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“Yes.”

“Not tonight.”

“No.”

Her shoulders drop a little, as if she expected me to push and is relieved when I don’t.

I cross the room slowly. She watches me come closer, and whatever is left of the conversation fades into something more immediate. Not solved. Not forgotten. Just set aside because we’re both still here, and because sometimes wanting is the only honest thing in the room.

“You brought Chinese food,” she says when I stop in front of her.

“You said noodles.”

“That wasn’t an invitation.”

“I know.”

“You met my brother.”

“Yes.”

“You played video games with him.”

“I won.”

“You lost twice first.”

“I was learning.”

She laughs under her breath.

I touch her waist, and the sound stops. For a moment, I only hold her there, giving her time to pull away if she wants to. She doesn’t. Her hand comes to my chest, and the contact is light, but it’s enough.

“Tell me to stop,” I say.

She looks up at me. “I don’t want you to stop.”

That’s all I need.

I kiss her in the quiet apartment, with the smell of Chinese food still in the air and her brother’s game paused on the screen behind us. It should feel ridiculous. It doesn’t. It feels inevitable in the way things sometimes do after too many near-misses.

She comes with me when I guide her back toward the kitchen.

At the counter, I pause again, and she gives me an impatient look that is so Maggie that I kiss her nose instinctively.

“Dalton.”

“Maggie,” I say, because I need her to hear me before this goes any further.

Her eyes lift to mine, dark and bright and irritated in the way she gets when she knows I’m about to be careful. “If you ask me if I’m sure, I’m going to scream.”

“That would answer the question.”

Her mouth opens, probably to insult me, so I kiss her again and take the words from her. She makes a sound against me, half laugh, half surrender, and then her hands are in my hair, pulling me closer with enough force to tell me she’s done with conversation.

I lift her onto the counter, and she wraps her legs around my waist before I have both hands free. The hem of her dress rides up her thighs, and my hand moves there first, under soft fabric, over warm skin. She shivers hard enough that I feel it through my fingers.

“You’re sensitive,” I murmur.