Half an hour later, we’re still in bed. The strong August sunlight is filtering through the blinds, the blurry light covering both of us in stripes, Imogen’s back and my front as we lie there, one of her arms thrown over me.

I wonder, vaguely, if we should talk now but I also feel like everything that needs to be said has been said in one way or another.

“Do you need to be anywhere?” Imogen asks.

She hasn’t put her glasses on again yet, her soft brown eyes blinking at me behind a fine curtain of hair.

“Not until Monday,” I tell her. “How far can you see?”

“You mean how far can I see well?”

“And even now you’re a smartass.”

She grins, moves her hand off my chest and up to her face. Pulls it away slowly, until her fingers are eight or nine inches from her eyes.

“About here,” she says. “It’s a little bit blurry before that and really blurry after.”

I wriggle toward her on the bed, kiss her hand, put my face where it was.

“There,” I say.

She laughs.

“Thank you for the gift of your face, I guess,” she says.

“I wouldn’t want to deprive you in this important moment,” I say, putting her arm back over me. “I wanted to make sure you imprinted properly or whatever.”

Imogen makes a face and scrunches her nose.

“Humans don’t imprint and they especially don’t imprint after sex,” she points out.

I raise my eyebrows, wait.

“What?”

“You’re about to tell me all about what imprinting really is and why I’m so wrong right now.”

“Well, not anymore,” she says, her eyes crinkling. “Now you’re going to have to suffer in ignorance for being a dick about it.”

“Oh, come on, Squeaks. You love correcting me.”

She laughs, silently.

“Maybe it’s because you imprinted already, and now every time you think sexy thoughts you, I don’t know, impose my face onto whatever else is happening at the moment. Like when you hear a song that makes you want to dance dirty—”

“Okay, that’s really not what it is,” she says, finally breaking.

Now it’s my turn to laugh.

“Baby animals do it to their mothers, sometimes. Right after birth, so they follow the right one around.”

“Are you saying you’re gonna be following me around now?”

“Mammals don’t even imprint. It’s just birds. And ew, Wilder.”

“You do have to go to work sometimes,” I tease her. “I wouldn’t want your career hurt just because I sex-imprinted you so well that you’re following me around all day every day.”

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, but she’s laughing.

I grin, because it can be so easy and fun to get a rise out of her. Even though I’m the one who’s followed her everywhere, the one who flew to the Arctic just to see her face.

“Do you know about anglerfish?” she asks, her eyes still dancing.

“Know what about anglerfish?”

“They’re these crazy, super-deep-sea fish,” she says.

I shrug.

“Anyway, they’re called anglerfish because they have a single glowing antenna that sticks out, because it’s always pitch black when you get that deep in the ocean, and they have these enormous mouths and horrible teeth and jaws that can unhinge so they just eat anything that wanders close enough to their forehead light. Super ugly,” she says, helpfully.

I just wait to see where this is going.

“And it’s really hard to find other fish in the dark down there, even though they’re got the glowing forehead thing,” she says. “So when a male anglerfish does find a female, he uses his big horrible mouth to latch onto her, after which he fuses to her body and basically becomes a parasite that shares the same circulatory system. That’s how they mate.”

I blink.

“They fuse into one body?”

“Gross, right?”

“Shit, Squeaks, is this a warning?”

She laughs.

“I was only gonna ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight,” I tease. “But if that’s too much…”

“Sorry,” she grins. “I get carried away with cool biology stuff sometimes.”

“As long as the anglerfish isn’t a metaphor for something else,” I say. “See, I know big words too.”

“I’m so impressed.”

“If you’re gonna be like that I can start going through flight preparation checklists for several different models of fighter jet,” I tease.

“Are you going to tell me about lubing up the coxen?” she asks, batting her eyes.

“No, because that sentence was total nonsense.”

“But you’ve gotta lube something, right?”

“Did I interrupt you while you were telling me how fish fuck?” I ask, laughing.

“That was fascinating and sexy,” she protests.

“Sexy?” I say. “Sexy, Imogen?”

She just laughs, turning her face into the pillow.

“Okay, point taken,” she finally says, her voice blurred.

She turns her head back to me.

“I’d love to have dinner tonight,” Imogen says.

I take her hand, kiss her folded knuckles.

“How about next weekend, too,” I say.

“Sure.”

“And the weekend after that?”

She raises one eyebrow.

“Okay.”

“Just get dinner with me all the time,” I say. “And sometimes I’ll spend the night and we can post cutesy pictures of ourselves being ridiculously happy on the internet and sometimes we’ll argue about whose turn it is to drive or do the dishes or what shows we’re going to binge-watch next. How about that?”

She wriggles in until her body is halfway across mine, warm and supple and inviting as hell. My cock twitches once, but it’s still too soon.

“I can’t imagine us ever arguing,” she says.

“Now you’re just lying.”

“Do you at least have good taste in television shows?”

I grin over at her.

“You know I don’t.”

Imogen sighs, blows a strand of hair out of her face, wriggles against me with the bars of light playing across her naked body.

This isn’t what I’d imagined. Not even in high school, the few times that I wondered what my life could be like if I chose the other girl.

Back then I thought it would be… normal, the way it is for anyone who ends up with their high school sweetheart. We’d date, we’d be long distance, we’d both go back to Solaris where we’d get married and I’d work for my father and she’d get a marketing job or something.

But now, I can’t imagine anything else but this. Fuck, I’d cross the Rockies on my hands and knees for this.

“Well, maybe I’ll learn to love dumb superhero shows,” Imogen sighs. “I accept your offer anyway.”

I reach out, trace her bottom lip with my thumb.

“It worked,” I say.

“What worked?”

“Bothering you until you said yes.”

She laughs, ducks her head slightly, kisses the pad of my thumb.

“You mean the part where we did nothing but talk for a couple of months and you didn’t break my heart again? The part where you put your money where your mouth was?”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t fall for my big romantic gesture.”

“I’m a scientist, Wilder. I believe things when there’s evidence for them.”

“So, charts and graphs for Valentine’s Day, not flowers and chocolates?” I tease.

“I’m still human,” she laughs. “I’d take chocolates.”

I close the distance between us, kiss her again. It’s lazy and slow, both our faces half in the pillow.

“I do love you,” I murmur. “You need proof of that?”

She kisses me, bites my lower lip, her body curling toward mine. My cock twitches again, only this time it comes halfway to life because now it’s been long enough.

“What kind of proof are you offering?” she says, her mouth still against mine. “Theoretical, physical, what?”

With one move I push her shoulder, flip her onto her back, climb on top of her. Imogen gasps, the noise half-squeak, and I press myself into her belly, her legs already winding around me.

“You’re so smart,” I growl. “Guess.”