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“I am tired.”

“You weren’t too tired the last time we had sex.”

Her fingers tighten around the remote. After a moment, she puts it on the table and turns toward me.

“I think we got carried away.”

“With what?”

“Everything.” She rubs both hands over her thighs. “This happened very fast. You woke up here, and suddenly we were living together and having sex and spending nearly all our time together. It was intense.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think either of us had enough distance to understand what we were doing.”

I understand the words. I don’t understand why they are supposed to change anything.

“I knew what I was doing.”

“You were experiencing almost everything for the first time.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t know what I wanted.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Laura gets up and carries her wineglass to the kitchen. I follow because I’m tired of letting her end conversations by moving away from them. She rinses the glass and sets it in the dish drain.

“I’m saying attraction is easy,” she says. “Especially the kind we have.”

I lean against the counter. “You wanted me before.”

“I still do.”

That stops me.

Laura keeps wiping her hands on the towel even though they’re already dry.

“Then what changed?”

“I’ve been thinking about whether wanting someone is enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“For a life.”

The weave across my chest draws tight, strand pressing against strand.

I think about the studio, my paintings, the diner, the people I’m beginning to know. I think about Laura standing beside a canvas while I explain why I hate one corner of it. I think about hearing her key in the front door and having three things waiting in my head because I want to tell her all of them.

“I have a life.”

Laura nods once. “I know you do.”

“You are in it.”

Laura starts to reach for me, catches herself, and folds her arms instead. Her face tightens, and fear cuts through my confusion. I push away from the counter enough to face her fully. “Do you not want to be?”