The afternoon is quiet. The kind of quiet that only happens when nothing needs to be said. You're lying with your head against her stomach, face pressed into the warmth of her, listening to the low rhythm of her breathing. Her fingers move through your hair, slow and easy, like she's been doing it forever. This is new for both of you. This closeness. This stillness. Then her hand pauses. The room doesn't change, but something in the air does. And she asks, in the most casually devastating way possible, if you have a problem with her belly fat. You can feel her hold her breath.