“What?” I asked again, still seeing that expression, slightly taken aback, on her face.

“I just seduced a girl who still tells her mother ‘I love you’ before she goes to bed at night,” Sarah said with a small snort. “Wow. What was I thinking?” She shook her head at the fire.

And like that it was gone, the liminal space we’d been in since we both startled awake, that sleepy, not-quite-real place. I reached behind me onto her couch and pulled a blanket from the corner, slipping it over my shoulders.

“I should probably get my clothes and go home,” I said finally, not looking at her, drawing the blanket around me and pretending to shiver. The fire was too warm for me to really be cold.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it, and turned slightly to see her. Her chin rested on her knees and her eyes were warm and full of something I couldn’t quite grasp. Okay, fine, so she wasn’t going to say anything. I stood up, pulled the blanket around me, and went to step around her. She touched my thigh and I stopped, looking down the waterfall of blanket, seeing her arm disappearing at the wrist underneath it, feeling the warmth of her palm on my thigh, not grasping, not stroking, just a solid, gentle pressure telling me to stop. So I did.

“Elizabeth.” She breathed it, out and in-like she was inhaling me with the sound of my name. My knees actually felt weak when I felt her fingertips move and shift slightly against the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thigh. She didn’t say what I wanted to hear-

she didn’t say I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, that I implied you might be too young for me, that I might be saying I regret doing this. She didn’t say that…but she did.