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“Care to explain?” I asked carefully.

“I never liked that room. Not at all. So I set it on fire.”

I started to get it then, feeling a sense of wonder and joy overtake me. It was a struggle not to smile at her.

“You love me,” I told her.

It was like she hadn’t heard me. “I was just getting you back,” she continued, rallying, grasping at straws in an effort to justify herself. “It was revenge. It’s a fair exchange for when you burned my clothes.”

I was silent.

She wasn’t. “Don’t you agree? It makes sense, right?”

I didn’t answer, still just staring.

“Tell me that makes sense,” she ordered.

“That makes sense,” I repeated back obediently.

She was studying me like she thought I might be mad.

On the contrary. I was ec-fucking-static. There was only one reason a woman would do that.

She was jealous. Possessive. And there was only one reason she’d be either of those things.

She cared.

And she wasn’t hiding it from me. She was showing it to me.

I went to look in person at her fit of jealousy.

I studied the damage she’d done as she hovered behind me and made excuses.

I wasn’t listening to her right then, I was too busying having a rather profound revelation.

I wouldn’t miss one thing about that room. I hadn’t even been inside of it for months, but it was something I hadn’t realized until just that moment.

The sex room, the complicated positions, the parade of partners, the threesomes, all the kinky shit had been there for one reason, to disguise one thing.

I’d been nothing so much as bored. Sex with random women was boring. Had been boring for a very long time. That’s why I’d made it into a game. To get some sort of entertainment, something to replace the enjoyment I’d taken out of the robotic motions of getting off.

And now said unwanted room was a complete disaster, and it was making my day. “Did you have a book burning party in here, as well?” I asked her cheerfully.

“Maybe,” she said sullenly. “You don’t seem that upset,” she pointed out.

I turned and looked her dead in the eyes. Tried to. She was too short. I pulled her to the closest staircase and set her two steps up.

Hands on my hips, eye level now, I stared her down. “About time you showed some guts,” I said succinctly.

She exploded. “You’re right!” It was a shout. It was the first time I’d ever heard her yell.

Usually she just quietly verbally decimated me.

“You’re right.” Quieter now, the words coming out in a fast, passionate jumble. “I’ve been a coward. When I saw those messages, I was very, very hurt and so scared of being more hurt—scared that you were getting bored already, that you were going to end it with us, so I did it first. I thought it would hurt less that way, and I shut you out. I didn’t think I could hear you say those words to me and bear it—couldn’t bear to risk that. I’ve been turning my back on the risks. There are no guarantees.”

“I guarantee I’m better in bed than that virgin you’ve been dating,” I couldn’t help slipping in.

She giggled.