I finally said, “We call them boyfriends in Mayfair. I’ve had three. My first was in high school, so I was about seventeen. We only kissed, and not well.”
Draw smiled, but not unkindly.
“Then in college, um, university, I had a boyfriend for about two weeks in the first year, then one in junior year for a longer time, Henry.”
Draw raised a brow. “And what did you do with Henry?”
I blinked rapidly, trying to cover my embarrassment. “Wow, you want to know it all, don’t you?” I sounded a bit surly, even to my own ears.
Draw was at my side in an instant, his half-eaten apple left on the blanket. “Oh, dear Dottie, come here. Believe it or not, I’m trying to help, as clumsy as my attempts might be.”
I took a breath to try to infuse myself with the same kind of composure Draw had. “I know, and it’s good to ask, to talk about, but I don’t have the samekindof experiences you’ve had—or the confidence!—and I feel so—”
He cut me off, shaking his head. He put his hand on my wrist, running his fingers under the hem of my sleeve. He didn’t say,We don’t have to talk about it, because that wasn’t who he was.
Instead, he prompted me. “Am I reading you correctly if I say it seems theseboy friendsdidn’t mean much to you?”
I nodded.
“Even poor Henry?”
I shrugged.
“Why were you with them, Dottie?”
I threw up my hands. “That’s what I asked myself. At first, it was exciting being pursued, but it fizzled out after the initial thrill of being asked to be a girlfriend. It felt like once they had me, they only seemed half as interested as before.” I swallowed. “I think what you’re really trying to understand is what I’ve done...physically, right?”
Draw smiled but didn’t hide it. “I don’t like to make assumptions,” he explained.
I took a bite of my bread and shifted so I could lay my head on his shoulder. I was being sneaky though—I didn’t want to have to look him in the face while I talked.
“You did go further than kissing theseboy friendsthough?” he prompted me.
“Yeah.” I paused, spinning the ring on my finger. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
His hand dipped to my waist and rested there. “I want to know everything about you, Dottie of Mayfair.”
When I first met Draw, everyone really, I thought they were fictional characters. People I was in charge of moving around on a page. That wasn’t Draw. Things had gotten both harder and easier since then.
“Okay, um, most people in my world seem so much more proficient than me. Henry and I did a lot with our clothes still on. A lot of touching and grinding against each other. Then we finally made it to the clothes-off stage and, while it was educational, it wasn’t exactly what I expected. I gave him oral sex. He did not reciprocate. Then we had intercourse twice. We broke up soon after.” I said this last part in a rush and felt the heat in my cheeks.
I’d worried since then about, well, everything really. That there had been something wrong with me. That I’d weighted Henry’s pleasure over my own. (And what kind of woman would do that?) That I’d ruined my chances at happiness while pining over book characters, the men in my own world appearing nowhere near their equal.
I sniffed.
Draw looked at me and did a double take. He tilted my chin up, but that wasn’t enough, so he drew me into him.
“It’s hard to talk about,” I said to his chest, trying to swallow back tears.
“Thank you for telling me.”
I pushed back to look him in the face. “Is it a problem?” I burst.
Draw looked alarmed. He gave a half smile. “That those boys didn’t see what they had in front of them? Of course. That your experiences don’t mirror my own? Of course not. That we have a skin of fine red wine that’s going to sour in the sun? Definitely.”
He reached for the waterskin and tugged the cork out, offering it to me first. We both took a drink. I ate hungrily then. Draw returned to his apple but kept half an eye on me. It seemed he wanted to say something a few times and instead chose to sip the wine.
We talked more about the ruins, and I told him about visiting the Cahokia Mounds in school. That led us to the subject of American history and Draw had a lot of questions. By that point, we were lying on the blanket, my head on Draw’s stomach, his arms around me. It was comfortable, lovely even, but to be honest I had expected something more to happen. Clearly, I had scared him off by admitting my lack of expertise. And crying had been a mistake.
