It must have been an hour later that the door connecting my room to Gethin's opened after a soft knock. I was wearing one of my oldest cotton nightgowns, with tiny buttons going all the way down the front, which had been washed so many times the threads could almost be counted. Teddy entered, smiling, with that slightly flushed look, full lips redder than usual, which I'd come to associate with him and alcohol consumption. He was completely steady on his feet and fully composed, so not that much, obviously; besides, it hadn't been that long, so they had obviously started imbibing after I'd left. I was ready for a break, anyway; all this paperwork was beginning to give me a headache.

"Hey there," I said, leaning back on the sofa and stretching my neck. "What's up?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, really. Just checking on you, seeing if you're still up and plugging away?" He leaned over to take a closer look. "History and Music Accreditation," he read aloud. "Sounds interesting."

"Trust me, it's not. Mind-numbingly dull." I sighed. "Sometimes I think this is the actual audition, that they put all this crap out there just to see if we can do it, and the piano playing is just a smokescreen, a ploy."

He pulled me into the curve of his arm in a by now familiar gesture. "Maybe you're just too tired to deal with it now. Leave it until you have an entire day, and start in the morning when you're fresh. The due dates on these papers don't seem to be until September and October. You've got loads of time." He gave me a little shake. "Hmm?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I like to get things done early." I relaxed against him, realizing I'd changed quite a bit in one short week. Sitting like this with him, with anyone, would have been impossible just a few days ago.

"Hey! Sit up, Birdie!" He pushed me up with his arm and turned me to face him.

"What?" I looked at him.

"Do you realize I have never, ever, seen you with your hair down?" he said in amazement.

"Oh," I said, suddenly embarrassed (honestly, why was embarrassment my knee jerk reaction to everything?). "It gets in the way, so I like to keep it up most of the time, but if I put it up while it's wet, it never dries, and I get a headache, so, yeah..." I trailed off.

"It's gorgeous." He touched it with a finger, wrapping it around his hand and letting it slip off. "Like living sable. I don't get it, though." He looked at me. "If having it long bothers you, why bother? Why not just keep it short?"

"Well, then I'd have to cut it all the time, and that takes money and effort. It's much easier to just keep it long and put it up. Besides..." I trailed off again.

"Besides?" he prompted, brushing my hair aside. He couldn't stop touching it.

I took a deep breath. "My mother liked it," I said. I would not cry. I bit back the tears, and they stayed back, for now.

"I see." He looked into my eyes, lifting my hair back over my shoulder. "My mum was the most important person in my life for a long, long time. I don't know what I would do if anything were to happen to her, especially if she were the only person I had." He left his hand on my shoulder, rubbing it lightly. "I think you're doing an amazing job with your life, Birdie, and I know she would be so, so proud of you if she were here. Truly."

"Thanks, Teddy." I reached out to hug him, and we stayed that way for a long time. When I released him, he put his hand on the back of my neck, and pulled my head to his, so our foreheads were touching. This was new. I kept my eyes closed. I felt his thumb on the tip of my chin, and realized our faces were getting closer. He was going to kiss me.

He was going to kiss me.

I put both of my hands against his chest and pushed him away. He resisted for the briefest of moments, then he let me, his arms falling away from around me. I scooted back on the couch so I could see his face more clearly.

His face was a mixture of emotions, the drowsy pleasure of being caught up in the moment fighting with the confusion of my action.

"What?" he asked gently. He put his hand on my arm. "What's the matter? Didn't you want to? I thought you did. It seemed like you did, I'm sorry."

My head was spinning; I didn't know if I was even capable of articulate speech. I took a deep breath. "Teddy." So far so good.

"Yeah?"

"Nothing. I can't think of anything cogent to say right now." Jesus, was I even speaking English?

"Well, I can, I think. I have a question. Can I ask a question?" He looked at me.

"Yes." I looked at him. Please let it be something I could answer.

"Why? I mean, why not? Is it me? You don't like me? Because I thought you did?" he laughed. "I know this is going to sound awful, but I can't think of any way to say it that it doesn't sound awful, so sod it, I'm just going to say it: I can't remember anyone ever, saying no to me."

I stared at him. He saw my look.

"I told you, sounds awful, doesn't it? And I don't mean it to. I'd just gotten used to it, and the one time I really wanted the person to say yes, when it truly mattered to me, my whatever it is fails me and she turns me down. Cheers. Christ." He wiped his face with his hand.

"Well, I think I'll go and hang myself now," he said with another laugh. "I honestly don't know what to do, this is completely new to me." He started to rise.

"Wait," I said, putting my hand on his arm. "Don't you want me to answer your question?"

"Really?" he said, sitting back down. "It's not that you just don't fancy me?"

"Teddy, please, have you looked in a mirror?" I asked him. "Have you checked your Twitter? What is it now? How many million followers?

"Look, here's the thing," I continued. Wow, I was becoming a regular chatterbox. "I've been alone for most of my life. Even when my mother was alive, I was pretty lonely. I didn't really realize it until now, but I was. I was known as 'Aileen the Mouse'," I admitted, and we both smiled.

"Then I met you guys. Now I have these great friends. I love you guys. I don't want to lose you, any of you. Especially you. You and I seem to have this connection, you know?"

"Yeah, I feel like that, too," he said with another crooked smile, showing his dimples, nodding.

"Well, how many women have you dated in the past three years? Hmm?" I looked into his eyes.

He shrugged. "I don't know, a few, I guess."

"A few? Maybe a few more than a few?" I nudged him with my knee.

"Yeah, maybe," he shrugged again.

"So, look, Teddy, here's the thing," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "Here we go with the thing again," he muttered.

"I would rather be your friend for fifty years than your fuck buddy for five minutes," I said.

"You wouldn't have been my fuck buddy," he said, offended. "And it certainly would have been longer than five minutes," he added with a huff, which made both of us smile for a second.

"You know what I mean. If I hadn't said no to the kissing, if I had just let things continue, would we have had sex tonight? Do you have a condom on you somewhere?" His eyes shifted enough to tell me I'd guessed correctly.

"So now I'm going to say something that sounds awful, and I don't know how else to say it, either. You go through women like a person with a cold goes through tissues. I don't want to be a tissue. I love you. I love to be with you. It would be awful to wake up and know I couldn't talk to you. I have no idea what happens between you and the women you sleep with that makes any kind of friendship with them impossible after, but I don't want that. I want this. I want you to want to hear me play the piano. I want you to come to me when you're in pain and need me. I want you to tell me dirty jokes so we can laugh. Can you understand that?"

He nodded.

"I don't want you to think I didn't want to kiss you, because I really, really did. I mean, really."

He looked at me and smiled, reaching out to touch my face. "Me, too," he said softly.

"But hey, I waited twenty-two years for my first kiss, I guess waiting a little bit longer won't kill me," I said with a little smile.

He started to get up to go to the mini-fridge, but stopped mid-stride and turned around. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" He came back to the sofa. "Did you say you'd waited twenty-two years for your first kiss?" He was staring at me.

Did I say that out loud? "Yes."

Fuck.

"You're saying if we'd kissed earlier on this couch it would've been your first time to kiss anyone, ever?"

I just nodded.

"You're serious?"

I nodded again, looking down at my lap.

"Birdie. Birdie. Look at me." He put his finger under my chin and lifted my head. I took a deep breath and looked into his powder gray eyes. "You've never kissed anyone on the mouth before? Ever?"

I shook my head.

He looked away with a little laugh and looked back at me. "I don't know what to say. It's beyond unbelievable." He looked away again, and looked back. He took his hand away from my chin. "Can I ask you a question? Yeah?"

I nodded, bereft of speech for the moment.

Now only curiosity remained on his face. "Um, how should I even put this? How, how, um, how on earth did you avoid kissing someone on the mouth during, um, you know, during sex?" He kind of whispered the last word as he looked intently at me.

I put both of my hands on my face. I literally wanted to die. I stayed that way, and who knows how long I might have stayed that way if he hadn't pulled my hands away.

"No. No fucking way. No. Fucking. Way. Birdie. Look at me. Look at me," he said, and only the fact that I could hear a slight smile in his voice gave me the courage to look up.

He did have a small smile on his face, a smile of amazement, and could it be joy? "Birdie, you're a virgin? You're a virgin. Seriously?"

"I'm my own episode of Ellen," I said with my own smile.

He let go of my hands. "I honestly don't think I've ever met a twenty-two-year-old virgin before," he said, apparently tickled nearly to death.

"Well, I'm so glad that thanks to me you can now cross it off your list," I said, laughing.

He just kept looking at me, smiling.

"Will you stop doing that please?" I asked him. He kept looking at me. "I've been really busy," I said by way of explanation, and he burst into laughter, the Teddy laugh I loved, that seemed to come all the way up from his feet.

"Yeah, I can see how all the piano playing and swimming could get in the way of that particular activity," he laughed. "Makes total sense." He had tears of mirth in his eyes.

He looked at me and shook his head. "You do take the prize, hummingbird. Like I said on the bus, never met anyone like you, ever." He scooted closer to me. "So, no sex, huh?"

I burst out laughing, and leaned my head on his shoulder. He leaned his head on mine, and wrapped his hand in my hair again. "This hair is the shit, seriously." He turned his head and took a deep sniff. "Total aphrodisiac, too, man. Jesus, a man could get high smelling your hair, especially just after it's been washed like this." He untangled himself from me and stood.

"Well, I'd better get going before I make another pass at you and you have to break my heart again," he said, smiling down at me.

I stood as well, leaning companionably on his chest. "You have to go? I'm really feeling like company now."

He huffed out a breath. "Well, you've got a funny way of showing it," he declared with another smile. He walked to the door to the hallway.

"Not going back to be with the boys?" I asked, gesturing to the door that connected my room to Gethin's.

"Nah, think I'll head down to the bar. This time of night, I don't think I'll have a problem with teenaged girls." At my look, he added, "Don't worry, I won't stay long, not much of a solitary drinker, anyway, I'll be all tucked up in bed by midnight." He kissed his fingers and waved to me from the doorway. "Oh, by the way?"

I looked at him inquiringly.

"Three condoms, Birdie," he said with a wink, and closed the door.

Swoon.

I shook my head. Now I really did feel like company. My insides were all roiled again, as they always seemed to be after any interaction with Teddy. I quickly put my hair up in a loose bun, knocked on the door to Geth's room and entered.