“Shewhat?”
“And then, we kissed each other,” I finish.
He stares at me for several seconds, then rushes, fisting his hands in my shirt and lifting, all but throwing me out of my chair before he sits in it. “I get the chair,” he says. “That’s sit down type of news, Fox. You don’t tell that sort of news to an unsuspecting man when he’s standing. What’s wrong with you?”
From the floor, I grunt. “Exactly.”
He swears. “That’snotwhat I meant. You’re still a good person. A great person. The best sort of person.”
“I kissed Poem,” I remind him.
“Right,” he says. “That’s…Whydid you kiss Poem? All she wanted was basic kindness and an invitation to feel like she fully belongs with us. AKA: for you to stop being a jerk to her, theonearea where you are maybe not fully good all the time. Keeping in mind thateveryonehas at least one area where they are not fully good all the time, and most of us actually have several dozen or so.”
“You’re not changing my mind about this,” I inform him. “Because, see, I just made out with Poem on that–” I point. “–desk for…” I glance at the clock. “Roughly forty-five minutes, and I enjoyed it. Thoroughly. But the way that started? Was me kissing her without consent.” I drop to my back on the floor, the better to bang my head against it. “So basically I’m horrible and terrible and also awful and I should probably be ejected from the airlock or something.”
“She made out with you for forty-five minutesafteryou kissed her without consent?” he asks, then continues before getting an answer. “Fox, hate to break it to you, but that seems like consent to me. Poem herself said that she’d let you know, in no uncertain terms, if she wasn’t okay with something you were doing. Sticking your tongue in her mouth doesn’t sound like her being not okay with the situation to me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s definitely at least ninety percent of the point,” he disagrees. “Why are you beating yourself up over kissing a woman who clearly wanted to be kissed by you?”
“Because shedidn’tclearly want to be kissed by me,” I groan. “I kissed her, and she freaking flinched, then I apologized, then she kissed me, then instead of stopping it when she hadjustsaid she didn’t want it, I went and put her on my desk and keptkissing her until I had to send her upstairs so I didn’t ignoremoreof what she said she wanted when she was clearheaded and sober-minded. Don’t you see how gross that is? All of it?” I sneer. “It’srevolting, Wolfe. I haven’t done nearly enough good to be worthy of her love or affection, and I just… I justtookit. As if it were mine. As if I deserved it. As if she should give it to me.” I pull at my hair. “You’re right to ask. What iswrongwith me?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, dropping down to the floor next to me. He slides his hand under my head when I lift it to bang it against the floor again. “Stop hurting yourself,” he orders. “And stop being stupid.”
“I am stupid,” I retort. “And I deserve to be hurt.”
“In the situation you’re describing, the only person who gets to decide if you deserve to be hurt or not is Poem. If youactuallydid something against her will,shegets to decide the punishment.” He snorts. “Apparently her punishment for you was a hot make-out session on your desk. Looking at the full-blown crisis you’re having, I’d say it was a fitting one.”
I jolt, almost knocking heads with my white-haired twin as I sit. “You think?” I ask, hopeful. “You think she was punishing me?”
He blinks. “Do youwanther to be punishing you?”
“Absolutely,” I answer. “If turmoil is my due, then I accept it readily.”
“Okay, Hamlet, calm down. I don’t think she was trying to cause you ‘turmoil.’”
I throw my hands up. “Well, she should have been!”
He considers me. Then, he slaps both hands on my shoulder, sighs, and says, “Men are idiots. I fear for us all.”
I grunt. “Youare a man.”
He nods. “I’m an anomaly.” Standing, he pulls me with him. “Get up. We’re going to do a communicate to pull you out of the spiral you’ve thrown yourself headfirst into.”
“What?”
“Communication,” he says. “The cornerstone of every healthy relationship, and you’re going to experience it.”
He grabs my wrist to drag me out of my office, down the hall, and up the stairs. I allow him, mostly because I believe having to face Poem right now is only fitting. The dread it evokes is exactly how I should feel. The desires I can’t fulfill that it brings forth are, also, only fitting. Turmoil. Desire. Torment. Anxiety. Discomfort.
My body riots with the emotions. My skin threatens to peel itself off. My stomach threatens to lose itself. My heart… my heart threatens, full stop, becausewhathave I done andwhyhave I done it andwheredo I think I’m going, bringing us back into her presence when it hasn’t resettled from the last time we stood in front of her.
“We deserve this,” I mumble. “And you know it.”
“What?” Wolfe asks, pausing in front of my door.
“Nothing,” I huff. “I’m ready.”
