I can’t believe that I didn’t leave. Every time I got up during the night, I just wanted more of Jennifer, and it’s as if she’s a willing partner that never says no. She’s ever so willing all the time. It’s as if she’s been making up for the last eighteen years of her shitty marriage with the way we fuck.

“You’re awake,” she yawns as she spins around. I love watching her sleep, and I had my arms wrapped around her. I didn’t know that she was awake.

“Yeah. For a while,” I say quietly as I kiss her cheek.

“Why, were you listening out?” She asks as she turns to face me.

There’s something innocent about her that makes me want to protect her all the time. Even with the little sleep that we’ve had, she still looks as beautiful as she did in that hot sexy black number I caught her in when I knocked on her door.

“No. What would you have done if I was a burglar last night? You just opened your door without even asking who was at the door.”

She laughs. “Do you think that a burglar would knock on the door?”

I sigh. “Good point. I didn’t think about that.”

“I suppose deep down I knew that it was you.” “How?” I ask as I put a pillow behind my head and then lift her up so that she’s holding on to my chest. I need to get up. Go back home, but then knowing that I won’t be by her side is keeping me locked in her arms.

“Because if it were Daniel, he would have screamed my name about ten times. And only the two of you know where I keep the spare key.”

“You need to change the position of that.”

She suggests, “Or you could keep it on you all the time. I know the flower baskets are pretty much where most people tend to keep their spare key, especially on this street. I see Mrs. Browne searching for hers all the time in them.”

“The problem is she has so many flower baskets, which she’s always forgetting which one she puts them in.”

“Especially when they’re all the same roses. So, she’s always making a mess by searching through them all. And then going out and buying new roses to replace them.”

Jennifer forgot the most important part of this story.

“And they’re always the same red roses!”

We both laugh about Mrs. Browne and her obsession for red roses. She was one of the first neighbors to come and introduce herself to us when we moved in. She came over with a box of cookies, and I think that I ate them all the first day and I fell in love with the street immediately. I wanted to have Mrs. Browne’s cookies every single day.

“I don’t know which part of you I enjoy more?" I say as I stroke her face. “Having sex with you? Showering with you? Bathing with you, or even just lying in bed and just talking to you.”

She chuckles. “So your list consists of three sexual things and one non-sexual thing because we’re too tired to have sex.”

I tilt my head. “Never thought of it that way.”

She lifts her head up.

“Jason, what’s going to happen when the summer’s over?”

Wow, where did that come from?

We’re here enjoying each other’s company, even with my morning breath I don’t feel shy about it. Also, I know that Mom’s on her way to work and Daniel’s not going to be coming home anytime soon. No doubt he’s probably drunk himself into a coma, and she’s gone all serious on me.

“Well?”

She’s waiting for an answer, but I don't want to think about that right now.

She smiles as she strokes my face.

“Look, I’m not expecting you to put a ring on my finger or anything like that. Or even go out and declare that I’m your girlfriend. I just want us both to have clear expectations.”

I start to go red because this is my line. The one that I use on girls that I think want a relationship from me after the night’s done. This is my expectation line. The one that I’ve said so many times that I could recite it backward and she’s saying it to me.

The mood’s changed, it no longer feels nice and relaxing. It feels the opposite and I feel, as if I should be getting my ass back home, right now.

“Why? What do you think is going to happen?” I sit up, getting ready to get out of bed. Not any other bed, but her bed. I have one of my own. I don’t need the rejection line to be told to me while I’m lying in it.

She smiles and then wraps her arm around me.

“That this is the summer and that we’re both enjoying each other’s company. After then we’ll go back to our lives. You to college and me, here.” “Is that what you want, Jennifer?”

She shakes her head, but avoids eye contact.

“It’s not about what either of us wants. It’s just the way that it needs to be.”

Who the fuck wrote the rule book on us?

We’re both consenting adults; no one can tell us what to do. We need to decide the best step forward, but as I stroke her hair, her heart races as I feel it beating on top of me. The realization that she’s right starts to hit home. I close my eyes as I realize that Jennifer’s not giving me the rejection line, but just being realistic about our situation. When the summer’s over, we’ll be over too, just like it never happened. I should be going home, but I can’t move, my hand just continues to run up and down her silky skin. This is a feeling that I never want to forget even after the summer’s over.