It’s been one week since Joey and I had sex, and we’re going to the movies....with Jack, George, and Jen. We haven’t been together since the first time. We haven’t even discussed it yet. Actually that’s not true. We did discuss it. Well, I tried to. The next afternoon I asked her if she was alright. She told me she was a little sore, but otherwise okay. I don’t want to sound like an ass but I was hoping for some after sex praise. Something that let me know she wasn’t pulling a “When Harry Met Sally” on me. Nothing. No comments. No suggestions. No desire to do it again. She was busy with school and work and things all week. Things. She might as well have told me she was “washing her hair.” I’m trying not to be paranoid, but how can I help it? She’s had me and she doesn’t want me anymore. Jo doesn’t want me. Before heading out of my room to pick her up I check my reflection in the mirror. I twirl a finger through the curls near my ears. Maybe I need a haircut? I pull up my blue cotton t-shirt, her favorite, and inspect my stomach. Okay, so I’m not really all that muscle-bound. And there’s still a little baby fat around my middle. I’m only eighteen. What the hell did she expect?

More. The answer is crystal clear. She expected more. We should have waited. Until I could get some candles, rose petals on the bed. Fancier boxers, silk sheets. Until I could get better endowed. Maybe I should head to the gym? Would that help? I sigh and hit my head against the front door a few times. Then I crumple to the ground and wait for the pounding in my head to stop.

I go over that night in my head for the thousandth time. Her, naked and wet. Me touching her. The feel of her hands on my skin. I felt her shake beneath me, the rush of her orgasm over my cock, the smile on her face, the small sigh and moans coming from the back of her throat. I’ve never felt that good with someone before. Never. How could I be wrong? But....she didn’t say anything. And she hasn’t made a move toward me since.

I think about waking up the next morning with her in my arms, how she was already awake. She was staring up at me, her head on my chest. She kissed me, my heart. She smiled. She held on tighter. “Morning Jo.”

“Pace,” she breathed. I ran my hands through her soft hair. “You’re so beautiful when you sleep.”

I blushed at the sudden compliment and laughed a little. “They named it ‘beauty sleep’ just for me.” The joke wasn’t very good, but I was nervous.

“Sure Pacey,” Joey said, shifting slightly and moving up to kiss me on the lips. Her tongue traced a familiar pattern into my mouth. And then we spent rest of the morning sleeping and holding each other.

So I shouldn’t be worried. The fact that she slipped out of my house when Gretchen came home with barely a goodbye was just embarrassment, worry we’d get a lecture. From Gretchen? My insecurity nags at me. The fact that she didn’t touch me the whole week, the fact that she invited Jack, Jen, and George on our date....it’s nothing. Nothing. She’s been slipping out of my arms all week. I feel so cold when she’s not in them.

I catch my reflection in a mirrored picture of “Kermit the Frog” Gretchen insisted on putting on our already oddly decorated walls. I look pathetic, holding my knees to my chest, my hair mussed up from the many attempts to style it to Joey’s liking. I look like...like, like I’m going to be late picking her up. I check my watch. By a good fifteen minutes. Damn. One more glance at myself in Kermit and I wonder what I’m waiting for. Grabbing my coat, I know. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.