After we showered and had another wonderful night together, Stella tried to cuddle with me, and I freaked out a bit. I tried to keep my cool and played it off like I was really tired, but Stella’s not stupid and I’m sure she saw through my bullshit.

It’s not that I didn’t want to cuddle. Just the idea of cuddling makes me think of Caya times. And Caya times while they had their ups, they were a roller coaster that plunged the cart very low before dipping slightly upward sometimes. And the very low times did involve my cuddle attempts.

An example of Caya times: one of the times she came back from her tours in the void, we were back at our place in some cheap apartment neither of us spent much time in. I went in for a hug as soon as she was in the door, it hitting me how much I missed her. She waited to hug me back. For what, I don’t know, but she waited for a long while. Instead of talking about whatever the hell that moment was, we just went to our bedroom and fucked. It started off steamy, but despite her strength and the hotness of getting pinned down by a muscular Cani soldier, the actual finishing wasn’t happening on my end.

Caya let out a terse sigh. I was trying, it was just. Whatever she was trying to do back wasn’t sparking my internal pleasure drives, so to speak.

“Maybe we can…” I’d say some weak shit like that a lot, and never give her an explanation of what I wanted. I wanted to just hold her, or be held, or something. Some kind of affection that wasn’t just sex.

I looked to the dresser closest to the bed and remembered I actually remembered to get Caya something. “Oh, hey.” This was a gamble, but I reached over to the lowest drawer, reaching for a gift card for a nice bookstore-coffee shop combo that I thought might be a nice time for the both of us.

“Alright, if you’re done, I have work to do.” Caya said as I felt around for the gift card.

“I…sure, yeah. I’m done.” I shut the drawer.

Caya got dressed quickly.

“You just got back though?” It somehow came out of my mouth whiny, judgmental, and meek at the same time. I didn’t meant to say it even, because I knew it would only make things worse.

“Yeah, and I have work already,” Caya said. “You’re lucky I had time to fuck.”

If you can call that fucking.

“OK.” I said. “I’ll order something for dinner?”

“I ate already so you can get whatever you’d like.” Caya said before stomping off.

I don’t want to give the impression that it was all awkward and bad like that, but there was a definite foundation of our romantic relationship that was built on not talking things out, on letting feelings stay hidden in hopes that they’d fade away, in keeping secrets locked up so the other wouldn’t be hurt by them, and a general growing realization that both of us knew deep down that we weren’t cut out for each other romantically.

So the morning after my failed cuddle attempt, I was thinking of ways this thing I had going on with Stella could avoid that. Since we were in the foundational stages, how could our foundation not be Caya and Evy-esque? It was the weekend, so both of us had some free time. I offered to help her move some more stuff down, but it was snowing again, and the roads were fairly bad. Fortunately, this looked to be the last big snowstorm for a bit as the temperatures would be better the week after. Stella said she didn’t feel comfortable driving too far in the snow, so a big city drive was out.

“But outside of driving to LE, I’m game for whatever.” Stella said. “We can just hang out here, or if there’s anywhere you want to go that’s close.”

“You know what might be fun?” I blurted out.

“Hm?” Stella asked.

I left the room without saying anything, then realized that to her it might’ve looked like I just abandoned the conversation mid-sentence. But I had to check my home office. It took a few passes through my desk, but I found the gift card, taped to brown paper that had the scent of coffee beans lingering on it. I ripped out the card from the paper, which had a really crappily written note for Caya considering she was my girlfriend at the time. Real unromantic “Hey this is an establishment that maybe we can both enjoy. Regards, Evy Diast.” Like barf. I pocketed the card and returned to Stella.

“Right so…” I said. I was normally super talkative, but Stella was making me trip over my words. It’d be precious on my end if it wasn’t so painful to endure. “You want to like. Books. Do you like them?”

“I…like books, yes.” Stella giggled. “Are you feeling OK?”

“I’m fine, just,” I started. “You’re cute and it’s kind of throwing me off my normal game.” And I’m afraid you’re going to reject affection outright Caya style even though my logical side says you won’t. But scared side is shouting her side louder.

“Are there some close by here? Ones we don’t have to go through much winter driving for?” Stella asked.

“There’s two bookstores that are close that I like.” I said. I don’t know why I was pitching the other one at all, I just had no confidence in this idea all of a sudden. “One is very cozy and has a coffee shop in it. The other has an insane selection of weird books and a talking cat, but it’s also a complete mess and It has very ‘thrift store where you may get shanked by the evil talking cat’ vibes.”

“Is that talking cat part true?” Stella asked.

“My theories are the cat is either a very small Kanibari, an Exa Cani that transforms into a small cat, or some kind of Cani power trick that makes animals emit people speaky noises.” I said. “If we go there, you can see.”

“I’m thinking I want the cozy one,” Stella said.

I blushed intensely. “Alright good, because I’ve been sitting on a gift card from there for a bit, so.”

I pictured her pulling a Caya. This wasn’t about sex, so it wasn’t important. Or something like “Well why didn’t you just say the bookstore you had a gift card for from the start, moron.” Then just walking off, leaving me alone again.

“Terrific!” Stella said. “Snowy day, books, hot coffee, and you sounds like a lovely day.”

I bit my tongue. Because I actually felt like I was about to cry. I wasn’t used to having affection returned in that way, so it took me a few seconds for me to try not to burst out crying because of this.

“Awesome.” Was all I could manage to say.

“I’ll go get ready and then we can head out!” Stella said, taking off.

Because I didn’t want to suppress my emotions, I sat in my room for a bit while Stella got ready and let out some tears. It felt like some dams in my heart had cracked, and maybe even more than that just from a small gesture Stella probably didn’t even realized she had done.