Chapter 15: Move-In

By evening the house had settled into a silence that felt deliberate.

I stayed in the guest room as long as I could, organizing the few things I had brought, charging batteries, reviewing shots I had already reviewed. Anything to delay walking back downstairs into shared space. The sun dropped behind the buildings outside the window. The light in the room shifted from hard gold to a cooler blue. Eventually the smell of food drifted up the stairs and made further delay feel childish.

I went down.

Rex was in the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, moving with the same focused efficiency he used around the car. Two plates sat on the island. He didn’t look surprised to see me.

“You can eat up there if you want,” he said. “Or you can sit. Your choice.”

I sat.

The food was simple and good. Neither of us spoke much while we ate. The quiet wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t empty either. It carried the weight of everything unsaid and everything already known. When the plates were clear, Rex leaned back against the counter and looked at me like the next part of the evening had been scheduled in advance.

“Rules,” he said.

I had spent part of the afternoon writing them on my phone, deleting lines, rewriting them, trying to build a structure that might keep the walls from collapsing completely.

“I’ll go first,” I said.

He gestured for me to continue.

“No entering each other’s bedrooms without permission. The guest room is mine for the duration. Your room is yours. Full stop.”

“Fine.”

“No discussing the secret in the house unless it’s necessary. I don’t want it turned into casual conversation over coffee.”

Rex’s mouth twitched. “Define necessary.”

“If it directly affects the deal or Ethan. Otherwise it stays where it is.”

He considered that, then nodded once. “Acceptable.”

“No bringing other people here while I’m staying. I don’t care if it’s friends or anyone else. This arrangement is already complicated enough.”

“I can live with that.”

“No deliberate provocation.” I held his gaze. “No using proximity to push reactions out of me for your own entertainment.”

That one landed differently. Rex was quiet for a few seconds.

“I’ll try,” he said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the honest one. I’m not going to promise something I won’t keep. I’ll try.”

It was less than I wanted and more than I expected. I moved on before I could dig at it.

“We keep separate schedules as much as possible. I work. You train. We don’t turn the house into an extension of the garage.”

“Agreed.”

“And the deal still stands in public. Access for cooperation. Nothing more.”

Rex tilted his head slightly. “Nothing more is already a lie, but I’ll let you keep the sentence if it helps you sleep.”

I ignored that. “Your turn.”

He pushed off the counter and walked a slow half-circle around the island, thinking.

“You don’t freeze me out in my own house,” he said. “If we’re in the same room, you don’t act like I’m not there. Basic acknowledgment. That’s not flirting. That’s not a performance. It’s basic respect for shared space.”

I hesitated, then nodded.

“You tell me if the apartment timeline changes. I don’t want to find out from Ethan that you’re extending or leaving on short notice.”

“Fine.”

“And if something about the arrangement becomes unworkable for you, you say it directly instead of manufacturing a fight to create distance.”

That one cut closer than I liked. I looked down at the empty plate in front of me.

“I’ll try,” I said, echoing his earlier honesty.

Rex stopped across from me. The island still separated us, but the space felt smaller than it had at the start of the meal.

“One more,” he said.

I waited.

“No pretending the air doesn’t change when we’re alone in here.” His voice was quieter. “You don’t have to act on it. You don’t have to discuss it. But you don’t get to look me in the eye and claim it isn’t happening. Not under this roof.”

My pulse kicked. “That’s not a house rule. That’s a demand.”

“It’s a condition for keeping the rest of the list workable.” He held my gaze. “Take it or argue with it. Either way, I’m not going to participate in a fiction that the tension disappears when the garage doors close.”

Silence stretched. Outside, the city lights had fully taken over the windows. Inside, the only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator.

“Fine,” I said finally. The word felt heavy. “But the second this stops being temporary, the entire list gets renegotiated.”

“Deal.”

We left the dishes. I went upstairs before the conversation could slide into something less structured. Behind the closed guest room door I sat on the bed and read the rules again on my phone, as if seeing them in text would make them more solid. They looked clean on the screen. In practice they already felt fragile.

Sleep came late and uneven. I woke once to the sound of footsteps in the hallway, soft and brief, then nothing. I lay still in the dark, listening to a house that wasn’t mine settle around me, and tried not to calculate how many nights were left before the apartment would be cleared.

The next morning the rules got their first test.

I came downstairs to find Rex already in the kitchen, coffee made, the news on low volume on a tablet. He looked up when I entered. For a second neither of us spoke. The acknowledgment he had asked for hung in the air, simple and charged.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning.”

It shouldn’t have felt like a concession. It did.

We moved around each other with careful precision. He poured a second cup without asking and left it on the counter for me. I took it. Our fingers didn’t touch. The near-miss still registered.

“I’m leaving in twenty,” he said. “Early simulator session. You need a ride?”

“I have my car.”

“Right.” He finished his coffee and set the cup in the sink. “I’ll be back late. There’s food if you don’t want to go out. Don’t wait up.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

He paused at the doorway to the garage, looking back at me with an expression I couldn’t fully read.

“The rules only work if both people keep them,” he said. “That includes the ones that make you uncomfortable.”

Then he left.

I stood in the quiet kitchen with the untouched second cup of coffee and the clear sense that the list we had built the night before was already under pressure. Not from a dramatic breach. From the small, constant friction of existing in the same space while knowing too much about each other.

I drove to the circuit alone, the temporary badge still around my neck, and tried to focus on work. It helped for stretches of time. Then I would catch myself wondering whether he was still at the simulator, or whether he would be home when I got back, or whether the closed door of the guest room would be enough when the house went quiet again at night.

By late afternoon a message arrived.

Rex: Rules are holding so far.

Rex: Impressed?

Rex: Don’t answer that.

Rex: I’ll be home after eight.

Rex: Try not to look so relieved when you realize the house is empty when you get there.

Rex: The relief won’t last.

I locked the phone and put it away.

The rules were in place.

The house was already testing them.