the night of the dance lacey came back to my room with me for the first time since we had originally set the boundary that we weren’t sleeping together. it was hesitant at first, but with the renewed confidence in each other and the presence of the lock it wasn’t long before i had her back in my arms. 

lacey was still a little shaken from the weirdness with dad. i had scoped the house and made sure he was in bed, or at least his room, at her request.  

“you’re sure?” she asked, doe eyed.

“yeah, i heard him shuffling around in there.” 

“okay.” lacey said. her voice was soft, like she didn’t want it to carry. 

“is everything alright, is this too much?” 

“dad…” she started, fumbling over a few words. “…caught me.”  

“what?” 

“months ago, before i moved off the futon…” lacey went into a tizzy about how dad had forced her down the stairs in the middle of the night. my blood ran cold. it was the kind of terror that you can’t make up, like i had been stabbed through the back with an icy needle. 

“why didn’t you tell me?” i asked. 

“he…let me go. he knows i’m up here, i don’t think he knows the extent of it, but he knows i sleep in your room at least and he’s been letting it slide. i told him it was because of stress…” 

“lace.” i intoned. dad’s suspicion and interrogation of me suddenly made a lot more sense. even the behavior i’d seen around the house was colored by this new information. i couldn’t shake the feeling that we had been cased and for who knows how long. it was his nature, his prerogative practically. 

“mm?” 

“he’s doing his cop thing. watching, waiting, i guess to see if it goes further.” 

“how do you know?” 

“lace, its dad. he quit the force when mom died but he’ll always be a cop.” 

“if he has a problem with it why not just say something?” lacey wondered. 

“and accuse us of what exactly? without proof?” i said, suddenly becoming very paranoid. was the room bugged? was there a hidden camera? it took everything in me to relax, to breathe out and not make lacey even more freaked out than she already was. “i think if he was monitoring us we would have been caught by now. it’s probably just stakeouts, waiting at the door like you said.” 

“maybe he’s just worried…we didn’t text or anything tonight.” 

“maybe, but like i said he’s a cop first and dad second, he absolutely wants us thinking that he’s looking out for us. ‘don’t let your mother hear about it?’ from the guy who can’t keep a thing from her?” i questioned. it didn’t make sense to let us off easy. we had budgeted some amount of punishment into the plans but, nothing? i called bull. my gut did, anyway.  

in all the years i’d been subject to dad’s interrogations, not once had he ever decided that it would be okay to let something like this slide. especially, not because he wanted to avoid talking to martha about it. he couldn’t keep a single thing from her, let alone something that would have put her into a fit if she’d known about it.  

lacey sniffled and i shifted positions, moving my other arm around her to get us closer together. we had both changed into nighttime clothes and she had put her hair up into a ponytail. i leaned in close to kiss her forehead. 

“how come you never wear your hair like that? or pigtails?” 

“cause i’m not 7, and my forehead is huge.” she sniffed. 

“it isn’t huge.” i noted, giving it another kiss. 

“yes it is, cain. next you’re gonna say i have curves.” 

“you do.” i laughed. my hands instinctively found her waist and they squeezed. 

“oh shut up.” lacey said, burying her head in my chest and sniffling up a storm. i hugged her tight and let her cry into my t-shirt. she wasn’t quite sobbing, but the tears were flowing, and i wasn’t sure why. it didn’t matter in the slightest. i’d let her cry all night if she needed it. 

“it’s okay, this doesn’t change anything. it just means we need to be more careful.” 

“i don’t care about that.” lacey said, wiping away tears and shifting herself to a spooning position. i let it happen and tucked her into the usual spot beneath my chin. it put her body flat against mine, thin fabric barriers all that separated our body heat. 

“can i ask what’s wrong, then?” 

“i’m just…overwhelmed, happy, worried a bit, so fucking happy.” she breathed. i kissed the top of her head and she rolled around to face me as soon as i’d pulled away.  

“god, you’re pretty-” i didn’t even get to finish the compliment before she was grabbing my face, eating it. i had to put my hand on her chest and push for air. 

“okay, woah, not complaining but slow down.” i gasped. 

“sorry i just, i’ve been holding that in.” 

“i could tell.” 

“let’s get in bed. fuck the parents, this is our night.” i said, tapping her shoulder to get off the futon. we did our nightly rituals, brushed our teeth and within moments were back in the same position only 15 feet further back.  

“that fucking thing is so uncomfy.” lacey whined between kisses. 

“yeah…it’s…dude…” i laughed, pushing her away again. “let me get a word in.” 

“sorry, sorry. my brain is melting.” 

“let’s let it cool off.” i said, twirling my finger for her to flip back into the little spoon. she looked a little disappointed but turned over anyway. 

“weird question.” 

“of course.” 

“what about…” lacey quieted awkwardly. 

“after kissing? i don’t think you’re ready for that.” 

“ewww, no. gross, why would you even think that?” she asked. my blood ran cold for the second time that night. i stuttered out gibberish. it wasn’t until lacey’s giggles pulled me back to reality that i managed to avoid the total collapse of my dignity. “ohhh my god you freaked, i heard you suck in air.” lacey laughed.  

i put my cold hand on her belly and she yelped, maybe a bit too loud. we quieted defensively and i sighed, giving her a little pat. she stood up and padded to the futon. i waited by the door and unlocked it. neither of us moved, and when nothing happened i peeked my head out and confirmed the stairs were clear. i could literally hear dad snoring; so much for the thin blue line. locking the door and jumping back in bed with lace, i felt dumb even worrying about it. we killed the lights and i gave her a few more kisses. 

“don’t tease me like that, dumbass. i get worried.” 

“i wasn’t teasing.” lacey murmured. “just making a joke cause you went out and said it.” 

“well, i was serious. you aren’t ready for that yet.” 

“why? cause boys are so much more complicated than girls?” lacey pouted. she was huffing the words under her breath in a mocking tone. 

“i thought you and charlotte just kissed?” 

“yeah, i didn’t say that was all…” lacey trailed off again. i wanted to pry, but i also wanted to find a detour to this conversation. forget lacey being ready for that, i wasn’t sure i was ready right now. 

“look, lace, there’s a lot more going on here than you and charlotte messing around. you need to be on birth control, at least.” 

“way farther than i was thinking, cain.” she said. i didn’t know if i believed her. what constantly surprised me was just how ambitious lacey was willing to get. even before we’d kissed, the amount of contact she had tolerated seemed to increase exponentially with the amount of time spent together.  

things had moved faster, much faster, since we’d admitted our feelings and i didn’t mind slowing them down a bit. her hand touched my leg, i could feel her fingers tracing lines on the side of it and prodding up towards the ends of my boxers. it was hard to ignore the tightness in them, or the electricity dancing over bare skin where the tips of her fingers trailed. 

“i jumped the gun i guess, i still want to take it slow, though.” i said. 

“okay.” she said, dropping her hand back to where it had been. 

“no complaints?” 

“i mean, i’m complaining, it’s our night and all i get is some make out time?” 

“with your biological sibling.” i said under my breath. i felt her shift, shuddering on the next inhale. 

“fair.” 

“just, take what you can get, okay?” i said, making sure the words tickled her ear. i wanted to nip at it, to slip my arms further forwards and put weight against her. it would send a mixed message though, and it made all of the bubbling guilt i’d been trying to ignore twinge in spades around my core. 

“fine, okay.” lacey relented. i breathed out, not fully conscious i’d been holding it. “does the idea bother you that much?” 

“jason talked to me about things you can’t take back, he told me to be careful, i’m trying to respect that.” i answered. lacey started petting my thigh again. 

i understood more than ever what he had been trying to say. it wasn’t easy to do that, either. as much of me wanted to pump the breaks and slow things down, equal parts were raring to go. my blood was pumping faster than it had when i was freezing on the edge of the planters, endorphins on full blast. 

“i’ve thought about it a lot, um…written about it.” 

“that so?” 

“yeah…i know it’s dangerous and i know that would mean crossing lines, but also i…i want it.” lacey stated. she stopped tracing up and down my leg to hug herself with both arms. 

“i want it too.” i whispered. i couldn’t bring myself to say it with my chest. lace turtled into her pout, chewing on a lip and wiggling her legs in frustration. “but i also want to keep you safe.” 

“i could go out there, woo some boy, and do whatever i wanted with him and you’d be fine with it.” lacey said. she didn’t sound serious though. 

“assuming you did, i don’t really have the right to say no, it’s your body. but this involves mine and i’m holding back, when you understand that i’ll feel more comfortable.” 

“mr. fucking boundaries.” lacey muttered. i kissed her neck some more, put my hands on her side and contoured her body into the shape of mine. 

“we’re breaking plenty of boundaries right now. i’m saving some for later.” i whispered into her ear. her breathing turned to more stuttering gasps and sharp inhalations. it took me a second to find the spot, but i managed to put a leg between hers so that we were sandwiched together like lego pieces. 

whatever she had been frustrated about seemed to melt away in the cuddling and before either of us knew it we were falling asleep. i was restless, and in the twilight haze of the early morning, hours before my alarm would go off, it still lingered in the back of my mind that lacey seemed ready to take even more steps down the path of no return. 

i wondered if i was doing something terrible. breaking things so irreparably that even if it made us both happy, it was destined to end in calamity. there was no way to know right now. the only thing i could do was pace myself, pace lacey, and hope that the fucked up circumstances that caused these lines to blur didn’t end up suffocating us.  

dad was a concern, my friends were a slightly lesser one, and despite it all, even lacey’s wants and needs concerned me. it dominated my thoughts. a vortex of additional anxiety that sat atop the already high pile of worries i had. i was juggling things normal people couldn’t conceive of and trying to feel out a relationship that wasn’t even supposed to exist. 

i felt hopeful, at least for now, that what we were doing wasn’t hurting either of us, even if it was wrong. that gave me the confidence to relax a little bit and enjoy lacey’s giddiness about us, about me.