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My favorite part of it all was the chandelier that hung in the middle of the room. It was too big for the space. Too grand. Which was the primary reason I’d rented this apartment. For this grand chandelier that did not belong.
“Now, this is nothing like the space I’d imagined,” I continued speaking to Jay but did not look at him, I focused on the space of wall above his head. “The life I’d imagined. But I’ve learned that that rarely happens. Images in our imagination rarely translate to real life. I’ve learned to love the transition of them.” My eyes found him. “I’ve learned to love the things that I never could’ve imagined loving.”
Voldemort decided to interrupt the moment, like the asshole he was. He did this by walking past me with his head in the air in order to approach Jay, purring and rubbing himself against his leg.
“Figures,” I muttered. “He’d like you when he hates every single person who has crossed the threshold of this apartment. Villains stick together.”
Jay looked down at Voldemort then back up to me. There was something in his eyes. Something in the air tonight. Something that might be a change between us. With him.
But then his eyes turned cold again.
“Take off your dress.”
The command was familiar, yet my body responded as if it was the first time he’d said this to me.
I did exactly as he said.
And then, he covered my apartment in his presence. So by morning, he owned that too.
Going to her apartment had been a mistake.
A huge fucking mistake.
There was a reason he’d made all the woman before Stella come to him—because he did not want to see where they lived. How they lived. Did not want to meet any fucking cats. Did not want to know what books they read. How they organized their lives. What their space said about them. And he most certainly did not want to wonder what the fuck a giant chandelier was doing in a small living room while at the same time thinking it was absolutely perfect for Stella.
Jay simply did not care about any of that. He did not want women to expect him to care about that. But the first night he took Stella out, he wanted in. Into her apartment. He wanted to know what it smelled like. What her bed looked like. Wanted to imprint his presence onto every fucking wall so she couldn’t make a cup of coffee without thinking of him.
But she’d been firm on her boundaries. And he’d fucking hated it.
Until now.
Until he was in her apartment that smelled of lavender and expensive perfume. One she shared with a cat called Voldemort. She called her cat Voldemort. Considered it a villain.
Just like him.
Her apartment was warm. Full of Stella. It smelled of her. Felt like her. Tasteful. Everything was expensive. Apart from the tacky souvenirs from around the world that she’d peppered throughout her apartment.
There was a fucking snow globe from Tahiti perched on a shelf in her bathroom. A tropical paradise where they didn’t even have a winter. Somehow that seemed logical. It seemed fucking perfect.
She had turned the second bedroom of her apartment into a closet. She’d put it all together herself, hadn’t hired someone, hadn’t mentioned and old boyfriend who Jay immediately would’ve wanted to kill for having had his hands-on something Stella kept in her apartment. She was capable of doing it all herself. It was a seemingly innocuous detail but something Jay held on to. Stella collected souvenirs, she named her cat after a villain in her favorite book series, she put together furniture. Snippets of her that he’d not been able to pay to know. Things that he’d had to come in to her life to find out. The very place he’d promised himself he’d never be.
But he couldn’t have fucking survived without knowing more. Without knowing her. Without fucking her in her bed. Sleeping in it. Waking up with her in it.
When his alarm went off at five, he was pissed. Pissed that he’d put himself in this situation. Pissed at Stella for having this power over him.
She didn’t wake when he got up. Didn’t even stir. Stella slept like the dead, but she clutched onto him whenever he tried to extract himself from her. It happened every morning. She fought to keep him, even in her sleep. He managed to get completely dressed before she woke up to him moving about the room. The cat looked at him with judgement from the end of the bed.
“It’s too early,” Stella murmured, hiding her head underneath the pillow. “And it’s Sunday. The day of rest. The day where Stella does not awaken or function like a human being until it’s at least 8:00 a.m. It is not 8:00 a.m..”
