Page 100 of These Tears

My eyes skim the bulk of his arms, his frame, and I suddenly wonder—

‘You built this?’ I murmur.

His shoulder lifts, almost dismissively. ‘Had help.’

There it is again – the invisible hand behind everything: the stocked cellar, the luggage, the route here, the clean bed waiting as if my abduction had been pencilled into a calendar.

‘The vents.’ He tips his gaze up to the corners. ‘They’re poor. Unless you want the room thick with steam—’ His head lowers unhurriedly, eyes landing on mine without blinking, ‘—you keep the door open.’

My face starts to go numb as the moment stretches beneath his stare.

My attention winds around him and touches the bed – positioned like a witness to peer straight into the shower room.

So…

This is how he makes it worse.

He strips the privacy away under the guise of bloody ventilation?

He leaves the shower room with no more than a passing glance, startling me back into the moment.

‘Don’t use up all the hot water,’ he says, his gaze dragging slowly from my face to my bare feet, lingering just long enough to feel like an actual touch.

My throat burns. I blink hard and grip the clothes bundle tighter as I pull the bookcase-door almost shut, careful not to send the spines tumbling.

Or expose the shaking of my hands.

Through the crack, I hear the duvet being fluffed again, and I peer through. Part of his hand is visible as he smooths it flat.

And if I can see out?

I let the answer come out on a heavy exhale rather than lodge in my head.

‘Too many layers.’

I nearly trip over my own damned feet, my patience already gone. ‘What?’

‘Just the pyjamas will do,’ he says. ‘You’ll overheat in the undershirt beneath it.’ His gaze flicks to the duvet, the fireplace, then – briefly – to his own chest.

I catch the implication and immediately – forcefully – reject it. Surely he doesn’t mean I’d overheat because of him.

Does he?

Such a small thing to take away. One layer of cotton. One small decision.

My skin crawls.

So far, he hasn’t forced anything away from me, because he is perfectly capable of forcing me to hand it over neat and folded.

My jaw closes so hard my teeth ache. Every instinct screams to tell him to go packing to hell.

‘Or…’ He doesn’t grin or make fun of my silence, simply abandons the pillows and straightens to his full height. ‘Are you saying you don’t want to sleep in the bed next to me?’

Half of his face aligns with the opening of the door.

It’s not a question.

It’s not a taunt.