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I raise the mug to my mouth, but before I can get a sip, it’s being swiped out of my hand. I don’t have to turn around to know it’s him.

“Mmm.” He clicks his tongue, placing the mug on the counter. “Too sweet.”

Grayson is close enough that the warmth of him soaks through the back of my hoodie, close enough that his pinewood and ash scent is all I can smell, close enough that when he reaches around me to set the mug down on the counter his bare forearm brushes my hip.

“You always say that.” I cross my arms over my chest and turn around to look at him, which is a mistake.

He is shirtless, one hand braced on the counter beside me, boxing me in against the marble, gray sweatpants slung so low on his hips I have to physically order my eyes to stay above his waistband. There is a crease on his cheek from his pillow. The shadow on his jaw has gone past stubble overnight, and I watch his throat move as he swallows the last of my too-sweet coffee that he stole, and I hate that two years have not made me immune to watching Grayson Douglas swallow.

“You should learn to make better coffee.” He sets the mug down behind me without breaking eye contact, which means leaning in, and for half a second his chest is an inch from mine, and I forget the entire English language.

“Or you could learn not to steal.” I jolt back to reality, my eyes dropping down to his lips.

He straightens but doesn’t move away, and I have to crane my neck back a few inches just to make eye contact.

“You’re up early,” he says.

“I don’t really sleep anymore.”

“Why?” He tilts his head to the side, looking me over.

“Life of a popstar.” I shrug.

“Right.” He pulls away, moving to the other side of the counter and leans his hip against the far edge. The space between us opens back up to a normal, breathable distance, and I should feel relieved, but I don’t. I want him closer. “Does being a popstar also mean losing your manners?”

I blink at him. What the hell?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I wrap both hands around my empty mug just for something to hold.

“Well,” he says, crossing his arms over his bare chest, “when I’m not on good terms with someone, I don’t move into their house unannounced.”

“So, you’re mad at me.”

He scoffs, dragging his eyes slowly from my face to the collar of the hoodie to the bare stretch of my legs under the sleep shorts and back up again. I can feel sparks, and heat rolls across my flesh with every moment he looks at me. By the time his gaze climbs back to my face his jaw has gone tight.

“I’m something, alright.” He clears his throat and looks away, out the window over the sink. “How long will you be here?”

“A few weeks.”

“No.”

“No?” I parrot, sure I misheard him.

“You heard me.” He pushes off the counter, and the easy slouch is gone, every line of him gone hard. “Not a few weeks. Not in this house.”

My stomach knots. He cannot be serious. He doesn’t get to evict me from a house that half belongs to his sister.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go, Grayson,” I counter, but we both know it’s a lie.

I have a black card and a fake name and the entire Hilton corporation at my fingertips. I have a manager who would charter a jet to take me to Dublin, and a credit card that could buy part of an island if I wanted. I have everywhere to go.

But I have one card he cannot beat, so I play it.

“Iris wants me here.” I tilt my chin. “You want to kick me out, you go tell your little sister why.”

His jaw works. The muscle under his ear ticks once, hard, and I know I have him, because the one thing Grayson Douglas has never been able to do in his entire life is disappoint Iris.

“I’m not going to kick you out,” he bites, low. “But I wanted you to know that I don’t want you here.”