He's starting to think it's love.

Despite the fact that Amy had more or less offered to be my sexual tutor the next time her dad was away from home, I didn’t take her up on it. Amy was beautiful beyond words, but I didn’t want to do anything without Stephanie there too. After all, she and I were in love, right?

Right?

Stephanie and I taught each other a lot in those two weeks, and, as the days zipped by in a haze of excitement and discovery, I let my guard down. I started thinking of Stephanie as mine alone. I should have known better, especially after she and I were so clear about establishing our ground rules at the outset, but I was so damn happy, I just assumed those rules had gone out the window. After all, we’d really had sex! That sure hadn’t been part of the plan.

There was a park near Stephanie’s house where we’d found we could get relative privacy at night. As per our usual routine, we snuck out there, found a nice dark spot away from prying eyes, and laid down in each other’s arms. But as I began kissing her, I noticed that Stephanie’s heart just wasn’t in it tonight. She kissed me back, but it was robotic; distracted.

I should have stopped right there and asked her what was wrong, but I was too horny to stop. Instead of talking to her, I tried even harder to get Stephanie in the mood, teasing her trigger points with my tongue and fingers. But that just made things worse. After only a few minutes, Stephanie calmly instructed me that she wanted to go home, and so we did.

I did my best to dismiss my rising panic during our quiet walk home: Stephanie isn’t having second thoughts. Things are going great! Why, just last night she was all over me. So she’s in a weird mood tonight, it happens. Nothing to worry about. We’ll talk it through.

The next day, she dumped me. Well, not “dumped” exactly. We had never technically been a real couple. But between first and second period, she met me by my locker and apologized for her cryptic behavior at the park.

“I wanted to tell you something last night, but you were all over me and it just wasn’t the right time.”

My gut clenched. “Tell me what, Stephanie?”

“Remember how we said we’d have to stop if either of us started dating someone? Well, I never told you, but I’ve always had this really huge crush on Simon, and yesterday he asked me if I would go out with him.”

My blood ran cold. “What was your answer?”

“I said yes. I know it kind of sucks for you, but I had to say yes. I really like him. Not that I don’t like you, but I LIKE him, you know? Anyway, I don’t think you and I can keep fooling around anymore, it wouldn’t be fair to him.”

But… But…

My eyes felt heavy in their sockets. I think my mouth did some sort of involuntary, sad little twitch.

“No!” Stephanie exclaimed upon seeing my reaction, “Please don’t take it that way! You’ve been perfect to me, you really have! But you and I are just friends, and I want to have a guy in my life who’s more than that.”

“I could be more than that,” I whispered. Stephanie gave me a hug and reluctantly shook her head.

“That’s not how I feel, Ian.”