that. I knew I’d said the wrong thing, but I couldn’t help it, and then you were gone and...and I made you feel like shit and there’s no excuse, and I suck.” I bit my bottom lip. It wasn’t an elegant apology, and it wasn’t at all how I’d practised it, but it was an apology, nonetheless.

Low shook his head. “No, you don’t need to apologise. I would have reacted the same, if not worse, if our roles were reversed. Storming off like that was childish—I didn’t even give you a chance to take in what I’d said. You needed time to process it all.”

I sat back, sagging against the cushions of the lounge. “So you don’t hate me?”

He smiled a little. “No, Reese, I don’t hate you…I’m angry at myself, not you.”

“Okay.” I nodded, though I didn’t like that he was beating himself up. The silence drew out between us.

“Can we talk about it now?” I held my breath, hoping I wasn’t pushing him too much.

“What’s to talk about? I’m an idiot, and I might have HIV. There’s not much else to it.” He scrubbed at his face with his hands, then looked away.

My fingers itched to reach out and touch him, but I held back. I didn’t think he’d welcome it at the moment. “You’re not an idiot.”

“I am, though. I did this to myself. I was the idiot who slept with someone I didn’t know and didn’t use a condom. We were drunk and got carried away in the moment. It didn’t even cross my mind until we were already in the middle of it.”

“It takes two to tango, though, and if this girl...or guy…?”

“Guy,” Low supplied.

“Well, if this guy knew he had HIV, then he had a responsibility to take care of you, one-night stand or not.”

He shook his head. “I’m as at fault as he is. I confronted him...” He shrugged. “I’m sure his neighbours now know all our business. But in the end, what’s done is done. Nothing he says or does is going to change what happened.”

I studied him for a moment, impressed with his maturity. If I were in his shoes, I didn’t think I would have been as forgiving. “Is this why you flipped out on me about having one-night stands?”

He shrugged. “Mostly. But if I’m being honest, it was also because I didn’t like hearing about the other men you’ve been with. I’m male, and I’m into you, and sometimes I’d rather just pretend there was no one else before me.” He gave me a wry smile. “It’s a dumb guy thing, I know. Sorry.”

The tension between us eased and I smacked him on the arm with the back of my hand. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

He looked boyish and happy, and the knowledge I had some part in that made me warm all over. I liked seeing him like this. Was it time to lay everything on the table? There’d already been far too much confusion and too many misunderstandings between us. Now seemed the ideal opportunity to let my mouth run free. I swallowed back the fear of rejection and rested my hand above his knee, testing to see if he’d push it away. He didn’t. “Low?”

“Yeah?”

I let the words tumble.

“I don’t want to just be your friend anymore. There’s something more here. We both know that...don’t we?”

His smile faltered, his eyes dropping to stare at my hand on his knee before he pushed to his feet. I snatched my hand back as he paced the small area in front of the coffee table.

“What’s the point, Reese? I probably have HIV, so it doesn’t matter if I like you. We can’t be together. I can’t be with anyone right now.” The muscles in his shoulders bunched and tensed.

“Why? I did so much research today, there’s no reason we can’t still date and—”

“I won’t put you at risk,” he interrupted. “And I won’t ask you to wait for me. It’ll be months before I get a final diagnosis. That’s not fair to you.”

I stood up and put myself in his path, trying to stop the situation from spiralling. “Stop. Please. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Start at the beginning.” I placed my hands on his shoulders and gave him a little push towards the lounge.

He sank back into it with a sigh of defeat, and I sat next to him, a lot closer this time. Our legs brushed as he moved around restlessly.

“You remember the night we hooked up?” he asked.

I cringed, wishing I didn’t. I tried to stop the flow of memories—some made me hot, some made me angry, and I didn’t want to be either right now.

“Yes.”

“You remember I got a text message when we were…well, you remember?”

I was hardly about to forget the most humiliating moment of my life so far, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Yes.”

“It was from him. His name is Mason. I met him at the track, the day you started.” His gaze lowered, a blush creeping up his cheeks.

I waved my hand around, implying it didn’t matter and that he should continue. I remembered Mason, the cute blond from my first day. The chemistry between him and Low had been tangible, and Bianca and I had gossiped about the argument the two men had had when Mason had reappeared at the track a few days later.

“The text said he had HIV and that I needed to get myself checked.”

My mouth dropped open. “You’re joking?” My blood boiled in my veins, heat flushing through me. “That callous bastard. He told you in a text message?”

Low didn’t answer.

I eyed him. “How are you so calm about this? I’m pissed off just hearing about it.” So much for staying cool and collected.

Low sighed. “Trust me, I’ve already gone through the anger stage. We were drunk, Reese. So drunk. I don’t think I’ve ever been that wasted in my life. Neither of us was in a state to be making good decisions.”

He shifted to the edge of the wooden coffee table in front of me. We were so close, he blocked my view of the rest of the room. There was nowhere to look but into his eyes and their bottomless blue depths. Neither of us said anything, his eyebrows pulling together as his gaze searched my face. I didn’t dare move while he wrestled with his thoughts, but I saw the exact moment something changed—his brow smoothed, and his shoulders relaxed. I started breathing again.

“I’m really sorry, Reese.”

I blinked. “Why are you apologising?”

“For leaving you like that in the alley.” His hand broached the gap between us, coming to rest on my knee in the same way I’d done to him a minute ago. “God, I’m sorry for trying to fuck you in the alley in the first place. That was poor form. I was a jerk.”

I squirmed in my seat. “I liked it, though.” I averted my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him. “Well, until you left.”

His big hand inched up my leg and squeezed my thigh. “I’m sorry anyway.”

I nodded. My gaze dropped to watch his thumb tracing circles on my skin, the warmth radiating from that tiny spot more distracting than getting lost in his eyes. I tried to steer the conversation away from topics that were messing with my hormones.

“So, what’s the process now? You said you’ve already had your first test? I read up on it today. I thought if your first test came back negative you were in the clear?”

He shook his head. “The first test is pretty reliable, but only if you were exposed weeks or months ago. I was tested only a week after exposure, so they said there hadn’t been time for the disease to make itself present in my blood.”

“So, you have to go back again?”

“They always do a second test, but yeah, I get tested again in three months. Two and a bit now, I guess. I have a specialist appointment before then, though. My local doctor thought I should go see them as soon as I could get in because his HIV knowledge is limited. Plus, they offer counselling and other stuff he wants me to do. But he said by three months I’d be able to get a definitive diagnosis.”

I nodded. “That one will be negative too. I’m sure of it.”

He looked away. “I wish I had half your positivity. I’m not feeling confident about it at all. Maybe it’s my punishment for a being such a man-whore for the last few years.”

“You don’t get punished for having a sex life.” I let my fingers drift over his hand that was still drawing absent-minded pictures on my leg. He didn’t object when I wove my fingers through his.

“I don’t feel like there’s much to be positive about right now, though. All I can think about is the negatives.”

I squeezed his hand before I disentangled my fingers and stood up.

“Where are you going?” Low asked, his eyes following me.

I smiled at him as I walked backwards towards my bedroom and held up one finger, motioning for him to wait. Turning, I trotted down the hall to my bedroom and crawled across my mattress. I searched the headboard full of Post-it notes, many so old they had been taped back on after their adhesive had worn away. I skimmed each note, not remembering where the one I wanted was. But I knew it was here somewhere. After a few moments, my eyes settled on a neon blue note that had faded from the sunlight. It was an old note, but one of my favourites. Simple and straight to the point.

I went back to the lounge room, waving the little blue square through the air in triumph.

Low’s eyebrows drew together. “You have some sort of obsession, you know that, right? There are Post-it notes all over this damn apartment.”

He was right. They labelled my moving boxes, and there were still all my HIV research notes on the kitchen bench. I had motivational quotes randomly on the wall and grocery lists stuck to the fridge.

Flopping back down next to him, I reached over, sticking the Post-it to Low’s ugly lavender work shirt. I gave it a pat for good measure, trying to ignore the firmness of Low’s pec muscles and how much I would have liked to be touching them without his shirt on. Despite my efforts, the note didn’t stick for longer than a few seconds, and Low picked it up as it fluttered to his lap.

“What’s this?”

“You said you only had negatives. I want to give you a positive,” I said with a smile.

He read the note out loud. “Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.” When he lifted his head, he was smiling. “Thanks. I think? Since when am I your darling?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s an old quote, dumbass. I didn’t make it up.” I leant around him, picking up a pen and a pad of Post-it’s from beside him on the coffee table. I wrote another note, holding it as close to my chest as possible to prevent his curious eyes from seeing it. When I was done, I passed it over to him.

“And you have a bitable ass,” he read out loud, his laugh reaching his eyes this time, the corners of them crinkling.

I grinned, happy my lame attempt at distracting him had worked. “It’s true.”

He winked. “Good to know.”

We grinned at each other for a few moments, relief coursing through me.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked, shifting closer. This had all gone better than I’d hoped and being back on the same page with Low was a good feeling. It might have only been a few hours that we’d been at odds, but it was a few hours too many.

I shrugged, not willing to divulge my true thoughts. “I don’t know, just—oh my God!”

I jumped up and sprinted to the kitchen, banging my hip on the kitchen bench in the process. “Ow!” The frozen pizza I’d put in the oven was barely visible through the dark tint of the oven door, but I had a sinking feeling it had been in there way too long. My fears were realised when I opened the oven door and black smoke poured into the tiny room. Coughing and wincing in pain from the hit to the hip, I dumped the charcoal onto the stove top and opened the kitchen window. Shit.

“So much for dinner,” Low said, coming up behind me and surveying the mess I’d made.

“You weren’t staying anyway.” The smoke alarm went off, piercing the air with a shrill beeping.

“I’m just cooking! The place isn’t on fire!” I yelled at the ceiling in frustration. This was what I got for trying to be a good hostess.

Low grabbed a tea towel and went over to the smoke detector, waving the smoke away until the deafening alarm quieted.

My stomach grumbled, matching the grumbling I was doing under my breath.

“What’s that you’re muttering over there?” Low asked, barely concealing his laughter.

“Nothing. I’m just starving and cursing my lack of cooking skills. I could have sworn I turned the timer on.”

Low pulled open my fridge door and rummaged around.

I sat myself up on the kitchen bench, watching him. “What are you doing?”

“Making you dinner.”

“I thought you weren’t staying.”

“Changed my mind.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “That okay with you?”

I nodded, my stomach doing a little flip of happiness. It was more than okay with me. “We should just order take-out. You won’t find much in that fridge. I’m not much of a cook, as you can see.” I motioned around the still hazy room.

Low shut the fridge door with his hip, bringing over eggs, bacon, milk, some cheese he’d probably have to cut the mould off, and an onion I didn’t remember buying. But it still looked okay.

“Omelette good?” he asked. He didn’t wait for me to respond, just started opening cupboard doors.

“Yep. What are you looking for?”

“A bowl? Chopping board? Frypan? Seriously, is all your stuff still in boxes? Didn’t you get this apartment last year after everything happened with your parents?”

I shrugged. I’d made no effort to make this place a home. It was merely somewhere I slept. “Yeah, I did. I don’t know why I haven’t unpacked.”

He stopped his rummaging and looked at me. “Maybe because you thought you wouldn’t be here long?”

Maybe because I thought my parents would ring me and say they wanted me to come home. Which made no sense because they didn’t even know my new phone number. Well, they didn’t officially know my number, even if my dad might have guessed it was me who’d called and hung up on him a few weeks ago. “Maybe.”

I slid off the bench and knelt down by a box with a bright orange Post-it note labelled ‘kitchen stuff.’ “I didn’t have much when I left home, but someone on the bottom floor moved overseas not long after I moved in, so I scored a lot of the stuff she didn’t take with her. I helped her pack it up, but I don’t remember what’s in here. There might be something you could use.”

Low looked over my shoulder and pounced on a frypan with glee. “Well, at least we can cook this thing.”

I poured us both a glass of wine and took mine over to the breakfast bar. He hadn’t been able to find a chopping board, so he was chopping the capsicum on a dinner plate.

I sipped at my wine while I watched. “So you cook?”

He looked up at me through long lashes. “I do. But nothing fancy.”

“An omelette is fancy in my world. Much better than the frozen pizza I was going to serve you.”

“Nothing wrong with frozen pizza.” He glanced at the blackened hunks of unidentifiable food on the sink. “As long as you don’t do that to it.”

I’d bet good money the tips of my ears were turning red.

He cracked four eggs into a cereal bowl and threw the shells into the bin by his feet. “So, there’s an awful lot of boxes over there labelled vet stuff...”

I looked over at the three boxes wistfully. “I know. I think that’s part of why I haven’t unpacked. I don’t want to deal with those.”

“Why not?” He poured milk into his eggs and began beating them with a fork.

The heat from the tips of my ears spread into a blush across my cheeks. I guess he hadn’t been able to find a whisk either. My apartment really was pathetic. I’d never found it embarrassing when I’d had random men here, but with Low, I wished I’d made more of an effort.

I took another sip of my drink, stalling instead of answering his question. “The vet thing is the past. I don’t like thinking about it.”

“You could go back to it, though?”

I shook my head quickly. “No, I can’t.”

He stopped beating the eggs, his gaze intent. “Because you don’t want to? Or you think you don’t deserve to?”

“Both.”

He frowned. “I saw your face when you were riding the other night. You looked…I don’t know, free or something. If that’s how you feel about becoming a vet, then you need to start taking classes again.”

I sighed. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Sure.” He looked disappointed, though, that crinkle between his eyebrows deepening.

Low poured his omelette batter into the fry pan and it let out a satisfying sizzle. Standing over it, he prodded the edges with a spatula. I finished my glass of wine and poured myself another. He’d barely touched his.

“That smells amazing.” My stomach grumbled again.

He dug the flip under the bubbling egg and turned it. Half the egg stuck to the old, no longer non-stick pan, and the perfect looking omelette became a mess of scrambled eggs.

“Every. Bloody. Time,” he cursed, trying to fix the mess he’d made.

I pressed my teeth together to keep from laughing.

He passed me a knife and fork and placed the omelette-turned-scrambled-egg in front of me. Standing on the other side of the bench, he watched me cut myself a bite and taste it. It was fluffy egg heaven. Damn him. I was just starting to feel better about my charcoaled pizza disaster.

“Oh my God, it’s amazing.” I shoved another bite into my mouth, moaning as the warm deliciousness hit my tongue. It was the first home-cooked thing I’d eaten in I couldn’t remember how long. “If you don’t start eating, I’ll eat the lot. I’m not even joking.” I waved my fork around in his direction.

He smirked and cut himself a bite. We ate in silence for a while, my appreciative moans the only noise in the quiet kitchen. Why did food always taste so much better when someone else cooked it?

When there were only crumbs left, I put my fork down and sighed in contentment. “That was way better than frozen pizza.”

“Mmm hmm.” He was still smirking, his eyes fixed on my mouth.

“What?” I swiped at my face, making sure I didn’t have egg stuck to my lip.

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring at me.”

“You sound like you’re having an orgasm when you eat.”

I choked a little, but he had a point. Damn him and his home cooking. “Yeah, well, it’s been a while since I had a home-cooked meal. Or an orgasm.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth, my eyes widening. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. My hand drifted to my wine and hovered over the glass. How many drinks had I had? Obviously too many if I was blurting out things like my current lack of sex life.

Low was chuckling to himself and I didn’t know where to look. Needing an escape, I pushed my stool out and shuffled past him to the refrigerator. I didn’t know why I was all of a sudden embarrassed to be talking about orgasms with him. Maybe because it really had been a long time and it was hard to think of anything else when he looked this good.

“We need dessert. I’m sure I had a block of chocolate in here somewhere.” I let the cold air wash over my face for a few moments longer than necessary, trying to cool the heat that had risen in my cheeks.

One by one, every muscle in my body froze as I registered Low’s presence behind me. His fingertips grazed the skin of my hip where my T-shirt had ridden up, stroking the tiny patch of skin as he moved closer. His chest pressed against my back.

“Why haven’t you had an orgasm for a while?” His voice was deep, his breath tickling across my neck.

I didn’t know how to answer that. “I just…I just haven’t.”

“You haven’t gone home with anyone?”

I shook my head, fighting the urge to turn into his arms. The fridge beeped, signalling we’d had the door open too long. He reached out, covering my hand with his, and closed the door. I didn’t dare turn around, though, not trusting myself to be this close to him and not want more. Blood pounded in my ears, as he leant in farther, whispering into my ear.

“How long has it been?”

I knew how long it had been, but I paused for a moment to steady myself, debating whether to lie. But I was so tired of holding back with him. The truth was easier. “Not since the night you and I…”

“So no one has had you since me?”

I didn’t reply.

“No?” His lips brushed my earlobe.

My brain wanted to short-circuit with the maddening sensation of him being so close, but still so unreachable.

“No,” I whispered.

“I like that.”

Unable to resist any longer, I turned around and leant back on the refrigerator door, my eyes searching out his. The heat burning there shocked me. I hadn’t seen that look since the night in the alley. My grocery list Post-it came unstuck on the fridge behind me and flitted to the floor. Neither of us bothered to pick it up. His arms lifted to rest on either side of me, pinning me in.

I bit my bottom lip, not sure what he was doing. He’d been the one to say we couldn’t do this, but now here he was, doing it. He leant in, and my eyes fluttered closed, as I stopped breathing. His lips brushed mine once before returning, and he pressed his mouth to mine. My heart raced as he increased the pressure and ran his tongue along the seam of my lips, urging me to open for him. I did. His tongue swept in and met mine, tingles spreading from my mouth to every other erogenous zone on my body. Excitement mixed with relief flooded my system. He still wanted me, and for now at least, he wasn’t letting anything stand in our way. I fisted the bottom of his shirt, pulling him closer, so his chest was firm against mine, pushing me into the refrigerator at my back. Our mouths moved in unison, deepening the kiss, until he groaned and dragged himself away.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

No! How many times were we going to have this conversation? So much for nothing standing in our way. I forced myself to try to be patient. This was a lot for him and I knew I needed to tread carefully. “We’ve been through this. It’s only you standing in our way.”

He stepped farther away until he hit the kitchen bench. He gripped it so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, not until your results come back. I can wait.” Every inch of me wanted to scream at the thought of waiting for three months to touch him again, but I pushed those ideas away and took a step closer.

“And if I have HIV? What then? You’ll have waited for nothing.”

“Remember, only positives.”

He reached out a hand and ran it down my arm until his fingers traced mine. He joined his pinky finger with my own.

Lifting my hand to his mouth, he kissed my palm. “I don’t deserve for you to be this understanding. I haven’t even told Jamison. I don’t know how.”

Boy, did I know how that felt. “Then tell me. I’m a pretty good listener if you just give me a chance.”

His warm hand came up and caressed the side of my face. “I know.”

“So say it, whatever you’re thinking. Whatever you’re afraid of. I’ll listen.”

He pulled back, a smile making his sombre features softer. “You really want to know what I’m thinking, Reese?”

I nodded. “I really do.”

He leant in, his eyes glinting with a sudden mischief. “What I really want to do is kiss you. Not just your mouth, but every inch of you. Then get you naked and do it all over again before I get inside you. And the fact I can’t makes me want to do it all the more.”

My underwear dampened at his words, need pulsing through me as I moved closer, tilting my head up to him. “There are other things we can do while we wait, you know.”

I reached around him and grabbed a Post-it note from where I’d shoved them when he’d been cooking earlier. “See?” I asked, holding the note in his face. “We can kiss, touching is fine, and there are other…more intimate things that are safe too…” I tried not to sound too hopeful.

He shook his head as he wrapped an arm around me. I leant my head on his chest, feeling like a two-year-old whose balloon had just floated away.

“This is enough for now. Enough for tonight. If I kiss you the way I want to kiss you right now, I won’t be able to stop.”

I could relate. At least I knew I wouldn’t be the only one left hanging tonight.

“Are you coming to work tomorrow?” he asked as he rested his chin on the top of my head.

I nodded. “Why?”

“Just checking you weren’t planning on throwing another sickie. Lijah is in the third race.”

“Yeah?”

I felt his chin moving on my head and assumed he’d nodded. I tried to lean back to look at him, but he wouldn’t let me. He kept me pressed to him, his hands running up and down my back. I relaxed into him, letting my eyes drift closed, warm and comfortable in his embrace. The ache between my legs was tangible, but my brain knew better than to push him, and I hugged him tighter. If this was all he could give tonight, then I was okay with that.