Adam rejoins our group after a trip to the bathroom. “What’s so funny?” he asks Jordan.

“Just coaching our young protégé here in the ways of women.”

Adam’s eyes widen and he turns to me. “Don’t listen to anything he says. His advice is shit.”

Jordan flips his middle finger at Adam and turns to me. “So, you’re interested in going there with her, right?”

“Going where?” I ask. Jordan and Adam exchange a look.

“He means sex, Liam.”

“Oh. I’m interested, but it’s not going to happen.”

Adam frowns. “Wait, why not?”

“Because she’ll be leaving to travel with the Ren Faire at the end of June.”

“But that’s over two months away. A lot can happen in that amount of time.” Adam grinned. “A lot of fun stuff.”

“That actually sounds like the perfect starter set to me,” Jordan says. “Get in there, get it done. Enjoy yourselves, and since there’s a known expiration date to the whole thing, there’s no baggage…no wondering if or when it’s going to get serious or when to cut things off.”

Adam shakes his head at Jordan. “Damn, dude, you really were jaded before you got yourself shackled down.”

“Says the guy with his own string of friends-with-benefits lined up before he got himself shackled down.”

“Shut up,” Adam orders and turns back to me. “So, Liam, assuming you’re not seeing this all as a strategic maneuver like our cynical friend here…she’s bound to come back eventually, right? Or maybe if you start something good, she won’t leave.”

That had been my thought as well, but I wasn’t about to have intercourse with Jenna before I got her commitment that she would stay. “You think I should go there, even if she hasn’t committed yet?”

Adam blinks. “This isn’t 1899, Liam. You don’t need a commitment to go to bed with a woman, as long as she’s willing—”

“And of age,” inserts Jordan. We both turn and stare at him. He looks from one of us to the other. “What? Some of those young ones look a lot older than they really are.”

Adam shakes his head and turns back to me. “Anyway. There’s no harm in opening that door, you know.”

I frown for a moment—images of a sliding glass door, the front door of my house, a screen door all flick my mind in quick succession. “I doubt I can be casual about this.”

Jordan puts his hand on my shoulder. When I flinch and glare at it, he quickly slides it away. “You’re a healthy, red-blooded, twenty-something male. You need to go there…and soon.”

I look at Adam to see if he’s shrugging off Jordan’s comment, but he isn’t. Instead, he’s nodding in agreement. “If she’s willing—and I’m guessing she is—you should go for it. Consider it a new life experience, if nothing else.”

“Yes.” Jordan nods. “Live in the now, William. Carpe Diem.”

A whistle blows and we return to the floor. We fight using metal practice swords and under-armor padding, but after a while we grow hot and sweaty, so we switch to lighter bamboo swords and take off our shirts. I’m getting a lot of good experience with Jordan, or “Southpaw” as Adam jokingly calls him because of his left-handedness.

I’m soundly beating him, getting in three or four hits to every one of his. He curses up a storm when I hit him in the ribs or waist, and Adam laughs until it’s my turn to fight him. Then he doesn’t laugh so much.

I’m doing great, as a matter of fact, not even distracted by the weirdness of my cousin and Jordan giving me sex advice. That is, until the women come back from wherever they’ve been to watch the end of training.

I’m embarrassed because we all have our shirts off and they’re making comments about the “amazing view.” April even whistles when Jordan flexes his biceps at her, then he asks, “Young lady, have you bought your tickets to the gun show?” Whatever that means.

As for me, I’m quickly getting red marks all over my chest as Adam and Jordan get back at me for clobbering them earlier.

“You lost your mojo, man,” says Jordan.

“I’m just a little…distracted.”

Jordan casts a glance in the direction where Jenna sits watching us. “Yeah, I picked up on that.”

Later, as we are getting dressed in the locker room, Adam comes up to me and, with a warning, puts his hand on my shoulder. “You need to get laid, Liam. Get on that, okay? It might even help your fight.” And with that, he places a wrapped condom in my hand.

Jordan, seeing this, nods. “Hey, I’ve got something for round two.” He pulls his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and extracts a condom. Then he unzips his gym bag and pulls out another one. From his sunglasses case, he removes yet another one, then hands me all three. “I don’t need these anymore.”

Adam scoffs at him and he shrugs. “April’s on birth control now. But back when I was using them, I liked to be prepared.” He winked.

“Jackass,” Adam mutters.

“You just hate it when I one-up you. Or in this case, two-up you.” Jordan laughed all the way out the door.

I’m thinking a lot about their advice as I drive home with Jenna, aching and sore from the vigorous workout. She’s coming to my house for the afternoon to strategize about more exercises to work on and places to go. I’m not happy about the thought—Disneyland was enough of a challenge—but I’m also determined to see this through.

I went from hardly knowing a thing about fighting to nearly defeating Doug at something he’d been working at for years. I could do this, too. I wouldn’t rest until Jenna had her tiara back in her hands.

Which, come to think of it, she hasn’t mentioned lately. So as we sit beside each other on the couch in my living room, I ask her why.

She shrugs. “I just don’t think you need that added pressure.”

I frown, thinking about that. “Pressure is good. It forces me to work harder.”

She cocks her head, watching me. “Why do you insist on being so hard on yourself? Is it that worthiness thing again? You feel like you’re not worthy? Because you seem incredibly worthy from where I’m sitting.”