LOGINI looked, and it was actually open. I'd probably left it open when I came inside without registering that I was leaving it open."What do you want?""Lunch. Come down."It was not a question, not like he was trying to command me either. The way it stood in the middle ground between those two things that I'd stopped having the energy to argue with.I followed him downstairs.He made sandwiches, good ones, he made it so well, and even from the aroma I could already feel that the ingredients were chosen correctly, and the cooking was done exactly as it should be. The bread was right, the order of things right. He assembled them without asking what I wanted in mine and what I did not, and somehow got it exactly right anyway. Maybe it's just a normal thing since we both live in the same house.We ate at the island. I left my laptop in my room, and here, it was just us and the food and the afternoon light cutting through the window. I couldn't even stay on my laptop to make it a good distra
I woke up twice in the night. Both times the first thing I thought was: if I don't step back, I won't stop.I didn't think of his face, not the hallway, not anything surrounding the words. Just those words. They were sitting in my chest when I surfaced from sleep, like they'd been waiting there.It was a new day.I woke up before my alarm. I turned it off before it could ring and made my way to the bathroom.I stood under the shower longer than I should have, thinking about what it meant to stop acting like I was perfectly okay. I'd been pretending for so long that I was starting to convince myself it was true, even when it wasn't. Everything felt exhausting. Existing. Thinking. Even sleeping and waking up.I stayed there until the water started to lose its warmth.When I finally stepped out, I dried myself with a towel and went back to my room.I opened my wardrobe and let my eyes drift over the clothes for a moment before reaching for one of my favorite dresses. It wasn't anything s
I was sitting on my bed staring at the camera when I should have been sleeping.His t-shirt was on the floor where I'd dropped it changing into sleep clothes. The rest of the room was dark except for the bedside lamp, which I'd also turned down to just the lowest setting, and then there's the red light in the corner which was visible, but barely. The question I hadn't let myself answer was why I hadn't pulled it out yet. I looked at the red light and tried to answer that honestly.He'd installed it to watch me. That was a violation. A complete, unjustifiable invasion of the one space in this whole complicated house that was supposed to be mine alone. I was furious about it when I found it. I was genuinely furious, and some of that fury was still there, banked and real.But he'd said I needed to see you were okay.Not: I wanted to watch you. Not: I wanted something to hold over you, but I needed to see you were okay.That was still wrong. I wasn't letting him off the hook. It just was
Two days.It's been two days since I'd stood in the dark of my room looking at that red light and decided to perform. Two days since I'd screamed his name into the empty air and then cleaned up and changed his sheets and gone to sleep like it hadn't happened. Two days of mornings and meals and careful proximity and both of us not saying the thing we were both very clearly not saying.Wednesday morning I woke up thinking about the camera before I thought about anything else.I didn't think about him, the camera, or the fact that it's a violation. But I kept coming back to, what I'd been letting myself focus on, because focusing on the camera was cleaner than focusing on everything else.I got up and dressed up. When I got downstairs, he was already in the kitchen. Of course he was.Is he some kind of chef now?He's already made coffee, and my cup is already out with the right amount of cream, and I was mesmerized by the fact that he'd apparently memorized at some point without either o
The next thing I heard was his footsteps on the stairs, then he walked up and his door opened, then closed.That was it. That was our entire interaction.I sat with my fictional book and tried to process the fact that we'd progressed from last night, the fact that I saw a camera in my room, the performance, his name screamed into my empty room, to "I'll make dinner later" like nothing existed between those two points.Fine. That was fine. I could do this.I read the same page four times and retained nothing, before I finally got myself back to my senses and continued reading like I should.At six-thirty, sounds came from his room. Then he walked past me in the sitting room, and went to the kitchen. I stayed on the couch until garlic hit the air and my stomach made the decision for me.He'd actually pulled out real ingredients. A proper pan. And pasta water is already going. He moved around the kitchen with the kind of focus and e
The house was too quiet.I hadn't noticed before, how much noise two people made just by existing. Mom's slippers on the hardwood. That way she always hums songs while waiting for her tea to steep. Dad's work calls bleeding through walls at odd hours, his footsteps which are always heavier than anyone else's, the television in their room every night at exactly ten like clockwork.All of it was completely gone, and replaced by nothing.I set up at the kitchen table with my laptop and coffee number two and pulled up the email chain with Nina. There was actual work to do. It was the final confirmation on the Madison boutique order, a packaging decision that needed a yes or no, three influencer emails sitting unanswered since Friday. Real, concrete things with deadlines.I stared at the screen for a few minutes before I was able to answer one email.Every time I got traction my brain slid sideways. The camera. His face this morning, careful and blank across the kitchen. The way he'd stopp
I closed my bedroom door behind me, and leaned against it.That was surreal. All of it. The way he was there. The manner in which he paid all attention. His legs leaning against mine. The whisper "You look beautiful." Mom's comment about us, "You and Jax seem closer lately."Fuc
I pushed through my door and it closed behind me with a soft click, but I still sounded way too loud in my head.I made it three steps before my legs quit. I just dropped onto my bed face-first, I didn't even try to undress, or try to do anything, I didn't even think.My brain was filled of white n
I was sitting at my desk with my laptop open and my headphones on. I was editing an Instagram Reel for to post on my Instagram, and putting together behind-the-scenes clips from my recent photoshoot, along with shots of the fabric swatches, me adjusting the lighting, and close-ups of the jewelry
I was making constant, and filthy sounds, the that were both loud, and broken moans and gasps and raw, all echoing off the walls.The orgasm built fast, explosive, unstoppable, apocalyptic. I'd been teetering on the edge forever, wound so tight it detonated instantly."I'm gonna







