The easiness of the night before evaporated by Friday morning. Kai wasn't mad per say, but he wasn't much of anything really. He didn't talk to me in the greenroom or sit by me in class. When I joined a conversation, he left it. I was a habit, and he appeared to be quitting cold turkey.

Lisa's gentle smile in Senior Prep helped. We'd commandeered the computers in the Design lab for the day to do post-grad research. Some were researching graduate schools, others scouring for internships. Irene was looking at airline tickets and hostels in random cities around the world.

I was looking at the search engine homepage.

Hands curled around the back of my chair, and Lisa's body leaned in close to mine. The proximity was altogether distracting.

"What are you thinking, Jennie?"

I should have said, you. Naked. That would have shocked her. Not that I was actually thinking of her naked… well, now that I mentioned it I was… damn.

Like I said, distracting.

I shook my head, because I didn't have an answer, not one I could say out loud. She stepped around me and leaned on the table, looking at me.

"Acting or Stage Management?" The gaze she fixed on me felt too personal in this room full of my classmates, even if none of them were looking, well, other than Irene. She watched pretty much any time Lisa talked to me, which reminded me that we had to be careful.

"I don't know," I muttered.

"Okay, well what about a city? You can start looking at apartments. That's certainly something you've got to think about, especially if you're going to New York."

I stared at the search engine box. It was taunting me.

"I can't afford New York," I told her.

"That's okay. Most people can't. There are plenty of regional markets to consider. Philadelphia." I jerked around to face her. Was she telling me to look at Philadelphia? Where she lived? Was she trying to tell me something or was I reading too far into this. Her face was blank as she continued, "Dallas and Houston both have a fair amount of work. Chicago. Seattle. Boston. D.C. There's plenty to choose from, actually." I turned back toward my computer, my heart still beating a little too fast. I was definitely reading into this. It wasn't like we were serious. We'd spent the evening cuddled on my couch. That didn't mean we were together or that I was ready to move halfway across the country with her.

"Just explore. Look up something," She said before leaving me to continue walking around the room.

I placed my fingers on the keys, but they felt like lead, too weighted to move. I stared at the key with the letter 'P.' I could see Irene watching me out of the corner of my eye, and as curious as I was now about Philadelphia, I typed 'Stage Management Internships' into the search engine.

Then I clicked from webpage to webpage, watching the clock in the corner of my screen, willing the numbers to change faster.

When class was over, my relief was short-lived.

The cast list had been posted.

I was still Phaedra, which was good. How embarrassing would it have been if Jimin had changed his mind? Irene got Aphrodite like she wanted. V did get a soldier, just like he'd predicted.

And Kai was Hippolytus.

I knocked on Lisa's door that evening, nervous despite our agreement to take things slow. We hadn't really talked about doing anything tonight, and despite our tenuous relationship, we'd yet to exchange numbers. So, I hoped I wasn't being needy by seeking her out a second night in a row. Hamlet, definitely, was glad to have me out of the apartment. We still weren't coexisting very well.

My worry eased when she opened the door and said, "Oh thank God. I've been thinking about coming round to your place for over an hour, but I was afraid I'd knock on the door and you'd have people over or something."

I laughed.

"Maybe we should actually exchange numbers then."

She said, "Are you going to put me in your phone under some secret code name so that no one knows who I am when I text you dirty things?"

My eyes widened. "Are you planning to text me dirty things?"

Her eyes danced with amusement and that blinding grin was back on her face. "I'm not ruling it out."

Oh. Oh. My nerves shot back up.

She took my hand, and pulled me into her living room where a book was open on her sofa. It was poetry, of course, because she was perfect, and woefully out of my league. She marked her page, and placed the collection on top of a pile of books at the edge of the sofa.

She reached and laced our fingers together in the space between us. I wanted to lean into her, wrap myself around her, and not move from her arms until I had to, but I still felt awkward. Were we in that place yet where we could just do that? Or did we have to work our way up to it?

"So… Cast list?" She asked.

I groaned and leaned my head back against her couch.

"It's not that bad, is it?"

"That depends on whether or not Kai is speaking to me by the time rehearsal rolls around in two weeks."

I didn't have to worry about easing into it, because Lisa had no qualms about pulling me to her. My head fit perfectly onto the curve of her shoulder.

"Kai seems like a reasonable guy. I'm sure after a while to process everything, he'll be better."

I nodded, hoping she was right, but not feeling confident. Kai was reasonable. Trouble was… reason probably told him to stay the hell away from me if he didn't want his heart stomped on. And maybe that would be for the best.

He deserved someone better.

"All right," Lisa said. "Enough about that. I don't like that sad look on your face. Unfortunately our options for the evening are limited, since we can't actually go anywhere. So how about a movie?"

I pulled a smile onto my face. When she smiled back it took less effort to hold it there. "A movie sounds good."

She picked something funny, probably in an effort to cheer me up. Then she flicked off the lights, and joined me again on the couch. As the opening credits began, She leaned back, pulling me with her. She was stretched out on her back, and I was on my side, fitted between her and the back of the couch. I hesitated a moment before laying my head against her chest.

I tried to watch the movie, I really did, but it was hard to concentrate with her steady, even breaths ruffling my hair, and her hand tracing up and down my spine. It was somewhere between ticklish and seductive. I was hyper aware of the way every once and a while, her finger would continue a little farther down my back, until she barely touched the stretch of skin between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my shorts. She would stay there for only the barest of seconds before returning up my back. Then her finger danced up to the sensitive skin at the back of my neck, and I had to hold back a moan. I glanced up at her quickly, but she was focused on the movie, completely unaware of the madness she was driving me to.

Finally, I decided it was time for her to get a dose of what I was feeling. I uncurled the fist I had resting on her chest, pressing my fingertips ever so slightly into her chest. I started by tracing the abstract design on her t-shirt, something from a band, I think. But once I'd done that I kept trailing my hands across her chest, across the curve of one pec, down the sternum to her ridged stomach, back up her chest to the muscles stretching from her shoulder to her bicep. When my hand took one of her moves, barely tracing along the hem of her t-shirt, her hand on my back stilled.

Somehow, the stillness set me even more on edge.

Feeling a little brave, I went back to the hem, pushing my fingers up and under her shirt, using my fingernails to draw the barest of touches across her skin. The hand on my back moved, sliding up past my neck and into my hair. I flattened my hand, pressing my palm against her warm skin. The hand in my hair tightened, not enough to hurt, but just enough so that she could use it to tilt my head backward slightly.

She gazed at me, no trace of teasing grin, her blue eyes appearing black in the darkened room. Her eyes danced around my face, flicking most frequently between my eyes and my lips. The anticipation was killing me, and I dug my fingers into her skin. Her breathing wasn't so steady anymore, but she still only looked at me. I licked my lips, and her gaze stayed there longer, so long that heat was pooling between my legs just because of the anticipation alone, and I squirmed trying to relieve the pressure.

When I lifted one of my legs, curling it around her own, finally, she took action.

The hand in my hair pulled me forward, and she met me halfway.

All of the anticipation of the last ten minutes focused into the point where our lips met. The connection was too small to bring to mind fireworks, but it was something close, like the excitement of holding a sparkler— the rush of feeling the sparks creep closer to your hand.

Her mouth stayed closed, and even though I'd tasted her several times before, the mystery was killing me.

It felt like a first kiss.

She pulled back, and pressed her forehead against mine.

"Thank you," she said.

Thank you? Was that like a thanks, but no thanks? Thanks, but I'm watching a movie, leave me alone?

"For?"

"For giving this a chance. I know you were, probably are, afraid. But you've made my life immensely better already."

I don't know if it was being an actor that made her so honest, so unafraid of being vulnerable, or if it was just who she was. I wished I could do the same, but that wasn't who I was.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Her hand in my hair trailed across my jaw.

"Of course," she answered.

"Why did you take this job? Not that I'm not glad you are here, but you said yourself you were miserable."

"I was…not anymore." She leaned back in and kissed me again, humming as she pressed her lips against mine. It did not slip my notice that she hadn't answered my question, but I didn't care enough about the answer to stop kissing her, especially when her mouth finally opened, and I tasted sweet and mint and her breath mixed with mine.

Her tongue slid against mine, and my hand beneath her shirt came back to life, curling around her side, pulling closer until my pelvis pressed into her hip. The kiss was leisurely and divine, but too slow, slow, slow.

I wanted more. I wanted our bodies flush, I wanted our lips crushed together, not softly teasing. I didn't want to lose the contact with her skin, but I wanted to take control. My other hand was trapped beneath me, propping me up on my side. So I slipped my hand out of her shirt, and placed it on her face instead. I pulled her closer, trying to change the pace.

She allowed it for a moment, our lips moving faster, breath escaping as our heads tilted and our mouths battled. And God, it was good. I kept pulling, not satisfied, not close enough, until she angled up and rolled onto her side to face me. A sigh of success escaped me, then she took the hand I had on her face, and pulled it away, away, until it was trapped behind me, held there, pressed into my lower back by her hand.

Then again, she leaned back, changing the pace, brushing against my lips, slowly, softly. It was maddening. I tried leaning into her, but she held strong, pinning me back, taking her time. I groaned in frustration.

And she smiled.

"What is it, love?"

Any number of words could have come out of my mouth, some of them incoherent, most of them not very nice. Luckily, the ones I managed were exactly what I meant.

"Too slow," I whined.

I was actually whining.

"I told you I could do slow," She said.

"You jerk." That was actually one of the nicer words going through my head. She didn't even have the decency to be worried. She just laughed. I squirmed, trying to pull my arm free, and she appeased me with a kiss, this one a little harder, a little more satisfying than the last. And just when I was forgetting why I'd been so frustrated before, she pulled back again.

It was absurd, but I actually felt like I might cry. Her lips trailed along my jaw to that spot below my ear that made every taut muscle in my body go limp.

"I wasn't trying to be smart," she whispered. "I'm trying to give you what you want. It's hard when I let myself go, when I kiss you how I want to. Because all I can think about then is how your skin tastes, and how much I want to taste it again." Her mouth burned against my neck. Her teeth grazed against me, and on impulse, my hips surged forward, just barely making contact with her. She groaned in response, her whispers turning gruff, losing their softness. "I remember the weight of your breast in my hand, and the way you reacted to my fingers inside you." I bit my lip against the whimper building in my throat. I wanted her hands on me. I wanted our clothes off. "I think about having your body beneath me. I think about being inside you. I think about it, and it consumes me. And going slow is the very last thing to cross my mind."

I lost it. I couldn't hold in the whimper, and I felt like I was going to fall apart from her words alone.

"So, I have to kiss you slowly. Unless you've changed your mind. Have you? Changed your mind?"

YES! Please, oh God, yes.

This was like torture.

But reason unfurled in the back of my mind, taking over, keeping me grounded. What if we tried to have sex and I chickened out again and I ruined everything?

"No, I haven't changed my mind," I said. Then added, "You jerk," because that was torture, and by the smile on her face, she knew it.

"Hmmm… then slow it is."