Page 70 of Daydream

“Your modesty is my favorite thing about you,” I tease. I sit up fully to get a view of the entire vision, and he really does look cute in pink.

“What’s the point of me being modest when I look good in everything I put on?” Taking a step toward me, he grips my knees to pull me to the edge of the bed, stepping between my legs. “I look good in nothing, too. I don’t think that’s something you want to find out when people will be arriving soon.”

It feels like a question and a confirmation that he understands me all in one.

“I would really like for you to prove your claim,” I challenge, immediately regretting my confidence when his hands drop to the waistband of his pants. Holding my hands out in front of me in some kind of dramatic protest, I squeak, “Just not today!”

“I know. I’m trying really hard to know, Halle. I’m paying attention to everything so I can get things right with you.” Henry takes my outstretched hands and links them at the back of his neck, getting even closer to me. He kisses my forehead, then the tip of my nose, before moving away enough for me to see his face fully. “Justbecause we did something once doesn’t mean we have to do it again or somewhere you’re not comfortable.”

“I know. Seriously, I do know that, and I understand the whole continuous consent thing. I just”—don’t know how to word this?—“haven’t had the experience of someone making me feel like this. The experience ofwantingthe experience is a new experience for me, y’know? So the nerves of not having experience but wanting it is taking up a lot of head space.”

Does he know? Do I even know? I definitely don’t know.

“All I got from that is I’m so great at giving you experiences that you’re having experiences on experiences on experiences. I want to understand you. Can you explain in a different way? Sometimes it’s hard for me to read between the lines. You’re better off just telling me directly.” I love that he cares so much about understanding me. “Maybe break it down into different points. Start with the first thing you said.”

I’m very aware that if I’m grown-up enough to want sex, I should be grown-up enough to talk about it, but boy do I want the ground to swallow me whole.

“I’ve never actively wanted someone the way I want you. I genuinely thought I was broken in some way for a really long time. I know I’m not, but that’s how I was made to feel, and it was hard to unlearn. So that’s the first new experience.”

“Will didn’t make you horny? But I do?” Henry says, a definite hint of smugness to his tone. “Your first new experience is horniness?”

Why did he have to word it like that? “Correct.”

“What’s next?”

“I’m also experiencing wanting to do something about wanting you. Things were good with me and Will for the first few weeks of our relationship—stop grimacing when I bring him up, please—but I still never had the urge to do anything further than kissing. I donow with you, but I also don’t know where the boundaries are. Like, what’s out-of-bounds for our friendship? The last time I started kissing my friend he became my boyfriend, and we both know how that turned out. I know you haven’t dated anyone, but what if the label is what made it go wrong? I kind of like having no expectations.”

“Where do you want our boundaries to be? What label will help you feel comfortable?” he asks so gently that I want to cry. He tries so hard with me when even I don’t know how to work out what I want. “I don’t not date because I have a problem with it. I’ve just never cared about labels, Halle. I just know I want you the way you want me. I’m good with doing whatever stops the noise in your head.”

“It’s cute that you think the noise in my head could ever be stopped,” I say playfully, attempting to lighten the very serious mood I’ve set in my attempt to explain myself. “But this brings me to my next experience, or inexperience, I guess.”

I should continue talking, but I don’t know how to word it. He nods, encouraging me. “Go on. I’m listening. I’m trying to understand.”

“I’m nervous, Henry. I don’t know what I’m doing, and what if I’m not good?” I say quietly. “I’m used to being a problem solver, and this is the one thing I don’t know how to solve in advance. You have experience and I don’t. What if you decide you want to hang out with someone who can have more than one sexual encounter without turning her thought process into a freaking riddle that has to be broken down into sections to be understood? I just said that I like having no expectations, while knowing if you came over one day and said you’d been with someone else it would hurt.”

“I’m glad you saved that one until last, because I wouldn’t have been able to pay attention to the rest. Why would I hook up with someone else?”

My eyes narrow. “I give you a touching and vulnerable speech and that’s all you got from it?”

“It’s the only thing you said that doesn’t make sense to me, Halle. I don’t want someone else. I haven’t been with someone in any capacity since I met you. I didn’t even realize that it’s because I wanted you the whole time until recently.”

“Yeah, but that might change. Will got tired of waiting for me to be ready an—”

“And Will is a prick,” he interrupts. “But go on.”

“And I don’t want to lose you as a friend if you want to be with someone less… I don’t know what I am. Apprehensive?”

Henry cups my face with his hands, his warm palms heating my skin. “I wish you spent as much time imagining things for your book as you do imagining things that aren’t going to happen in real life.”

“Henry!”

His thumbs glide across my cheeks. “Halle, have you ever considered being chill for five minutes?”

Luckily for him, he kisses me before I can argue, and his joke plus the tender way he touches me does a lot to ease the tension I’ve developed during this conversation. When his mouth eventually leaves mine, he hugs me tight. Something I didn’t even know I wanted until he did it.

Murmuring into my hair, he strokes the back of my head with one of his hands. “I might get to be the guy who gives you all your experience, Halle. That’s a big deal to me, too. I don’t want someone else with more experience; I want you. And if you decide I don’t get to be that guy, I’ll still be right here, trying to solve riddles to understand you so I can be your friend.”

“How do you manage to take all my bullshit and make it into something really sweet?”

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