“Drink!” Trey shouts at Jordan, like he’s smack-talking him. Then he raises both arms over his head, victorious. “I am the only one whose feet are pure.”

I laugh as Matt Nathanson blares from my iPod. Kristen and I picked the music for the game and we love Matt Nathanson. He is sex in musical form.

Kristen is running at full buzz, and both Jordan and Trey are chasing their own intoxication. We’re down to one beer left from the two six-packs in the fridge.

“I’ve never had a threesome,” Kristen blurts out. She scans the rest of us quickly, first me, and I shake my head, then Jordan does the same. She stares at Trey, asking the question silently. He has a guilty look in his eyes. He shrugs and takes a drink.

My face burns. Jealousy slithers through me. It crawls and wraps around my internal organs as Jordan high-fives his friend. “Dude. Why have you never told me that before?”

Trey shrugs and laughs. “I guess I wasn’t drunk enough before,” he says, moving on easily. Making me wonder if that’s how he was with his women. Switching on and off. Seamlessly jumping from one to another. Or to three. “Never have I ever given a blow job,” Trey offers next, looking awfully proud of himself. Then he taps his chest. “I, obviously, have not.”

Jordan bangs his beer down emphatically on the coffee table. “Never have. Never will.”

Kristen rolls her eyes. “Plenty,” she says in a deliberately seductive voice. “And I’ve been told my blow jobs are quite spectacular.”

Jordan blinks, intrigued and then some. He grabs the neck of his bottle. “I have to drink just because that was a crazy hot thing to say.”

Kristen turns to me and eyes my Diet Coke. “C’mon. Drink up, bitch.”

I shake my head. “I don’t meet the qualifications.”

“For real? You have never given a blow job?”

Another shake. I run my index finger once across my lips as if I’m zipping them up. “These lips are pure, baby,” I say playfully.

“How does that happen?”

“Just happens.”

“No. Seriously,” she presses, and now I don’t feel so playful anymore.

“Just never have,” I say evasively. I could lie. I mean, who doesn’t lie in this game? But then, I’m kind of proud of not having blown a guy. Not like it’s some huge accomplishment. But I’m only admitting the truth for me. Because I’m glad I didn’t put any of my client’s dicks in my mouth. I drew some lines, and so I don’t take a drink.

I’ve done so much but yet I’ve done so little.

Kristen waggles her empty bottle. “So sad. No more beer.”

“Want me to get more?” Jordan offers.

“Hell yeah.” Kristen says. “I’ll go with you.”

She hops up from the couch, ready for more, and they head out.

“I guess his love for action flicks and hers for art house movies didn’t get in the way of their shared love of beer and drinking games,” I say.

“Evidently, they found common ground.” Then he yawns. “I should go,” he mumbles, but he shows no signs of leaving. Instead, he sinks deeper into the couch, and his eyelids start to flutter. I glance at my phone. It’s past midnight.

“Do you want to stay?”

He smiles weakly. “I’m so fucking tired,” he says and then he goes horizontal on the couch.

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

“I’m fine.”

“No. I want to.” I head for my room, grab a blanket and bring it to the living room where he’s already stretched out. He’s untying his shoes, kicking them off, and I dim the light.

“Are you going to tuck me in?”

I stick out my tongue. “No.”

“C’mon. Read me a bedtime story.”

“Three little kittens lost their mittens,” I begin, and he smiles. A sweet, warm, happy smile that erases the faint traces of annoyance I felt moments ago in the game. My phone lights up and I grab it from the coffee table, swiping the screen. I read Kristen’s message. “Hungry. Stopping at Wendy’s Diner for fries and burger. Want anything?”

I write back: No thanks.

I drape the blanket over Trey, but he pushes it down to his waist.

“It’s hot. Can I take off my shirt?”

“You don’t need my permission.”

He raises an arm behind his back and tugs in one swift motion. He’s shirtless, and he hasn’t been since the night we were together. My breath catches. Even in the dark, I can make out the outline of his chest, solid and strong, his arms, all muscled and corded and covered in tats.

Reflexively, I lick my lips.

“Lie down with me,” he whispers. He sounds sleepy drunk and sexy, and the invitation is far too inviting to pass by.

I slide in next to him, so he’s spooning me, and it’s innocent, I suppose, or I’m letting myself pretend this is an extension of the hand holding and the hugging and the sock removing. Right? We are simply two friends sharing a small couch, but then he wraps his arm around me, sighs happily, and exhales against my neck. A strand of my hair flutters.

“Harley,” he sighs, but it’s not a question. More a statement, an expression, and there’s some kind of wonder, happiness in it that I want to let myself believe in, that I want to cocoon in and hold in my hands, a fragile glass globe that could break. But yet, I’m pretty sure it’s the Silver Bullet talking when he whispers, “This is so nice.”

“You’re drunk.”

I feel him shrug against me. “Maybe a little.”

“Maybe a lot,” I counter.

“So then you won’t get mad in the morning when I ask you about this. Have you really never given a blow job?”

I roll my eyes, even though it’s dark, even though he’s snug behind me and can’t see my eyes. “No. I told you that.” I tense up. “Why?”

“Did you ever want to?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

I laugh. “You offering yourself?”

He laughs too, and I can feel his breath against my neck. There’s a faint smell of beer, but it’s mingled with him, and I have the sudden urge to taste beer now for the first time. On his lips. “Anytime,” he says softly, but that’s all. There’s no innuendo in his voice. Nothing more than a continuation of the game in some ways.

I push against his arm playfully. “And how the hell did you have a threesome, king of the studs?”

“Two ladies.”

“Yeah. I kinda figured it was two ladies,” I say. Then in a more serious, searching tone. “Was it good?”

I’m not even sure why I’m asking. It’s like I’m picking at a scab, hunting for a wound, so I can worry away at it.

“I barely remember it,” he says in a sleepy voice. A warm breeze blows through the open window, carrying with it the faraway sounds of cars and cabs on late night Manhattan streets. Somewhere, Jordan and Kristen are out there having fries. In here, I feel as if we are the only two people in the world. In the dark, hushed voices, whispering about our pasts.

“But you remember you had two at once,” I point out.

“Yeah and that’s it,” he says, and loops his arm tighter around my waist. I inhale sharply at the closeness. More, tighter, closer. He’s bringing me nearer to him, his jeans against mine, his bare chest against my shirt, his breath on my neck, and now, there, his hand on my belly. Then, slinking under the bottom of my shirt, inching its way to my stomach.

I gasp quietly as his fingertips reach my bare skin.

“But there’s this other girl and I remember everything about her,” he says, and in an instant, all I see, all I feel are his words. They have their own heartbeat and pulse, a living being, surrounding me.

He traces lazy fingers across my stomach, and I want this feeling to last forever because it’s so out-of-this-world intense. I swear my body is sliding into another plane of existence, some realm of pleasure I’ve never allowed before, as feelings spill over – want, desire, fear all wrapped up in a messy package, without a bow.

I close my eyes and revel in the sensations zooming and racing through my blood and veins and body at the slightest touch of his fingertips on my belly. I want so badly for him to touch me more, and I am so scared of what will happen if he does. I don’t know how it would feel. But that’s not true. I do know. Because he’s made me feel this way before, and now he’s doing it again.

And I don’t know what it means. If it means we’re something, or we’re nothing, or we are just this moment. We are the here and now.

“You do?” I ask.

He nods against me, his lips practically brushing my neck in a sweet kiss. Not quite, but almost. “I remember the way she smelled so sexy and sweet,” he begins, and my heart stops, and then speeds up, and I don’t know if I can breathe. He plays with a strand of my hair, running it through his fingers, then leaning his head into my hair, inhaling me. Everything inside of me is burning with a tingling heat, and butterflies I’ve barely known. I never felt a thing for my clients. Not one iota of a flutter, a wish, a hope. With Trey, that is literally all I feel. As if my body is glowing, like a firefly, and I am flickering with every second of contact, or even merely the promise of contact. The possibility. Just the slightest touch from him is the sweetest escape. “And the sounds she made,” he continues, and I feel my cheeks flush, but still I’m dying for more, so I have to ask.

“What did she sound like?”

He sighs happily, and buzzes his lips against my earlobe. “Like no one had ever made her feel that way before.”

“No one had,” I say, and he spreads his fingers across my stomach. I shiver and my breath hitches.

“Like that,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his words. “That was how she sounded when I touched her.”

He draws circles on my flesh, lazy lines across my belly, and I can’t help it. I am beyond turned on, I am floating on a cloud of lust and wishes and wanting, and so I wriggle against him, feeling how hard he is against my backside.