Campbell by C. S. Starr

her eyes to meet Lucy’s. She knew Zoey felt bad, but it was unlikely she felt bad enough to take a personal vow of fidelity. This did little to assuage the nagging voice in her head that said things weren’t going to last forever for a host of reasons.  
    When Zoey walked out to shower, Lucy lay on the bed, and felt more defeated than she could remember.  
    “I feel like I’m looking for someone to blame,” she whispered into the air, tugging the blanket over her. “But I know it’s my fault he’s gone.”
    She knew she couldn’t undo any of it. She couldn’t bring back to life the two guys who had been killed because they were in the way when Cole had been snatched, any more than she could bring Cole back. All she could do was control how she moved forward; how she reacted now. Every step had to be carefully mapped. Things like what happened that night, they couldn’t happen again.  
    She’d mostly fallen asleep when Zoey returned, her hair damp, smelling like the lavender soap they shared.  
    “I’m sorry,” Zoey whispered, as she pressed her body against Lucy’s, her leg sliding in between hers.  
    “For what?” Lucy questioned, hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t going to be the beginning of some grand confession about Cole, which would probably kill her, because then she’d have to murder Zoey.
    “For earlier.” Zoey frowned in the dim light. “Is there something else I should be sorry for?”
    “I don’t think so?” Lucy replied. “I hope not.”
    “All right then,” she mumbled, rolling towards Lucy. “So we’re good.”
    “We’re good.”
    “Good.”
    “How was…it?” Lucy asked, hoping Zoey wouldn’t look at her. She asked sometimes, and had been doing so almost as long as they’d been together. Sometimes it was for reassurance that things were better when they were together, but other times it was out of genuine curiosity. Tonight, it was the latter, because she knew they’d have to actually sleep together for things to really be better between the two of them, and that wasn’t going to happen. Lucy had decided somewhere along the way that one’s approach to sex had a lot to do with who they were as a person, and she wanted to know more about Tal. There was a good chance she wouldn’t be able to work with Connor, and Tal was the next obvious choice if they needed to get rid of the current leader of West to move forward.  
    “Do you really want to know?” Zoey asked carefully. “Because I don’t want to upset—”  
    “I won’t get upset,” she promised. “I…I’m just curious.”
    She listened thoughtfully as Zoey described her encounter, and Tal’s suspicions and objections, which seemed to have crumbled quickly with a few well-placed words.
    The older Lucy got, the more curious she found herself about sex and relationships with men, even though the actual logistics still terrified her.   Every man had his rough hands, his unclear intentions. She knew that she’d come a long way because she’d avoided those dynamics, because men looked at her differently. Not necessarily as an equal, but not like they looked at other women. It wasn’t a conscious decision she’d made initially, but it had helped her countless times, and when she looked at the way men regarded her, as opposed to how they regarded Zoey, she was very glad she’d made the choice early on to do what was easiest.  
    She wasn’t sure she would have been in the position she was if she’d compromised on that point with any of the men she’d been close enough with to consider being with. The power dynamics would have been confused.
    “…he’s nice. A little fumbly, but sweet. We didn’t have sex, exactly. He didn’t want to. I didn’t either.”
    “Why?”
    “No condom.” She shrugged. “And I’m never going down that road again.”
    “Good,” Lucy agreed, relieved. Despite her curiosity, Lucy didn’t like it when she was unsafe, because she’d read enough to know it