The second month was when she started noticing.

Not because of her friends. Because of herself. Their words had planted something in her, and now she was watching George the way a gardener watches a plant she's been told might be poisonous.

She noticed his hands first.

Not in a bad way. Just... constantly. They were always on her. In the car, his hand on her thigh. At the grocery store, his palm on her lower back. Cooking dinner, his chest pressed against her back, his chin on her shoulder. Sleeping, his arm thrown over her waist, his fingers curled into her hip like she might float away if he let go.

She'd loved it. She'd craved it. Now she was watching it like a science experiment.

"You're staring at me," he said one night. They were on his couch, watching something neither of them was paying attention to. His hand was on her knee.

"Sorry."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. You've been weird for a week."

She wanted to tell him. She wanted to say my friends think you're using me and watch his reaction. But that felt cruel. Or maybe it felt honest. She couldn't tell anymore.

"I'm just tired," she said.

"You want me to make you tea?"

"No."

"You want me to stop touching you?"

She looked at his hand on her knee. She should say yes. That would be the test. If she said yes and he got upset, her friends were right. If she said yes and he was fine, her friends were wrong.

"No," she said. "I don't want you to stop."

She wasn't sure if she meant it.