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The lock had barely clicked behind Ryan before my phone began vibrating across the table.
I stood where he left me, one hand holding the front of his shirt closed while my breathing slowly returned to normal. My dress remained pooled near the door, intact because even at his most impatient, Ryan had remembered I made it. His tie lay several feet away. One of my earrings had disappeared beneath the dresser, and the muscles in my legs still hadn’t decided whether they intended to support me.
My phone vibrated again.
I retrieved it and looked at the messages filling the screen.
Aura: You have thirty seconds to confirm you are alive.
Bliss: I gave you a full minute because I’m the reasonable one.
Aura: You are not the reasonable one. Ryan Decker escorted her to her bedroom while both of them were drunk and making sex eyes across dessert.
Bliss: Twenty-eight seconds, Charm.
Aura: If you’re currently naked, send a thumbs-up.
Bliss: A thumbs-up could mean anything.
Aura: We will understand the context.
I stared at the messages, then at the door Ryan had pressed me against after following me through it.
The old version of me would’ve lied.
She would’ve said Ryan kissed her, admitted things became heated, and removed everything that might invite questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. She would’ve offered enough truth to make the lie believable, then spent the rest of the night alone with the fear, hope, and confusion.
I didn’t want to live inside myself that way anymore.
Me: I am alive. Ryan was here. We had sex, and now he’s gone.
The phone rang before the message finished showing as delivered.
Aura’s face filled the screen with Bliss already shoving herself into the frame beside her.
“You had sex?” Bliss demanded.
Aura narrowed her eyes at me. “Against the door?”
My attention shifted involuntarily toward it.
Aura’s mouth fell open. “I fucking knew it.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Bliss asked.
“Look at her. That is the face of a woman who recently violated a noise ordinance.”
“I did not violate anything.”
“You’re wearing a Ryan’s shirt, your hair looks like you survived a wind tunnel, and something green is lying near the door.”
Bliss pushed closer to the screen. “Is that your dress?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tear it?”
“No. He remembered I made it.”
