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Charm releases an unsteady breath.

“Are you still wearing my name?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Keep it on.”

“I planned to sleep in it.”

Possession settles into my chest with enough force to make me close my eyes.

“Call me again,” she says.

“When?”

“Sunday.”

“What time?”

“Nine my time.”

“You remembered the difference.”

“I know where you are, Ryan.”

“I know.”

The pleasure slowly leaves my body, exposing everything it allowed us to ignore while we used each other’s voices to cross four hundred miles. Tonight proved how easily our bodies can convince us distance has disappeared. It also proves how dangerous that ease could become.

“We can’t do this again,” Charm says.

My muscles tighten. “You regret it?”

“No.” Her answer comes quickly enough to stop the question from opening another wound. “I don’t regret answering, and I don’t regret anything we did. We needed to get the edge off before it cut through both of us.”

“Then why can’t we do it again?”

“Because sex is the one place we have never been broken.”

The truth settles over the room.

Our bodies don’t remember the study, her father, my broken hand, or every promise that collapsed beneath fear. Desire reaches for her without asking whether I trust her, and hers answers without requiring proof that I’m safe.

“That’s why this felt easy,” she continues. “We could do it every Sunday, tell ourselves we’re getting closer, and never notice that we’re hiding inside the only part of us that never needed to be repaired.”

“You think tonight was hiding?”

“I think tonight was honest. Repeating it could become hiding.”

The difference is small enough to miss and important enough to destroy us if we do.

“So this was a one-time release.”

“This was us admitting we still need each other without pretending need is the same thing as trust.”

“No more phone sex,” I say.

“No more phone sex.”