Wallace stared at the laminated school ID in his paws. His thumbpad grazed the icon on the bottom row that he’d spent a week applying for. Doctors appointments, talks with the school counselor, all to confirm that he was ready and wanted access to the Beta room only. 

The tabby boy’s whiskers twitched. He compulsively licked the fur on his forearm as he waited in the hallway. The rest of his middle school had already filtered out, cubs his age and older filtering back home or out to various sports clubs. The rec rooms, normally bustling during lunch and breaks during classes, were deserted.

Nearly, anyway. He’d noticed that one cub in particular regularly visited the Beta room after hours.

	His ears pricked at the sound of a scanner beeping, followed by the click of a door handle. That had to be her.

	Wallace took a deep breath, stepping out from behind the corner and stalking towards the rec rooms. He kept his steps slow, as if trying to make the anticipation as drawn-out as possible. He didn’t want to seem like he was following her, that’d be obviously creepy. He’d still look like a creep though, that’s what he was, deep down. His conscience screamed at him that he should leave, but his body wouldn’t listen. His claws extended and retracted in time with his heartbeat.

	He passed by the Alpha room, the space where half the boys in his grade had applied as soon as they’d entered middle school. That door typically had a line out the door during free periods, overflowing with the raucous groans of tween boys. Wallace walked right past it. 

	The Beta room typically saw less traffic even during busy hours. He paused, holding his breath and craning his ears. Could he hear faint shuffling inside, or was his mind playing tricks on him? His paw hovered just above the scanner, shaking like a leaf along with the rest of him. He could be going too fast, or too slow. He shouldn’t even be here. 

	He brought his paw down. The scanner beeped in response to his ID, and the door clicked open. Terrifying, but he couldn’t stop. His paw turned the knob, his stomach sick with worry and want, he stepped in like stepping off the edge of a cliff-

	“Wally?”

His breathing stopped again.

Penny stood against the left row of lockers. Her round, thick-framed glasses and protruding ratty teeth, as always, were her most prominent features. Her fur was a light champagne, fading to off-white as it reached her paws. She’d already removed her sweater, and Wallace was mentally flashbanged by the sight of her budding nipples poking through her chest fluff. 

He was struck, much like he was every single day, by how pretty she was.

	“H-Hi?” Wallace flubbed, gawking like an idiot. He’d thought of things to say here, he knew he had, but they’d bled out of his brain, replaced with thoughts of Penny, Penny without her shirt, Penny naked Penny naked-

“H-how’re you here?” Penny flushed a deep crimson and put an arm over her chest. The already tepid atmosphere dropped into something cold and uncomfortable. The pair regarded each other, eyes flicking to the other’s face before darting away.

Wallace’s voice faltered, halfhearted attempts at an explanation died on his tongue. He held up his ID like some protective talisman. “J-just got this.” he stammered, speaking a half-truth where he couldn’t bring himself to lie. 

Penny took a half-step closer, squinting at the newly-printed piece of plastic. Her eyes went from dots to saucers. “OH! Oh. Wow. S-sorry, Wally. I just… I wouldn’t have guessed you’d want this. Not that there’s anything wrong with it!”

Wallace’s face burned. His brain was sputtering, spinning out and refusing to restart. Liar. Pervert. His tail thrashed like a wounded animal.

“Is this your first time here?” she asked, her voice as beautiful and fragile as a stained-glass window.

Wallace nodded. “D-didn’t want to come when it was busy.”

“I get it,” Penny said, a smidgen less tense. “I don’t like going in here with all the other girls. They can be… kinda mean. T-there are a couple boys that come in during the day, though!”

“Yeah, but they’re…” Wallace scrunched his snout, thinking about Aidan and the cloud of fashionable girls that always hung around him. “...popular.” A word that both cubs shuddered at. 

“Yeah…” Penny steepled her pawpads. “Hey, I promise I won’t tell anyone about your status if you don’t want me to.”

“Thanks.” Wallace replied, trying and failing to not ogle her budding chest. Her development was average for a rodent her age, and smaller than every other girl in their class.

“Still… I can leave if you want some privacy, but the first time I was here, I didn’t know how anything worked.” She blushed again, staring at the wall of lockers. “I got kinda spooked and left without actually doing anything. If you want… maybe I could show you how the machines work?”

Wallace gaped, letting the already awkward atmosphere fester in the intervening silence.

“S-sorry. That’s weird. I’m weird. I shouldn’t’ve-”

“That sounds great!” Wallace mewled, reacting more to Penny’s distress than what she was saying. He tried to keep himself upright, and slammed his paw into the lockers with a deafening clang, making both of them jump.

“C-cool! Cool.” Penny squeaked. “I can, uh, turn around if you want some privacy.”

Wallace’s thoughts kept flowing like old honey. “No, it’s fine.” he said, only to keep staring gormlessly until he realized he was supposed to do something. He pulled off his shirt, nearly falling over as his claws caught in the fabric. 

Stumbling blind with his face full of cotton, he felt another set of paws on his abdomen, steadying him. Someone touching his belly would normally be enough to have him scampering away, but the thought that Penny was actually touching him was enough to keep him still. He freed himself and was confronted by the topless rat girl, her body so close that he could feel the tips of her fur tickling his. He laughed, overstimulated by the whole situation. 

He moved his paws to his waist, hooking a digit under the hem of his waistband. He should be excited, and in a way he was, so much so that he couldn’t stand it. He’d thought about this almost every day, but with the girl in question actually in front of him, his excitement was mixed with dread. He was hard as a rock, he had been ever since he approached the door. He’d imagined showing Penny his penis, many times, usually while spending long periods alone in his bed, but actually doing it?

He looked up to find Penny stepping out of her pants and panties, one leg partway lifted as she kicked them free of her body. Wallace had spent many, many hours wondering what Penny looked like down there. His fantasies hadn’t done her justice. His pupils shrunk to hair-thin lines as he zeroed in on the spot between her legs. Fine, thin fur like spun gold that tapered down to reveal her outer lips. They were set farther up on her crotch than he’d expected, giving him a clear and captivating view.

He’d yanked his pants down before he’d even realized what happened. His erection sprang free of the elastic like a breaching whale (okay, maybe more of a porpoise). Pokey and red with soft barbs running along his shaft, and a clear bead of pre leaking from his tip. 

He nearly grabbed it, his muscle memory urging him to start stroking it like he’d done so many times before. He changed his paw’s course at the last second, slapping himself in the chest like some kind of emaciated gorilla. 

The two cubs paused, Wallace still openly ogling his crush while Penny took a quick glance herself, then looked away. “S-sorry!” she chittered and moved a paw in front of her treasure. “I don’t normally see, y’know… Sorry.”

“You’re okay.” Wallace slurred, crestfallen that the girl’s privates were out of sight. It stung a little, but not enough for him to stop looking at the curve of her thighs and slight pudge of her belly. “K-kinda hard to hide stuff if we’re both naked, right? Haha.” he said with precisely the worst cadence he could have possibly used. 

“Ha. I g-guess you’re right.” She didn’t move. The room felt like a jail cell, both their pulses racing and their awkward exchange echoing off the tiles. “A-anyway! Machines! I can show you, um, the ones I usually use.” Penny turned, striding away from the lockers and further into the room. She glanced back at Wallace, probably to make sure he was following her.

Wallace crept after her, tracking her thick cordlike tail as it swished back and forth across the tiled floor. The walls were lined with informational posters in bold, inoffensive font. ‘Paws to yourself, don’t touch another student without permission’, ‘Wash your paws before returning to class’, ‘Bigger isn’t always better, use what feels right to you!’ and so on.

They passed rows of machines, chairlike apparatuses with gaps in the center where the more complicated machinery lived. He’d seen diagrams often enough when applying, but never let the reality of them sink in. It was easy not to, especially here where he had a rat’s rounded rump to focus on. A nice crisp bounce to her cheeks whenever she took a step. He left a little drop of pre on the floor. He thought he could see a faint wet spot on Penny’s inner thighs, but that might’ve been his hormonal brain playing tricks on him. Even if it wasn’t, it probably had nothing to do with him. 

“These ones!” Penny chirped. They were at the back of the room, where the pleather on the sheets had noticeably less wear and tear. The air was more stagnant here, and without the miasma of disinfectant, he could make out a musky scent, similar to his own in some ways but different in all the important ones. “Most girls use the ones up front, so these probably weren’t used today. I… dunno if you care about that?” She pressed the back of a paw against her cheek. “I sometimes wonder if I’m weird for caring so much.”

“You’re not weird.” Wallace said definitively, despite feeling a little lightheaded. He did his best to keep her body in his field of vision as he looked over the mechanized seats. The thought of these seeing so much use by the other girls in his class tickled at the back of his mind, but it didn’t stick in his craw the way that the thought of Penny seated on one of these did. Imagining her there, moaning and shaking, made a question bubble to his lips. “Do you have, um, a favorite?”

Penny jammed both paws under her glasses, shielding her eyes and ducking her head. “Gosh! U-um, they’re all pretty similar, but I usually use that one?” She pointed to the second one from the back on the left side. 

Wallace walked in front of it like a zombie. Unremarkable compared to the two on either side, it sported an unassuming seat made up of two cushions on either side with a gap in the middle. Just above, two armrests, pockmarked with ratty claw punctures, one of which held an archaic control panel. Lower down was the main piston just below the gap, waiting for a chosen attachment. Finally, the floor contained a tray of the attachments themselves, cleaning supplies, and a conspicuous bucket that few of the other stations shared.

“Whoa.” He muttered, picking at one of the clawmarks with a claw of his own. They matched more closely than he would’ve expected. His penis throbbed. “H-how do I start?”

“Oh, you’ll need to pick one first.” Penny said, pointing to the case. Both cubs crouched down, sliding it out for easier access and cracking open the lid. It contained enough molded silicone to make Wallace’s head spin, each a more garish neon than the last. She extracted a pink, primate-like dildo. It was smaller and less exotic than the others, nearly identical to his own three inches in size. “This is a good one to start with if you’ve never used one before. I used it my first few times before I switched to something bigger.”

Wallace laid a paw on it, brushing against Penny’s in the process. His heart beat in his throat. This toy had been inside her? “That’s perfect.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice one. Then you need to screw it in like this, see?” Penny attached the toy to the main piston with practiced ease. With a final turn, it was locked in place, just below the actual seat. “There’s a more complicated hookup if you want one that vibrates, but you probably don’t want to start with that.”

“’Kay.” Wallace wiped a bead of drool from his muzzle. “Am I, uh, supposed to sit down now?” His member was positively aching. Ulterior motives aside, he’d take any kind of stimulation right now if it would calm the lighting storm in his lower abdomen.

“Yeah- Wait! Lube.” She said, grabbing a bottle from the case but keeping her gaze on the floor as she brought it up. “You, um… they told us that we should use this, just to be safe. I’m pretty sure you’d need this more than a girl would?”

He took it, eyes half-lidded. “Right, yeah, I definitely knew that.”

She chuckled, still staring at the tiling. “Easy to forget stuff if you’re nervous, I guess.”

He squeezed a pawful of the slick, runny substance into his paw, and rubbed it along the length of the attached toy, in exactly the same motions he desperately wanted to use on himself. An effigy of his own need. His penis throbbed in time with each instinctive squeeze he gave the toy. The shivers up his spine nearly knocked him over. “Is this how you normally do it?”

“Sure, but you’ll need to do it, y’know, down there too.” She’d stopped looking at the floor and moved her eyes up to meet Wallace’s gaze as she spoke.

“Right.” he gulped. His slick paw wandered down, seeking his back entrance. He fumbled, hoping he was reaching the right place. Despite what he’d said on his application, of all the ways he’d experimented with his developing body, he’d never explored his back door in any meaningful sense. “Like this?” Wallace asked over his shoulder. He bent his knees in a half-squat, hoping it would make the task easier.

 “Almost, just…” the pause was long enough to be awkward. Just when Wallace would’ve turned around and asked what she meant, he felt her paw on his, pressing his index digit directly onto the opening he’d completely missed until now. He whimpered, nearly sick at the sudden spike of pleasure as Penny’s paw met the fur of his butt. His sphincter parted hungrily, soaking in the lubricant in preparation for more activity. His ears flushed scarlet and his tail whipped around like it had been set alight. It struck Penny’s thigh, not enough to hurt but enough to be another precious bridge of physical contact. 

“T-thanks.” he mewed, standing up straight as soon as she’d moved her paw away. Moving fast enough to outrun his wild thoughts, he sat down on that foreboding seat they’d both been so focused on. There was barely enough space for him to open his legs and give his leaking, needy cock some air.  He was positive that a single stroke would be enough to have him spilling his load all over himself and the rat girl in front of him, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t. He simply sat, eager enough for relief that he was seriously eyeing the buttons on his right. He hovered over the tiny ‘Start’ button for a breath, steeled himself, and pressed it. The piston creaked upward with an ominous slowness, lightly prodding at his entrance but pushing no further. 

Penny dropped into a low squat. Her eyes stayed focused on the machine’s attempts to enter him. “You can use the arrow buttons to make sure it’s in the right place before you let it go further.” She muttered, rubbing a paw along her inner thigh.

Wallace did so impassively, guiding the pink tip toward the same place Penny had shown him a moment ago. Most of his brainpower was focused on the fact that her head was positioned nearly level with his erect little member, and what it would feel like if she were to suddenly take him in her mouth. It came as a shock when the first inch of the toy slid snugly inside him. A brief pang of discomfort that his brain discarded once the pleasure kicked in. He purred and tried to push further down onto it, his hormone-crazed body outrunning his brain.

“Good job!” Penny cheered, standing back up to look him in the eye. Her earnest smile, just for him, made his heart ache in his chest. “Now just start slow and go at your own pace, and you should do great. I’ll, ah, give you some privacy, and use a machine up front.”

Wallace’s previously warm heart rimed over. The thought of losing his beautiful view of Penny, her beautiful gold-dusted slit dripping wetness along the inside of her leg in a way he’d fantasized about countless times…. Even this much should have been enough for him, but it wasn’t. “I thought you liked these ones?” he asked, stopping her in her tracks.

“I mean, yeah, but I wouldn’t want to bother you… or embarrass you, I guess.” Her tail slunk low and curled around one of her ankles. “Also I tend to be kind of… a lot, when I’m using one.”

“I’m okay with it if you are.” He said, gingerly allowing the dildo to move deeper inside him. “You’ve already seen all of my ...stuff, so I don’t really have anything to be embarrassed about.  Plus, you were really cool and helpful, so it’d be kinda nice to have someone nearby.”

Penny held still, the room’s silence broken only by the gooey squelch of Wallace’s butt being stretched open. “You promise you won’t laugh?” she asked.

“Promise.”

Penny took a deep breath. “Kay!” she giggled, about-facing and walking back toward him just as the toy reached maximum depth. He leaned back, letting himself adjust to the strange fullness. He purred again, partly from the feeling but mostly from the fact that Penny chose the machine directly across from him. She bent over, rummaging through her machine’s toy case and displaying her drenched sex to him in the process. His eyes raked across it, spying the sliver of deep pink between her outer lips. His dick bobbed upward as his pelvic muscles clenched. His butt squeezed around the invading toy, pressing it against a spot that made his tip leak even harder. 

“This’ll do.” Penny chirped, attaching a pink dildo to her own machine that mirrored his. She slid the bucket underneath it and the seat.

“I thought you liked bigger ones.”

“Sometimes. I just felt like using this one today.” She plopped into the seat above the toy, keeping her legs maddeningly closed and only showing him the little triangle of fur just below her waistline. Wallace pressed a button, letting the toy inside him slowly pull back before pumping inside him again. A slow cadence, but enough to brush against that terrible, wanting itch he felt. 

“You don’t need lube for yours?”

She put a paw over her mouth. “No, I- well…” Penny spread her legs an inch at a time. The toy hadn’t even touched her yet but still sported several glistening drops running down the silicone. Another bead fell from her opening, hitting the tip and wicking down the side. “I can be kinda messy,” Her face was bright as a tomato as Wallace shamelessly ogled her dripping, eager snatch. Her eyes met his, then dropped lower. “See. I can-” she pressed a button lower on the pad, and the toy buried itself to the hilt inside her with a single thrust “HAH!”

“Whoa…” He murmured, captivated by how easily the machine parted Penny’s folds and slipped inside her body. Her cute little snout, and how she’d scrunched her nose up when the toy first penetrated her. He etched it into his brain, an element of realism for his future fantasies of mounting her. “That’s awesome.”

“Y-you think so?” Penny moaned, prompting the toy to move again at a similar pace to the one probing Wallace’s butt. “I get really messy if I get too worked up. It’s embarrassing.”

“Why’s that? It must be convenient not having to spread lube everywhere when you want to jerk off.”

Penny cackled. She curled her paw into a circle and made a back-and-forth motion on the front of her mound. “Like this, you mean?”

“Y-you know what I meant!” Wallace sputtered, his ears splaying backward. In truth, he knew exactly how much of an issue it could be to have to supply his own lubricant. He’d spent weeks sneaking small amounts from the bottle underneath his parents’ bed before being caught. He had to make do with spit most of the time, which didn’t feel nearly as good.

“How’s it feel so far, better than doing it yourself?”

“Different, definitely.” Wallace shivered as the machine pressed against that mysterious, particularly sensitive spot inside him again. His body gave a great heaving spasm that left him limp and trembling. A strange warmth had blossomed below his stomach and was starting to spread to the rest of him. “N-not a bad different, though.” He was impressed by how much the motions were helping with the burning need he’d walked in with. He didn’t even feel the urge to touch himself anymore.

“How’d you know you wanted to come in here?” Penny asked, absentmindedly rubbing her inner thigh. “Were you trying this stuff on your own?” she winked. “Steal your mom’s hairbrush one too many times?”

Wallace swallowed a lump in his throat. “Not really.” Truth be told, the toy pumping in and out of him, pleasant though it was, was the only thing he’d even contemplated putting near his tailhole. “I’d just, y’know, rub it normally?” A hot flash of shame welled up from his cheeks. He was still a liar, an imposter, despite how exposed he otherwise was. “Is that w-weird?”

“Pro-HAH! Probably not!” Penny whined. The rat girl had already drenched the dildo she’d selected for the occasion. Rivulets of wetness ran from her flower along the pink silicone, falling into the bucket like raindrops. “My mom made me sign up, actually. I really did the hairbrush thing. One too many times returning it with a messy handle, and she said I needed a better outlet.”

“Wow. Was it har-” Wallace stopped himself. “Was it difficult, your first time?”

“Oh it was awful!” She cringed and gave a flat chuckle. “I was so embarrassed I thought I was going to die. I made a huge puddle when I finished, it got everywhere! One of the older girls slipped and fell on it, and then everyone just started yelling at me! I felt so stupid, I started crying and didn’t even remember to turn the machine off, so I was still getting pounded while they were calling me a dumb bitch.” Penny laughed again, a hollow sound like the settling of an old, abandoned house. 

“That’s horrible.” Wallace whispered. The sick weight in his gut warred against the kindled warmth between his legs. Feeling both things at once was gross. 

“Oh yeah, I had no idea I’d screwed up so bad. I got weird looks whenever I came in until I started waiting until later.” She paused, and a shiver ran up her spine. “I hope I’m not bothering you, too.”

“N-no! Not at all, you’re super cool!” he yowled. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could dislike seeing Penny like this. Her golden fur, perky nipples, and twitching pink tail. Her legs parted enough for him to see her vulva, stretching and dripping as the toy entered her to the hilt and back again, faster than it had at the start. It showed him how good she felt, how could anyone be mad about that? “I-I was really nervous when I first came inside.” he stammered, the heat in his cheeks matching the one in his belly. “I was worried that everyone would think I was gross and w-weird, but you were so nice and h-helpful an-a-an!” Wallace’s voice lost shape. His lower half spasmed, and his butt clenched down hard whenever the toy pushed at that special spot. He felt hot and tight in a very familiar way, but without the aid of his paw to bring him to completion, that heat just kept building and building. 

Penny laughed. Her grin was a wild squiggle across her muzzle. 

“Wha?” Wallace hummed, feeling lightheaded.

“You s-said….” Penny breathed in a voice that was half tease-half moan. Her claws stabbed into the pleather, twisting it like an abstract painting. Her eyes stayed locked on his twitching member. “You said ‘c-came inside,’ ha-AH!” she squeaked, her hips bucking like a coiled spring. Her whole body heaved, and her legs sprang open as wide as the chair would allow. “AAAAH!” she squealed. A burst of fluid, quick and compact as a gunshot, fired out of her flower and struck the inside of the bucket with a sound like a hammerblow. “GuuuuaH HAH!” she slid from guttural tones to high-pitched wails as she came. The toy kept moving as fast as ever, eliciting another squeak and fresh burst of fluid every time it buried itself fully inside her. The squirts became less and less distinct each time, until Penny was a dribbling, trembling mess. 

Wallace was deeply, hopelessly in love with her. 

“Wally?” she panted, slowing down her machine.

“P-Penny…” he mewled. His body couldn’t get any hotter. It was spilling over, wrapping his mind in a corona. He could feel liquid welling up in his aching, needy prick, pumped by the strange but intoxicating toy that had brought him to this point. “You’re so…” he trailed off into a mindless groan. His mind went blank, blind to all but the rat girl across from him. His penis throbbed, then erupted in a long-awaited spurt of cum. His first rope shot through the air, moving with such force and range that it struck one of Penny’s feet. The girl’s eyes went wide, staring at the feline boy as he came.

Wallace was floating, riding a wave of pleasure that his body could barely handle. The machine, with its strong, reliable movements, milked him with every movement. Each full insertion, and press against that magic spot inside his butt, released a fresh wave of cum from the tip of his penis. He leaned back, bewildered by his body’s behavior, Instead of a concentrated pleasure spike between his legs, like what he usually felt when pawing off, this suffused his whole being, as if his entire body was cumming at once. He wondered if this was how girls felt, how Penny had felt just a moment earlier. He’d fantasized countless times about how it would feel to cum inside of her, but this? This was something else, and he could get used to it. 

Once his balls started to ache, emptied of everything they had, he prompted the machine to stop. The last few spurts of cum dribbled down his shaft, soaking into the fur around his sack. Both cubs leaned back into their seats, panting with exhaustion. 

“That was…” Penny groaned, tentatively stretching out her legs. “That was awesome! Did you like it? Did it feel different than just touching yourself?” She blinked the fatigue from her eyes, replacing it with a sheen of curiosity.

“I…” Wallace trailed off, looking down at his deflating prick and the mess he’d made with it. He felt a drop of lubricant leak from his butt, and instinctively clenched it closed. The act sent pleasurable aftershocks through his groin. “Yeah, I really liked that. It was totally different to pawing off, but in a good way. I think this is a normal amount? I usually just use a sock.”

“Bet your mom loves doing your laundry.” she quipped and stepped gently out of her seat. “I can show you how to clean up. You probably shouldn’t let your boy stuff dry on the floor overnight.”

“Yeah…” he mumbled, still a little shellshocked by the past few minutes. He stood up reluctantly, but he knew that the two of them couldn’t stay there forever. He took a single step, and his legs instantly buckled.

He fell forward. His legs wouldn’t stop shaking, wouldn’t hold him up, wouldn’t listen to him at all. He was about to hit the floor when something grabbed him, saving him from the impact. 

His panic subsided as he registered the set of fuzzy arms wrapped around his torso, keeping him upright. He felt Penny’s breath on his cheek, panting from the unexpected exertion. “Gotcha! You okay?”

Wallace shifted his stance, resting enough of his weight on her frame that he could keep his feet under him. In the process, his cheek pressed against her shoulder. Feeling her body heat against his, tears threatened to well up in his eyes. He should tell her everything. His feelings, his ulterior motives, all of it, but it stuck in his throat. “Sorry, Penny.” was what came out instead.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” she squeaked. She placed her chin on top of the boy’s head, nuzzling him. “Take as much time as you need, we can go when you’re ready.”

That managed to get a few tears out of him. He did his best to stay quiet and prayed that Penny wouldn’t notice them on her fur. He returned her hug, drinking in how soft she was under his pawtips. In the process, his soft dick ended up pressed against her outer thigh. If she had an issue with that, she didn’t voice it, and Wallace instead relaxed into the hug. 

“Hey Wally? Do you think you’ll want to come back after this?”

“I think so, yeah.” he whispered.

“You don’t have to, but if you wanted to come with me next time too, I’d really like that.”

Wallace started to purr, a gentle vibration that ran from his chest into hers, saying what his words couldn’t. 

“Ha, I’ll take that as a yes!”

It took a few minutes for Wallace’s legs to work properly again. Penny still let him lean on her when cleaning up, walking back to the lockers, even partway through getting dressed. The pair spoke softly about simple things: friends, classes, when they could visit the rec room again. Sharing pieces of themselves, a little bit at a time. That, and a promise to return in the next few days.

Next time, Wallace thought as the pair went their separate ways, I’m definitely gonna tell her how I feel next time.