Chapter 67

I wasn’t sure how I felt, walking through the hall and skipping the short gap between the porches of the lower deck between the houseboats. On the one hand, I’d given another woman an orgasm. Ginnie was attractive and more than willing, and wanted to do more with me. It was an ego boost to know I could do that.

On the other hand, it felt ... cheap. Each of my encounters so far, even down to the kisses with Terra or Leia or Zenya, had all felt authentic and intimate and personal. What I’d just done didn’t feel the same. Technically it wasn’t that different from what I’d done with Wanda, but the situation didn’t leave the same impression on me. Was it because I’d seen, or at least known, she’d been hooking up with someone else?

And what were these weird feelings I was having for all the women around me?

Back at our cabin, I stepped inside and Cassidy was still curled up under the covers, sleeping soundly. I climbed onto the bed behind her but didn’t get under the covers, just spooning her softly. Before yesterday, this was all I’d needed. All I’d wanted. My best friend, my lover, my fiancee. I’d been ... I didn’t think ‘blind’ was the right word. I’d seen the repercussions of Cassidy’s actions for years, the way she tortured herself mentally on a cyclical basis without any trigger that I could see. Before that, when she’d been cheating, I’d been in love with her. I’d trusted her fully and completely.

Was that the App, or was that just young love?

My parents had always said that love was easy, but a relationship was work. You could love someone and hate them at the same time but you couldn’t hate the person you were in a relationship with. I’d taken that to heart from the moment I started dating Cassidy, putting in the work to try and be the best partner I could be. Working to forgive the smallest things as soon as I could, working to make her smile every moment possible. I’d been doing that on purpose.

I was in love with her. The App didn’t force that, because I knew it was a choice I’d made. But with hindsight ... I could see the flags. We spent a lot of time together during our senior year, but not like the other lovesick seniors around us. I’d already had a flourishing social life, and Cassidy stepped into my circle and others like a fish to water when she got out of her shell. She joined different clubs, and went out with her new friends. We studied together, but she also went and studied with her new friends without me. The same thing happened while she was in College. And in the summers ... it had felt like we were never apart at the time. But I’d had a summer job and she hadn’t that first one between high school and college, and then when we were in college I always seemed to be working more hours than her.

“Mmm, hey, Tiger,” Cassidy mumbled, slowly waking up in the bed beside me and turning over to snuggle her face into my neck.