Page 61 of The Sugar Maple Inn

Well, this is embarrassing.

“You okay?” Reese asked, pulling back to look at her.

She laughed. “Fine, I’m just…I forgot it could feel like that. It’s been a long time since…well, you know,” she said, gesturing down at herself. “Since I came with someone else in the room,” she whispered, like whispering it made it less intimate.

Something shifted in his expression. Softened. “How long?”

Grace did the math. The depressing, slightly horrifying math. “Twelve years, I guess.”

“Twelve—” Reese looked stunned. “Christ, Grace.”

“Bet it’s been, like, twelve days for you.”

He didn’t answer.

She laughed again, because what else could she do? “Pathetic, right?”

“No.” He kissed her, soft and gentle. “Not pathetic. Amazing, actually. I felt it. How long it’s been and it just made it all the more…” He gave a chef’s kiss and she laughed again, not with embarrassment this time.

“It’s not even really about the…orgasm,” she said, the word strange on her tongue.

“Oh. That’s a shame.”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean, it was incredible. Obviously. But it’s more than that.”

“Tell me.”

Grace stared at the ceiling beams, searching for words. “When you’re a single mom, your pleasure comes second. Third. Fourth. Maybe never. Hell, when you’re a parent full stop. There’s always something more important. Zach needs new soccer stuff. The café needs you for an extra shift. Your mom needs help with inventory. The electricity bill is overdue. The car needs an oil change. There’s always something.”

Reese’s hand traced patterns on her thigh. Patient. Listening.

“And even when people try—” Grace continued. “Like my friend Sophie dragging me to yoga classes or my mom paying for a massage for my birthday. I can’t just…let go. Can’t just be present. I’m sitting there in downward dog thinking about whether I turned off the stove. I’m on the massage table making mental grocery lists. There’s always this part of me that’s holding back, kept in reserve, ready to jump into action the second someone needs something.”

“But not just now.”

“Not just now.” Grace’s voice went quiet. “There’s literally nothing I can do, even if I do need to do something.”

“Ah, so it’s the being trapped in the tower thing,” Reese said with a raised eyebrow. “Not my fingers, my tongue…”

She swatted him again. “It is you. The way you made me just…feel. And I didn’t know I could still do that. Hell, didn’t know I was allowed.”

Reese was quiet for a moment. Then: “You’re allowed, Grace. You’re always allowed.”

“Am I, though?” She looked up at him. “Because from where I’m sitting, taking something for myself—wanting something just because I want it, not because it’s practical or responsible or good for Zach—that feels selfish. It feels wrong and when this fantasy is over,” she said, gesturing around here, “I’m back to being No Feel Grace again.”

Reese actually looked sad then. Or bored. She couldn’t tell. God, she bet he was bored.

She laughed bitterly. “Listen to me. You just did amazing things with your tongue and I’m having an existential crisis about self-care.”

“Grace.”

Something in his tone made her look at him properly.

“What you just did?” Reese said. “Letting yourself feel something without guilt or reservation? That’s not selfish. That’s survival. You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

Grace snorted. “Did you just quote a motivational poster at me?”

“My mom says it. Usually right before she tells me I work too much.” He smiled. “Point stands, though. You spend all your time taking care of everyone else. Who takes care of you? When was the last time you did something just because you wanted to? Not for Zach, not for the café, not because someone guilted you into it. Just because it made you happy.”