“Don’t ask.”
At midnight I’m standing in front of the open fridge, my feet bare on the pale wooden floor, looking for the cake Carter brought.
I hear the creak of a floorboard near the dining room. Then the scuff of socks on wood.
Don’t be him. Don’t be him.
I glance over my shoulder just as Dorien rounds the corner and stops.
Dammit.
I keep my head in the fridge and try to ignore my racing pulse. I pretend to search for the cake I’ve already located. He comes up behind me and leans over, his chest brushing my shoulder, close enough that I feel his heat through my sleep shirt, and says, “Excuse me,” while reaching past me for a can of soda.
My entire body goes incandescent. Every nerve from my scalp to my toes fires at once. I grip the fridge shelf and focus on the cold air pouring over my face.
He leans against the counter and cracks the soda. From the corner of my eye, I watch the line of his throat as he drinks, the way his Adam’s apple moves, and I want to paint him like this. Midnight in a kitchen, warm wood behind him, the fridge light cutting his profile in half.
“Where’s your guy?” he asks. “Haven’t seen him.”
“Well, you were napping,” I shoot back. “He’s in my room, obviously.” I pull the cake out, put two slices on separate plates, return the rest of the cake to the fridge, then carry both plates out of the kitchen without looking back.
Dorien needs to think Tyler is still here, and I will maintain this lie as long as I can.
I close the bedroom door and sit on the bed with two plates of cake and a body that feels like I’ve been standing next to afurnace. My skin won’t cool down. I eat one slice. Then I eat the other because waste is a sin and also because I’m stress-eating.
Why is Dorien doing this? After years of maintaining distance, of complete antagonism, he’s suddenly in my space at every turn. We have one honest conversation at the cemetery and he decides the rules don’t apply anymore?
I hear his door close through the wall. He’s back in his room.
An idea pops into my head. It’s a terrible idea. The worst idea.
I wait five minutes. Then I grab the headboard with both hands and slam it into the wall. Once. Twice. I let out a loud moan. Another slam. I vary the rhythm like I’m a one-woman show and this is my Broadway debut. I make it convincing. Or at least I try, pressing my face into the pillow between moans so I don’t start laughing, because this is absurd. I’m absurd. I’m a twenty-year-old woman banging a headboard into a wall to make a man I’m not sleeping with think I’m sleeping with a different man who left hours ago.
But if Dorien thinks Tyler is in here, if Dorien hears this and believes it, then maybe he’ll back off tomorrow. Maybe he’ll stop leaning over and saying flirty things like he’s already decided we’d be good together and he’s just waiting for me to catch up.
I give it one more headboard slam for good measure, and an orgasm-worthy moan, and then lie in the dark, flushed and out of breath for all the wrong reasons.
In the morning I shuffle into the kitchen in an oversized Alaria sweater and shorts, hair in a messy bun, hoping for coffee before human interaction. Carter is at the counter butteringtoast. Dorien is sitting on the countertop next to the stove, legs hanging, eating cereal out of the box. He’s in sweats and… shirtless.
Screw him!He can’t walk around here half naked!
“Morning,” Carter says.
“Morning.” I beeline for the coffee maker and ignore Dorien as if I’ll go blind if I eventhinkof looking at his sculpted chest.
Dorien crunches a handful of cereal, and I feel his gaze on me. “Sleep well?” he asks.
There’s a little curl of amusement in his tone, barely there but enough to send ice down my spine and fire up my neck.
“Fine,” I manage.
“Good.” He eats another handful. “Sounded like you had a workout.”
Carter is trying not to laugh. I can see it in his shoulders, the way he’s pressing his lips together while aggressively buttering the same piece of toast.
I straighten my spine and turn to face Dorien, sipping my coffee. I give him my best unbothered gaze. “A very satisfying one.”
The bastard smirks. “Good. Wouldn’t want you unsatisfied.”
