163

ALINE

I WAS FAR FROM THE ONLY WOMAN TO MAKE IT THROUGH COLLEGE AND

into my early twenties before losing my virginity. It was less common that I’d barely been kissed before Eoin. A couple fumbling attempts by college boys the few times Freedom and I had spent time with some of her friends, but never anything more than that. That was also the extent of my dating experience too. Study groups, mostly, but always groups. Never a single date or even a double date.

So, now I was on my first date with the man who’d given me my first real kiss…and who had been my first time having sex. It felt a little awkward, going from having had sex twice with him to then going on a date, but nothing else in my life had ever been traditional, which meant I was accustomed to forging my own way.

And I was used to doing it without letting anyone else know how much or how little I knew or understood.

Fortunately, once I stopped overthinking, th