He doesn’t laugh. He blinks at me, slow, like I haven’t said anything strange at all, likeI’m sure you have womenis a perfectly normal thing to say to a man who just peeled your ex off you.
Fantastic. Love that for me.
“Elara.” He says it certain, like the name is a full sentence. “What matters right now is that you’re safe. I can’t make sure of that from across the hall.”
“But—”
“Please. Let me do this.”
I breathe out.
The hallway is quiet. His keys are in his hand and he’s still looking at me likethat, and I’m so tired, and Kyle is somewhere in this city knowing my address, which is the kind of fact that sits on your chest at three a.m. And Erik is right here, and warm, and steady, and my nervous system already voted without asking me, and so did the other one, the one with worse judgment and much louder opinions—
“One condition,” I say.
Something moves at the corner of his mouth.
Dammit.
“What’s that?”
“You stay at my place.”
“Done.”
Zero hesitation. No counteroffer, nolet me think.Justdone, immediate, like I handed him something he’d already decided he wanted and was waiting for me to offer.
I open my mouth.
Close it.
I don’t have a follow-up. I prepared for resistance and got a yes and now I’m just standing here holding a negotiation that ended early.
“Come on.” He’s already turning toward his door. “Come with me while I grab my things. I don’t want you alone right now.”
I follow him without thinking about it.
Because of Kyle.
Yeah. That’s it. That’s the reason.
Chapter 12
Elara
Erik’s apartment is the same shape as mine and nothing like it.
Same bones — same galley kitchen, same window in the same place throwing the same flat afternoon light. But where my apartment is a controlled landslide of books and mugs and a plant I talk to, his is just… calm. Lived in, but calm. Like a person who knows where his things are and doesn’t apologize for any of them.
I stand a few feet inside the door doing the thing where you don’t know what to do with your hands, so I do everything with them — clasp them, unclasp them, push my hair back, fold my arms, unfold them, decide arms are too much commitment, let them hang.
“Make yourself at home,” he says, not looking up, already moving toward the back. “This’ll take five minutes.”
Make myself at home. Sure. I’ll just do that. I’ll just casually exist in the apartment of the man who watched me ask his jaw if it had a membership and then later peeled my ex off me like a sticker. Totally relaxed. The picture of a woman at ease.
I do not sit down. Sitting down feels like a decision I haven’t earned. So I hover, and I let my eyes go where they want because looking at his stuff is at least a thing to do that isn’t looking at him.
That’s when I see the notepad.
