Just ripping the band-aid off here.  I took three weeks off from Norah, and I'm just creeping back into her kitchen.  I thought I'd write a scene where she makes out with Peter in her car, but I'm too prudish to write make-out scenes.  So, here's the scene that comes after the mere suggestion of them making out in the car.  As Norah is in college, you might imagine she makes out.  I definitely implied it.

“How serious are you and Peter?” Susan asked suddenly one evening, as Norah stood over the sink.

“What do you mean?” Norah asked, rinsing the remnants of her mother’s meatloaf from another thick white plate.

“I mean,” Susan said, sipping water at the edge of the counter and frowning slightly, “how serious are you about Peter?”

Norah breathed in through her nose and glanced through the window above the sink. The July sun cast a hot glow on the patio.  She wiped a bit of dishwater from her left cheek with the back of her right hand.

“I don’t know,” Norah said.  “I guess serious?” Peter skirted the fringes of Norah’s mind every hour of the day.  She slept with one of his t-shirts, smelling of him, under her pillow.  She knew the number of days until she’d see him again - on the Appleton campus.

Susan exhaled audibly. “Be sure,” she said slowly and pointedly, “to protect your reputation.”

Phew.  I'm so relieved to have that here.  This week, I'm thinking about complicating Susan a little bit.  Maybe a good-bye scene when Norah moves back to school.  We'll see.