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Things changed when I started letting him sleep over. The first time was an accident: we dozed off on my couch together after a long conversation and I woke up with my head on his chest and his arm draped over me. It’s hard to explain why, but it felt strange and different to see him in the morning. I just never had before.

And then he just wound up staying over some nights after he had untied me. We’d go to sleep together and I would find myself curled against him in the morning. It was this strange, hollow phantom relationship that existed exclusively in my bedroom. Which makes it sound like there was nothing there, but the terms of play partners was something I had never had to traverse before.

Except we started violating our own terms. We kissed each other, eventually in front of our friends aided by alcohol on Halloween. We started going out on dates, something he first suggested that I initially balked at. We broke rules constantly about how we could touch each other and for which reasons we could.

And, cheesy as it sounds, feelings started to develop out of ambivalence and confusion. I ate my words about it just being a strict “play partner” arrangement, something he now teases me about having said on here.

If you were to ask friends, they could give you a partial story about two people with some banter that figured it out from sharing a bed. Which is true. Something happened when he started sleeping over.