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She shakes her head “I’ot ht”

I look for the lie, but don’t find it Anyway, if she wanted to lie she probably would have said her friend needs an e had a seizure

“What can I do to help you feel less anxious?” I ask her, and I can’t tell if the urge to cale froenuinely vulnerable “I get it, I do I’ve been out of the ga to online”

“You’re the sauess” She nods to the phone still clutched in ently “IBut I’ to do while you were in the bathrooone for a while”

“It’s okay—”

“I think ht hug ht process pass over her face, how she started the date with a hug, and it went south so quickly, and she really doesn’t want to do that again Daisy stretches out her hand to shake

“I’ her hand

But as she turns to walk out of the restaurant, I know it’s not really true

I don’t get up and leave right away In part because I feel like I have to linger after she leaves in case she’s sitting in her car freaking out, and in part because I’ry and the chicken piccata sounded fucking aweso the questioning glances from my fellow diners because there are two dinners in front of uini to take hoet out to o ho the answer to my Catherine/Millie conflict are totally deflated because Daisy was a terrible fit foraround her Her loyalty, her wit, and the small ways she knows exactly e need to be buoyed speak to the depth of her intelligence But I can’t stand how she lives in a Teflon bubble and doesn’t trust any of us to carefully handle her ht that—eo a whole lot deeper than what I’ve seen I honestly just can’t believe that about her

I’ht there I mean, before all the sex, it would have been natural to come over after work, or after a bad date We’d pull off our shoes and put our feet up on her coffee table and watch a movie or have a couple of beers and play cards I didn’t need more than that from her; it was perfect

But now it feels like there’s so else to be had, whichto need it

I wonder whether, after the first time we had sex, if one of us had said, “I’d really like to try having a relationship,” that would have changed everything and I wouldn’t be weighing the balance of her sexual availability against her e to wo interactions that ht to all these things, forgetting that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and that no one corounded?

I don’t have a plan in mind I park, I walk up her steps, I knock I think ht’s Daisy Disaster into a co questions withabout her face when she opens the door that throws ister that she’s relieved that I’o hoo pink—I can tell she’s a little tipsy—and she touches her ear and then tucks her hair there, and I scra to res about her, like the tiny dimple she has at the corner of her mouth, and that her left eye is a few shades darker than her right, and that she breathes through herat each other, and then she cracks and her sh, too

“So it was terrible?” she says She’s giddy

“Awful”

Her hand co a fist aroundpulled in by the scruff, door slaainst her lips “Does it make sense if I say that I felt like I looked at her and saw all of her, in a single glance?”

She pulls er now The first ti The second ti soent and immediate: Her mouth comes over mine the same moment she starts to lift my shirt up I probably have her shirt unbuttoned and her jeans on the floor before ine has even cooled outside

We’re naked, stu into the wall, where I lift her up, holding her, taking her in a breathless flurry ofuntil she co ar the crescent-shaped scar on her shoulder

“Did you coers trace the side of my face and I can’t seem to help myself, I lean into the touch