Page 120 of Tempest’s Torment

His fork stops halfway to his mouth.

I realize my mistake immediately. Kai slowly lowers it back to his plate and looks around the kitchen. I follow his gaze even though I already know what he's looking at.

His coffee mug is beside the sink because apparently putting it in the dishwasher would have required too much effort last night. His hoodie is hanging over the back of the chair beside him, there are two pairs of his boots by my front door, and when I opened the bathroom cabinet this morning, his deodorant was sitting beside mine.

There's a phone charger plugged into the socket beside my bed that definitely isn't mine. Three of his T-shirts went into my washing machine yesterday. And I'm pretty sure there are more of his clothes in my bedroom right now than there are across the hall.

He hasn't spent a single night in his own apartment since the farmhouse, he never asked if he could stay, and I’ve not asked him to leave. At some point, he just stopped going home.

Except, technically, he hasn't gone anywhere because his apartment is twenty feet away. Still, every day something else new appears in mine. Yesterday it was his favorite coffee. The day before, a pair of jeans ended up folded in the bottom of my wardrobe, this morning I found his razor beside the sink.

Kai's gaze eventually comes back to me. "Your apartment?"

I narrow my eyes. "Don't."

His eyebrow lifts. "Didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to."

"I was just looking around."

"Smugly."

"Didn't know you could look around smugly."

"You manage it."

His mouth pulls into a grin as he picks up one of the pieces of bacon.

I hold out my hand but he eats it. "Kai."

"What?"

"That was mine."

"You took too long."

I reach across the table for the other one, but he gets there first and lifts it out of reach. "Give it to me."

"Ask nicely."

I stare at him. "Give me the fucking bacon."

"Close enough."

He holds it out, and I take it from his fingers before he changes his mind. My shoulder pulls when I sit back, and I wince before I can hide it. Kai catches it immediately. His grin disappears. "Shoulder?"

"It's fine."

"Lilah."

"It's stiff."

"You do the exercises?"

I reach for my coffee with my other hand. "Some of them."

"How many?"