When the door closes behind us, I lean back against it and let out a breath.
Ollie meets my eyes and just… grins. “You’re in trouble,” he murmurs.
“I’m always in trouble.”
“Your mom’s terrifying.”
“She likes you.”
“She hugged me like she meant it.”
That softens something in me immediately. “She did,” I agree.
We move around each other awkwardly for a second, not quite sure what this version of intimacy looks like in someone else’s house. In my parents’ house.
Ollie grabs the bathroom first, saying something about giving me a minute. I nod and sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the familiar walls. I’ve slept in this room more than a few times since they moved in.
Never like this.
The giddiness creeps up on me unexpectedly. It’s ridiculous.
Just yesterday we were pressed together under hot water, steam curling around us while eight years of restraint detonated in under an hour.
I close my eyes briefly.
The memory hits hard—his hands gripping my belt, the look in his eyes before he dropped to his knees. The urgency. The hunger. The way my body responded before my brain could catch up.
It was reckless.
It was inevitable.
It was fucking incredible.
But this? This feels different. More dangerous, maybe. Because the shower was heat and gravity and need. This is quiet, domestic. Intimate in a way that requires staying.
The bathroom door clicks open. Ollie steps out, hair damp, wearing soft lounge pants and a T-shirt.
I pause. He always sleeps shirtless. I’ve known that since we were barely twenty-one. “You hate sleeping in a tee,” I say.
He freezes halfway across the room. “It’s fine,” he replies too quickly.
I tilt my head. “Why are you wearing it?”
He rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed in a way that’s so unguarded it almost wrecks me. “I didn’t want you to feel… weird.”
“Weird?”
“Your parents’ house,” he clarifies. “Didn’t want to make it awkward.”
The sweetness of that hits harder than the memory of him on his knees. “You think my parents don’t know what married people do?” I ask dryly.
His ears go slightly pink.
I stand and step closer. “Take it off.”
He hesitates.
“Not for me,” I add softly. “For you. You’ll sleep better.”
