Chapter 301

“Hey, honey,” I said as I stepped into the dimly lit Pilot’s Cabin. I’d spent a bunch of time over the last week in there, but always during the day or super early in the morning. Hell, I’d spent a couple of hours in there with Terra. This was the first time I’d spent time at night, and if this was any time but the final night I would have been figuring out how to change the light, it was so dim and yellow.

Terra had hopped up onto the counter just like the girls had been sitting with me all week, and I went right to her and wrapped her up in my arms, leaning in as she tilted her face up to me and I kissed her.

Everything had changed, even if it felt like nothing had. Terra and I had said the things that we’d been trying not to say during our silly five minutes in the game. Maybe it was a good thing that we’d felt such time pressure, even if it had been artificial.

I told her I couldn’t give her up. She told me she couldn’t stop.

Our kiss there in the near-dark, alone except for the soft sound of voices coming up from below and the gentle lap of water on the side of the boat, was like the world closed in on us. She was wearing a sports bra and one of my pairs of shorts - I wasn’t even sure when she’d gotten them - and my hands landed on her sides as our lips and tongues danced. Her fingers trailed from my collarbone down to my stomach before sliding into the waistband of my trunks, pulling me closer to her gently.

When we finally split apart we both had to gasp lightly, and she buried her face against my chest as we held each other.

“I’m going to break up with him,” Terra said. “Maybe I could have forgiven him if everything else wasn’t going on. If it wasn’t just the slip-up. But it’s not just that, and it’s not your fault Robbie but with you here and everything, why would I stay with him? We haven’t had sex since ... the first day? Maybe the second? It’s blurred together a little. But it’s been most of the week, and other than him trying to just have makeup sex in the last day and me turning him down because I wasn’t ready, he wasn’t trying.” She pulled back a little and looked up at me. “I know it wouldn’t be a problem with you, Robbie, but when we’re together I need you to try. If I’m going to put in effort for my boyfriend, I need him to put in effort too. And I know you will, but I owe it to myself to say it.”

“Terra,” I sighed. “God, my heart feels like it’s going to explode. I- Yes. I’ll try. Every day. But, honey, ending things with JC doesn’t mean you need to jump into the chaos that’s happening around me. You can take time. I won’t lose interest, or forget you. I’ll never be able to forget you.”

Terra smiled sadly. “I don’t need a rebound. I don’t need time to process. I’ve done more thinking about my relationship - real, deep thinking, and talking with all the girls with different perspectives ... I’ve considered everything more than I have in the past year, probably. He wasn’t the only one on autopilot. I let it happen too, I was just- I was getting parentified in my own relationship. I was being his mother, and I don’t want a partner I need to mother. I want a partner who is going to challenge me, and love me, and treat me well because he wants to, not because it’s expected. That’s you, Robbie. That’s just you.”