First Time

It started with another almost.

Three days after the power outage, the apartment had settled back into its fragile rhythm of careful glances and unfinished sentences. We still hadn’t named what lived between us. We still moved around each other like the floor might give way if we stepped too hard. But the careful distance kept collapsing. A shared glance held too long over morning coffee. A brush of fingers when we both reached for the same towel. The residual heat of his hand on my thigh that I could still feel when I closed my eyes.

Friday night the tension finally snapped.

I was in the kitchen...