I run a hand over my face, disgust crawling up my throat. How did I get here? How did I go from silence, from walls built high enough to keep anyone out, to letting him whisper me undone through a phone line?
It shouldn’t have meant anything. But it did. Too much.
And now, even when I try to focus, I can’t stop imagining what it would be like if he were here in person. If those words came with his hands pinning me down. If that heat in his voice burned right against my skin.
I clench my fists, trying to banish the image, but it lingers. My body doesn’t care about my guilt. It remembers the pleasure first.
Maybe that’s what terrifies me most. That for the first time in years, someone has slipped past my guard, and instead of shutting it down, I let him stay.
No matter what I do, I can’t push Phoenix out of my head. I make coffee, pace the apartment, open a book, close it again without reading more than a page. Everything is noise compared to the memory of last night. the sound of his voice, the way he laughed low when I couldn’t hold back a sound of my own.
I told myself I wouldn’t think about it. But the harder I try not to, the stronger it digs in. His words, his tone—it’s all still there, carved into me like something permanent.
The guilt doesn’t ease up, either. It grows. I keep flashing back to my father’s hand across my face, his spit-laced voice telling me what I was, what I wasn’t. A man who lets himself be touched like that isn’t a man at all. My chest tightens justremembering it, a sour shame that makes me curl my fists until my nails dig into skin.
And yet.
Even with the shame pressing down, a pulse of heat runs through me when I replay the moment Phoenix said my name like a promise. Like he knew me better than I knew myself.
I hate that he was right.
By evening, I’m too wound up to sit still. I end up pacing again, staring at my phone. I don’t text him. God knows I want to. But I can’t. Not when my head feels this fractured.
Instead, I open another app and tap the contact I’ve avoided all week. Silas.
The screen goes black for a moment before his face fills it. Dark hair, heavy brows, a voice that carries the weight of command even before he speaks.
“Leander,” he says, like the name alone is a question.
I force a steady smile. “Hey, Si.”
He narrows his eyes, reading me too easily. He always has. “You look troubled.”
“Nah, I’m fine.” The lie sounds paper-thin, so I add, “Just thinking.”
His silence stretches, heavy. Finally, he leans back in his chair, fingers steepled. “Well, don’t leave me on the edge of my seat…” He laughs, trying to hide the worry already creasing his forehead.
I hesitate. The truth rises hot and shameful on my tongue, but I bite it back. I can’t tell him about Phoenix, not like this. Silas knows me better than anyone; he’d know that boy is fucking trouble from just his name on my mouth.
So I deflect. “Well, I was thinking about… people. About whether I should try letting someone in. Dating, maybe.”
That gets his attention. His eyebrows lift a fraction, then draw together. “So I bring it up last week and you say ‘that’s not what I’m focused on.’ And now you’re thinking about it?”
Because someone already broke through, I almost say. Because I can’t stop thinking about the sound of his voice while I…
I scoff. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.”
“You’ve been a loner all this time. Why now?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m tired of being alone.”
Silas studies me for a long, piercing moment. Then he shakes his head slowly. “So, who is he?”
“I didn’t say there was anyone, Si.”
He squints at me. “Yeah, but I can see that lovesick puppy glint in your eyes.”
“I do not have a lovesick puppy look?—”
