Page 60 of Until You Found Me

“What is it?” She frowns. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine.” He is not fine. Doesn’t want to get undressed now. Doesn’t want to take his dick out to try and stroke it to attention andhe knowsthat he’d have to do that for any hope of success. The idea of her helping him through this makes it all worse.

“I just…I need…I’ll be back.”

He bolts from the room, leaving her on the bed, and aims for that bottle of blue pills that might help him through this like an addict looking for a fix. Maybe he just needs a jump start, that’s all.

His hands shake when he grabs the bottle, rattling them inside the plastic.

“We don’t have to tonight,” she says gently, taking the pills and putting them on the counter.

“But I can’t, and I could before and now I can’t again. Fuck, what if it’s permanent? What if I can’t get it back? Just one pill. Just one and I’ll be fine. Lemme do this for you. It’s worth it. You’re worth taking the whole bottle if I have to.”

“Logan, there’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need them. What’s down here..” she grazes below his belly button, then taps his temple with a gentle finger. “Is connected towhat’s up here, and that’s okay. It’s not a defect if you need to be in the right headspace for this. And to be clear, even if you did need the pills, that would be okay too. I just think we should give this a fair try without them first.”

“My dick right now says you’re wrong. Couldn’t do anything if I tried. Is that what you want? You wanna be with someone that can’t get it up half the time?”

He isn’t angry with her, but his voice has a tattered edge to it that he wants to take back.

“I’d be with you even if you lost your dick in a boating accident,” she says evenly.

He hisses between his teeth at that mental image.

“Now that I’ve got your attention, I think you’ve had a really rough night and seeing her again has been stressful. Doesn’t mean it’s permanent. Doesn’t mean anything about us. If I saw my ex again, I couldn’t be with you right now either. So, you know, be ready for that if or when he finally shows up.”

Logan sighs, exhaling hard and meeting her eyes with a reluctant, vulnerable stare. “You were right. What you said about her before, what she did…how she…even when I didn’t want to. You were right.”

“I wish that I wasn’t. There’s no wrong way to deal with this, okay?”

“Even if dealing with it affects us?”

“Even if, but it won’t affect us.”

He isn’t so sure. It’s difficult to believe when he knows just how easily lack of sex can spiral things downhill. He trusts her, though, and his tongue still works just fine, so maybe he can please her in other ways if he has to.

“Is it terrible that I wish I could have tossed her head first into the ice rink?” Tessa continues. “What she said, my god,how can anyone be that terrible?”

“About whatI said…”

A warm smile lights up her face. “You mean that I’m your Tessa?”

“Yeah, but more the girlfriend part. Shouldn’t have thrown that out there outta the blue. Said it before we even talked about that kinda stuff, running my mouth.”

“Do you want it to be true?”

He nods.

“Good, because I hoped I already was. I liked hearing you say it.” She pauses, mischief in her eyes. “Though I gotta say, we’re both too old for those kind of words. Girlfriend, boyfriend.”

“What should I call you then?”

“I dunno, your significant other? That has a fancy ring to it. Or maybe your lady friend? That sounds like we’re ninety years old at least. Oh, I know, your penguin.”

“My penguin?”

“Mhmm. They’re romantic birds. They mate for life. Is that too deep for this conversation? You can call me your little sparrow. Those are promiscuous birds.”

He snorts. “Let’s go with penguin.”

---