CHAPTER 0030- The weight of it

Elias came home a little after six.

I was on the couch with a show playing that I wasn’t watching, freshly showered, hair still damp. The living room smelled like nothing in particular. I’d opened a window earlier just in case. Jenna’s perfume was gone. The only evidence left was the memory sitting heavy between my legs and the faint ache in my thighs from how hard I’d come.

He set his keys down, loosened his tie, and looked at me the way he always did when he’d been gone all day — like he was checking whether I was still here, still his, still in whatever state he’d left me in.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“Quiet.”

He nodded and walked into the kitchen. I heard the fridge open, the clink of a glass, the pour of something. When he came back he had whiskey over ice and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. He sat in the armchair across from me instead of beside me. Distance. Or maybe just habit.

“Chloe texted,” he said. “She’s staying at a friend’s tonight.”

“Okay.”

He took a sip and studied me over the rim of the glass. “You look different.”

My pulse kicked once. “Different how?”

“I don’t know yet.” His eyes moved over my face, my loose shirt, the way I had my legs tucked under me. “Just different.”

I forced myself to hold his gaze. “Long shower. I was restless.”

“Restless.”

“Yeah.”

He let the word hang there. Then he set the glass down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“Come here.”

It wasn’t a request. I stood and crossed the space between us. He pulled me down so I was straddling his lap in the armchair, my knees bracketing his hips. His hands settled on my thighs, warm and proprietary. He looked up at me for a long second before speaking again.

“You’ve been thinking about something all day.”

“Maybe.”

“Want to tell me what?”

I should have said no. Should have leaned into the lie and let it harden. Instead I brushed my thumb along the edge of his jaw and felt the faint scrape of stubble.

“Not yet.”

Something flickered in his eyes — curiosity, maybe irritation, maybe the beginning of suspicion. He didn’t push. He just slid his hands higher under my shirt until they rested on my bare waist.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Keep your secret for now. But if it starts affecting the way you look at me, I’m going to want answers.”

“It won’t.”

“We’ll see.”

He kissed me then. Slow. Thorough. The kind of kiss that felt like he was searching for the truth under my tongue. I kissed him back and tried not to think about Jenna’s mouth, Jenna’s fingers, the way she’d tasted when I had my face between her legs. The comparison made my stomach twist with something that wasn’t entirely guilt.

When he pulled back he rested his forehead against mine.

“I missed you today,” he said.

The simplicity of it landed harder than it should have. “I know.”

“Did you miss me?”

I hesitated half a second too long. His hands tightened on my waist.

“Yes,” I said. And it wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

He studied me another moment, then gently moved me off his lap and stood. “I’m going to shower. Order food if you’re hungry. I’ll be down in a bit.”

I watched him disappear up the stairs. The second his bedroom door closed, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

The secret sat in my chest like a stone. Not heavy enough to crush me. Just present enough that I couldn’t forget it was there.

I ordered Thai food for two. When he came back down in sweatpants and a T-shirt, hair damp, we ate on the couch with the TV on low. He asked about nothing important. I answered the same way. Every so often I’d catch him watching me sideways, like he was still trying to locate the shift he’d sensed earlier.

After we finished eating he pulled me against his side. I rested my head on his shoulder and stared at the screen without seeing it. His fingers traced idle patterns on my arm. The domesticity of it felt almost cruel after everything that had already happened in this house — the plumber, my mother, Jake, Jenna.

“You’re quiet,” he said eventually.

“Just tired.”

“Then go to bed.”

I sat up. “Your bed or mine?”

The question hung between us. He looked at me for a long second.

“Mine,” he said. “If you want it.”

I did. And I didn’t. Both things true at the same time.

I stood and held out my hand. He took it. We went upstairs together, the house settling into night around us. In his room I stripped down to my underwear and climbed under the covers. He joined me a minute later, turning off the light, pulling me back against his chest.

His arm settled around my waist. His mouth brushed the back of my shoulder once.

“Whatever you’re not telling me,” he murmured into the dark, “I’ll wait. But not forever.”

I closed my eyes and listened to him breathe.

The secret didn’t go away.

It just lay there between us in the dark, quiet and waiting, while his body stayed warm and solid behind mine.