Chapter 3: Sleep With Me

I didn’t answer him.

Not because I didn’t want to, but because my body had already made the decision for me, and my mind was scrambling to catch up.

I like your name.

It was such a stupid thing to be undone by. Three simple words. Softly spoken. Not even flirtatious. And yet they followed me down the hallway, into my room, into my chest, settling somewhere deep and inconvenient.

I shut my door and leaned against it, pressing my forehead to the wood like it might ground me.

Get it together, Anna.

He was Daniel’s brother. Maya’s son. Temporary. Off-limits in every possible way that mattered.

And still.

I changed slowly, deliberately, like I was trying to shake him off with each movement. Shorts. A loose T-shirt. Hair tied up. I stared at myself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the girl looking back.

Her cheeks were flushed.

Her eyes were too bright.

Her thoughts were not innocent.

Dinner was announced from downstairs not long after, Dad’s voice carrying up the steps. I hesitated before leaving my room, taking a steadying breath like I was walking into something dangerous.

The dining room was warm and alive when I stepped in.

Maya was laughing at something Dad said, her wedding ring catching the light when she moved her hand. Daniel was already seated, scrolling on his phone, one leg hooked around the chair like he couldn’t sit still even for dinner. Nobody was talking about Nicolas, but from the way dad looked at Daniel I got it. They were trying to surprise Maya.

Then footsteps came from the stairs.

Maya turned first.

“Nicolas?”

Her voice wasn’t loud. It was soft. Disbelieving. Like she’d said his name in her head a thousand times and never expected it to answer back.

He walker closer with a big smile, and for a moment no one spoke.

Then Maya ran across the room and hugged him, holding on longer than people usually do when they’re trying not to cry.

“You’re here,” she said, pulling back to cup his face. “You missed the wedding.”

“I know,” he replied quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Dad cleared his throat, smiling proudly. “I picked him up earlier. Thought I’d surprise you.”

Guessed righttttt...

Maya laughed through the tears. “You did.”

I stood there like a guest in my own house, watching a family moment that wasn’t mine but somehow included me anyway.

Nicolas’s gaze found me across the room.

Just for a second.

Long enough.

Dinner felt… strange.

Not uncomfortable. Not awkward. Just charged in a way I couldn’t explain.

He sat across from me. Too far to touch. Too close to ignore. Every time I lifted my eyes, he was either already looking at me or had just looked away.

I told myself I was imagining it.

Daniel talked nonstop, filling every silence with commentary about the honeymoon plans, the food, the fact that Dad had burned the garlic bread.

Maya kept glancing at Nicolas like she was memorizing him again, checking that he was real.

And me?

I was hyper-aware of everything.

The way Nicolas ate slowly. The way his sleeves rode up when he moved. There was a flower tattoo in his hand. I noticed the way his voice dropped when he spoke less and listened more.

Once, under the table, his knee brushed mine.

I froze.

It was accidental. It had to be. But neither of us moved away immediately, and that single second stretched until my skin felt too tight.

I excused myself early.

“I’m tired,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie, just not the whole truth.

In my room, the house felt too quiet again.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, it was way past midnight and I still kept replaying everything I shouldn’t have noticed. Everything I definitely shouldn’t want.

I wasn’t an insomniac.

I just didn’t sleep well alone.

Daniel used to let me curl up on the edge of his bed when we were kids, after nightmares. Maya and Dad were newlyweds now. Their door was closed. Their space not mine to intrude on.

As the time went on, the silence felt unbearable.

So I went to the kitchen.

I moved quietly, muscle memory guiding me. Warm milk. A small pot. Low flame.

The house creaked softly around me, settling.

“Can’t sleep?”

I gasped and spun around.

He was sitting on the floor near the back door, one knee bent, a book in his hand.

How the hell had I not seen him?

With how big he was, he should’ve been impossible to miss.

“I—” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Jesus. You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he said, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

I gestured toward the stove. “Yeah, can't sleep.”

He nodded. “That explains the milk.”

I huffed a quiet laugh before I could stop myself.

I squinted “Why are you sitting on the floor like that?”

He lifted the book a little. “Reading.”

“In the dark?”

“There’s light,” he said calmly. “Just not where you’re standing.”

I poured the milk, heated it, kept my movements slow, anything to avoid thinking about how alone we were in this kitchen.

“You?” I asked, mostly to fill the silence or maybe because I wanted to talk to him. “You can’t sleep either?”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “I’ve slept enough lately to last a month.”

I leaned against the counter consciously lifting my shirt a bit as I held the mug, suddenly very aware that I was barefoot. That my shirt hung loose. That he was looking at me like he was paying attention to everyone of those details.

“You’re bad at flirting,” he said casually.

“I wasn’t flirting.”

“You were.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling despite myself. “Okay. That was bad flirting.”

I wrapped my hands around the mug, heat seeping into my palm as I sipped. The silence deepened.

“Insomnia?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. I just… don’t like sleeping alone.”

He didn’t answer right away.

Then....

“You don’t have a problem sleeping,” he said quietly.

“Oh?”

“You have a problem being alone.”

My throat tightened and then calmly, evenly, like it’s the most natural question in the world, he asked:

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

The question landed softly.

Dangerously.

And everything in me went quiet.