The apartment was too quiet without Dan.
Dan had texted earlier saying he was busy with work and wouldn’t make it over. For the first time in weeks, it was just Lin and me. No groceries delivered like a peace offering. No deep voice filling the living room. No convenient excuse walking around in sweatpants.
We tried to act normal. Leftover Chinese on the coffee table, cheap wine in our usual jelly jars, some mindless reality show playing low on the TV. Lin was folding laundry on the couch while I pretended to scroll through my phone. But I couldn’t stop noticing everything. Her hair fell across her shoulder when she reached for another shirt, exposing the faint mark Dan had left near her collarbone.
My eyes had become deeply fucking unprofessional around her.
Lin broke the silence first, folding one of my T-shirts with casual familiarity. “You got pretty bold the other day.”
My thumb stopped moving over the phone screen. I kept my eyes on it. “You didn’t seem to mind.”
“I didn’t.” She set the shirt down and looked at me. “You weren’t really watching him, though. Were you?”
I laughed too quickly. “Of course I was. It’s not like I suddenly…”
“Be honest now,” she said quietly.
I set my phone down. Lin watched me without smiling, waiting for me to lie again.
I didn’t know how to say it out loud. What happened the other day had stopped feeling like competition. I kept thinking about her shaking under my mouth and wondering whether she would sound the same without Dan there.
I closed my eyes because apparently that was easier than answering. Lin kissed me slowly before I could invent another lie. No performance, no Dan watching, no competition. Just her soft lips and the faint taste of cheap red wine on her tongue. Lin cupped the side of my face and kept me there.
She pulled me toward the bedroom without a word. Clothes came off in a clumsy trail. My hoodie got stuck around one wrist, her tank top landed by the door, and somewhere between the couch and the bed we both ended up naked. I was nervous in a way I’d never been with Dan. With him I knew the script. Here I felt like a complete amateur again, hands fumbling, trying too hard to be good.
She pulled my arm and we fell onto the bed, laughing nervously. She touched my hair, bit my ear, pinched my nipple hard enough that I gave a real little gasp this time. I smiled back while every useful thought left my head.
I kissed down her neck to her chest, circling her nipple with my tongue before sucking it into my mouth. The gasp she gave me was real enough to wipe the smile off my face. I moved lower, kissing her stomach, her hipbones, until I settled between her legs.
Lin threaded her fingers through my hair but did not guide me. She just waited. I licked her slowly at first, dragging my tongue through her folds, tasting how wet she already was. She tasted different without Dan mixed into her. Just Lin this time. I did it again, firmer, and felt her hips twitch.
“There,” I heard her whisper when I found her clit. So I stayed there, licking slow circles, then sucking gently. Her thighs started trembling around my head. I pushed two fingers inside her, curling them the way I knew she liked from last time.
It wasn’t loud or frantic like when Dan was fucking her. It was quieter. Just her soft moans and the way she kept whispering my name, as if she needed to remind herself who was doing it.
When she came, she shuddered hard, thighs clamping around my ears, one hand fisting the sheets. I kept licking her through it until she gently pushed my head away, oversensitive and breathing hard.
I crawled back up her body. She pulled me down immediately and kissed me, tasting herself on my tongue. We stayed wrapped around each other. No one else in the apartment. No one to blame it on.
Lin dragged one fingertip back and forth across my shoulder blade. “This doesn’t change anything, right?” she murmured.
I swallowed. “No. We’re still good.”
My voice did not sound as certain as I wanted it to.
If she heard it, she did not call it out. She only kissed me again, slow and deep, and I felt safe.
Lin started to drift, her breathing evening out against my neck. I whispered it so quietly I could pretend it was only a thought.
“I love you.”
She did not answer. I did not know if I wanted her to.
We fell asleep like that, naked, wrapped around each other in her bed. For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t waiting for a text from Dan. I wasn’t wondering when he’d show up or who he’d finish with.
Dan had not been the problem.
Fuck.