“This is so embarrassing,” I tell Stella, then look to the other two girls. “If you don’t want to hear it, cover your ears or leave the room.”

Dani instantly pulls her hands to her ears and starts humming, loudly. Maddi makes not one move to shield her hearing; she just cocks her brow and waits.

Looking back at Stella with burning cheeks, I give her what she wants. “He was so large that he had to work me over twice with his mouth, then again with his fingers. By the time he finally gave me every single thick inch of himself I should have been embarrassed with how wet I was. Happy?”

Stella throws her head back, her recently dyed purple hair falling in a thick wave of curls as she laughs at the top of her voice. Maddi on the other hand is just smiling and nodding her head. When I look over at Dani she looks like she might puke, obviously she wasn’t humming loud enough.

Pulling her hands away, she looks at Stella. “You are sick, my friend. God, I’m never going to be able to look at him the same again.”

My face flames even brighter.

“There isn’t a thing you should be getting so worked up about over there. Jesus, Megan, you would think you were a virgin with all the blushing you’re doing.”

I narrow my eyes at Stella.

“I told you what you wanted to know, no need to be rude now.”

“I’m not,” she says in an offended tone. “I swear. I just want you to feel comfortable with us. Promise.”

Maddi reaches out, all traces of joking gone from not only her supportive gesture, but also her expression holding nothing but understanding. “He was—please don’t think I’m being insensitive here—the first? Since Jack?”

I nod.

“There isn’t one thing that you can’t talk to us about, you know that?” she continues and waits for my confirmation that I understand before opening her mouth again. “What was Jack like?”

Given the subject of our chat, her meaning can’t be missed.

Step two in knocking those walls down, here I come.

Time to stop holding back when it comes to telling people about my past.

“Timid,” I tell them truthfully. “The first time we had sex it was so awkward. We had been nothing but friends, but with where we were at that point in our relationship, it was the next logical step.”

True enough, I tell myself.

“And after that first time?” Maddi requests, clearly deciding she’s the self-appointed leader of questions since I opened up to her first.

“A little less timid, but still awkward.” Instantly I feel my stomach start to cramp. Admitting how our relationship had been to myself had been hard enough, but letting others know is a whole new level of painful. Not to mention it feels like I’m stomping on his grave mentioning how unfulfilling our sex life was. “I loved him, but we were probably the most dysfunctional couple in the history of ever inside the bedroom.” My words come out quickly. Just like ripping off a BandAid.

I can tell they don’t understand. Of course they don’t, they only know half the story.

“Okay,” Maddi coughs. “So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that those times you were together were few and far between? I mean no disrespect, I promise, I’m just trying to understand.”

I give her a small smile.

Give them more, Megs. It’s okay.

I shiver when I hear Jack’s voice in my mind. Well, not his voice, I’m sure. If my mind wants to play tricks on me so that I keep going, fine. I can’t go back to the old Megan.

Baby steps.

“He was deployed during most of my pregnancy and was only home for two weeks after her birth. He shipped back out again and the only other time he was home was for a few months when she was one. He died during that tour shortly after Molly turned eighteen months. Needless to say, he was gone a lot, but even when he was home . . .”

I trail off and remember those times he was home. Those times had been all about Molly. He loved her so ferociously. We did things as a family and when Molly had been asleep for hours, we did what we had always done best, spent long hours just enjoying the other’s companionship. Hours spent reading to each other, him enjoying some of my books or whatever project I was working on, sometimes just helping me hash out some plot point I had been stuck on. He was huge on board games. We would spend so many hours just laughing over whichever game we had picked up.

What we didn’t do often was have sex.

“We slept together the night before he shipped off . . . that last time, and that was almost four years ago.”