Don’t

CHAPTER THREE

POV: Damon

He heard her lock her bedroom door at midnight.

He didn’t know why that sound bothered him. It shouldn’t. People locked their doors. It was a normal thing. He lay on his back in the dark of Marcus’s guest room and stared at the ceiling and told himself to go to sleep.

He didn’t sleep.

He kept thinking about the way she’d asked him if he was happy. Not casually. Not the way people ask when they’re just filling silence. She’d asked it like she actually wanted to know. Like the answer mattered.

Are you happy with Ryan?

Yes.

She’d said it too fast.

He’d noticed. He wished he hadn’t.

Morning came grey and heavy. Still snowing. He checked his phone, Camille had sent three texts and a voice note he hadn’t listened to yet. He typed back all good, miss you and put the phone face down and didn’t examine why the words felt like cardboard in his mouth.

He went downstairs.

She was already in the kitchen this time, sitting cross legged on the counter eating cereal straight from the box, staring out at the snow with an expression he couldn’t quite read. She was wearing an oversized yellow hoodie that swallowed her whole, hair loose around her shoulders, and she looked young and unbothered and nothing like the woman who’d asked him loaded questions by the fire last night.

She didn’t hear him come in.

He stood in the doorway for three seconds longer than he should have.

“You eat cereal dry?” he said.

She spun around. Hand to her chest. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Walk that quietly. You move like a cat it’s unsettling.”

He went to the fridge. Pulled out the orange juice. “There’s milk right there.”

“I know. I like it dry.”

“That’s unwell behavior.”

“Nobody asked you.” But the corner of her mouth moved. Almost a smile. She turned back to the window. “It hasn’t stopped.”

“No.” He poured juice into a glass and leaned against the counter opposite her. “Forecast says tomorrow maybe. Tonight definitely not.”

She nodded. Quiet for a moment.

Then, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it… “Did you text anyone last night?”

He looked at her. “Camille. Why?”

“Just wondering.” She picked at the cereal box. “Ryan’s not picking up. Signal’s bad.”

“Marcus called the house phone around eleven. Said he’d try again today.”

She nodded again. Something was off. He’d known Zara long enough to know when she was performing calm over something else. The stillness was too careful. The casualness too practiced.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Zara.”

“Damon.” She looked at him directly, chin up, eyes steady. “I’m fine. What are we doing today, just sitting around?”

He let it go. For now.

They found an old deck of cards in the drawer under the TV and played rummy for two hours because there was nothing else and outside was impossible. She was annoyingly good. Won three games straight and didn’t bother hiding how much she enjoyed it.

“You’ve been practicing,” he said.

“I’ve always been good. You just never played me before.”

“Marcus said you cheat.”

She gasped. Genuinely. Hand flat on the table. “Marcus cheats and then accuses everyone else. Don’t believe a word that man says.”

Damon laughed. A real one. And she looked at him when he did it, just for a second, something warm and unguarded crossing her face before she looked back at her cards.

He noticed that too.

He was noticing too many things.

Lunch. She cooked this time, jollof rice from whatever she found in Marcus’s cupboards, and it was good, properly good, the kind that meant someone taught her right.

“Your mum?” he asked.

“Every Sunday for three years until she was satisfied I wouldn’t embarrass the family name.”

“She succeeded.”

Zara looked pleased in the way she always looked pleased, like she was trying not to show it. She set a bowl in front of him and sat across the table and they ate and talked about nothing important. Marcus’s terrible taste in furniture. The time Damon had shown up to a family barbecue with store bought potato salad and nearly caused a civil war. The trip she was planning to Portugal in spring.

Normal. Easy. Fine.

Except his eyes kept going to her hands when she talked. The way she used them. Animated, expressive, her whole body part of the conversation.

He looked at his food.

Stop it.

Evening came fast the way it did in winter. Dark by five. The fire was going again and the wind outside had gotten mean and personal and neither of them talked about the fact that this was their second night alone with no real end in sight.

She was on the couch. He was on the floor again, same spot, same posture. Different book because he’d finished the first one.

“Damon.”

“Mm.”

“Can I tell you something weird?”

He looked up. She was pulling at a loose thread on the couch cushion, not looking at him.

“Last night,” she said. “I got a text. Unknown number.”

He waited.

“It said—” she stopped. Started again. “It asked if Marcus knows how I look at you.”

The room went very still.

He put the book down slowly. Sat up straighter. “Show me.”

She passed him her phone. He read it. Read it again. Checked the number, completely unknown, no area code he recognized. He tried to think through who could have sent it, who would have sent it, what they thought they knew and why.

“Have you replied?” he asked.

“I asked who it was. Nothing back.”

He handed the phone back. His jaw was tight. “Probably spam. Some weird bot thing.”

“Damon.”

“Zara—”

“It’s not spam.” Her voice was quiet but certain. “Someone sent that on purpose. Someone who knows us. Someone who’s been watching.” She finally looked at him. “And whoever it is thinks there’s something to see.”

The fire popped loudly between them.

He should have said there’s nothing to see. Should have said it easy and clean and moved on.

He didn’t say anything.

And the silence sat there between them, heavy and warm and full of every unsaid thing, and her eyes stayed on his face and his stayed on hers and the snow kept falling outside like it had no intention of ever stopping.

“Damon,” she said. Softer this time.

“Don’t,” he said.

Just that. One word.

But the way he said it didn’t sound like stop.

It sounded like please.