Page 116 of Let's Kiss and Tell

She smiles. “That you were.”

She sits back against the pillows and unwraps her burrito. I open the French doors to the terrace and let the fresh air in. I sit on the foot of the bed and take the veggie burrito, and as we eat, everything just feels so natural.

I pass her the iced latte I got. “So—”

“Oat milk?” she asks.

“I’m offended you even have to ask at this point.”

“Thank you.” She takes a sip.

“So,” I continue, “can we talk about what happened last night?”

“What do you want to talk about?” Lucy asks through a mouthful of food.

“We said we wouldn’t sleep together, and we did.”

She takes a second to chew another mouthful of her burrito and swallow. I can see in real time her mustering up the courage to say whatever she’s about to.

“Look,” Lucy starts, “last night was amazing. The sex was incredible…and you look upsettingly good without a shirt on.” I let out a small laugh. “But we probably shouldn’t do it again,” she says matter-of-factly, and I feel like maybe I misheard. “We got swept away being in a different city…the views, the water,thebed.” Lucy smiles. “I think we just needed to get it out of our systems, right?”

I look down, suddenly feeling like I was punched in the stomach. Clearly whatever happened last night was a completely different experience for Lucy than it was for me.

I nod, not really sure what to say in response to that. I don’t necessarily know how I feel. Should I be hurt? Should I be relieved? Maybe Ishouldbe relieved. I never wanted to do the whole dating and relationship dance all over again. That was the whole point of doing this with Lucy and not another woman. There’s also the undeniable fact that we work together and this couldn’t happen even if we wanted it to. Maybe this is the best reaction I could have asked for. Maybe this is good.

“Right,” I say.

“We’re adults who are clearly attracted to each other and we deserved to explore that,” Lucy says. “This doesn’t mean anything has to change.”

“So, last night didn’t changeanythingfor you?”

“No.” She shrugs, taking another huge bite of burrito, and frankly I’m kind of thrown off by how flippant she’s being. “We just had sex.”

We just had sex.

The words echo in my head until I become numb to them.

“We just had sex,” I repeat, seeing if it rolls off my tongue the way it does hers.

“This doesn’t have to affect our arrangement unless we let it,” she states.

“Right,” I say again, and I’m aware I need to expand my vocabulary during this conversation.

Maybe that’s all this was. Maybe I completely misread the signs because I don’t know how to do any of this. I’m not the kind of person who casually sleeps with women and can just shut myemotions off completely after. This is exactly why I didn’t want to casually date in the first place. I don’t know how to have sex with someone and have itnotmean something, and maybe that’s my problem. Clearly Lucy can do that. Clearly Julia can too.

I remember the cries from Julia, the pounding of her fists on my chest, the way she insisted that she made a mistake with Chad. The wordsit didn’t mean anything, Marsh,ring in my ear. I never understood it…How sex can just not mean anything to someone. Perhaps that’s my own personal flaw. Maybe I don’t realize that sex can just be an act—as simple as hugging or laughing.

But I’ve gone through these feelings already. I couldn’t convince myself that sex doesn’t mean anything then, and I’m struggling to now. But if that’s how Lucy sees it, I’ll force myself to understand it. I have to.

After we eat our burritos, Lucy and I take showers, pack, and start our six-hour drive back to Los Angeles. There’s nothing awkward about our time together. We joke, we chat, we even talk more about the story that I’m working on. It’s all exactly the same. It really is like last night never happened. Not just the sex, but the birthday party, the hand holding, the conversation over ice cream, all of it.

And that fucks with me.

It fucks with me as we talk more about my family and her family. It fucks with me when she laughs at something I say and unconsciously touches my arm. It fucks with me the entire car ride and right until we’re parked in front of Lucy’s apartment.

“I had fun this weekend.” She turns to me. “Thanks for bringing me to meet everyone. Really.”

“Yeah, well, that was the whole plan, right?” I say sharply. “For you to pretend to be my girlfriend in front of Julia.”