No. Stop that.
“Okay,” I say quickly. “Great. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,sweet pie.” He picks up the broken pieces and heads for the door,
4
Chapter 4
For the rest of the afternoon, I become an expert at peripheral vision.
I don’t look at Raiden. Not directly. But I’m always aware of where he is in the room, a dark, solid presence that pulls at my attention like gravity.
He works quietly, efficiently. No complaints. No smart remarks. He just… helps. He moves the heavy equipment that Marcus and David struggle with. He organizes the tools with surprising precision. He answers Christie’s questions about structural support with the kind of casual competence that makes me irrationally annoyed.
This isn’t how he’s supposed to behave. Where’s the mockery? The condescension? The constant needling?
It’s really unsettling.
“Can you hold this?”
I look up to see Raiden standing beside me, holding one end of a long PVC pipe. He nods toward the other end.
“Yeah, sure.”
I grab it, and our fingers brush.
The contact lasts maybe half a second, but electricity shoots up my arm. I jerk my hand back like I’ve been burned, and the pipe clatters to the floor.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, crouching to pick it up. My face is on fire. “I just—”
“Careful,” he says, his voice low. “Don’t want you getting hurt.”
When I finally force myself to look at him, his expression is unreadable. But his eyes are intense, focused on me in that way that makes my pulse spike.
I grab the pipe again, this time making sure our hands don’t touch, and we work in tense silence.
~ ~ ~
That evening, I’m sitting cross-legged on my dorm room bed, sketchbook open on my lap, practically vibrating with anxiety.
Please don’t come back tomorrow. Please don’t come back tomorrow.
If Raiden keeps showing up, I’m going to lose my mind. Being around him is like walking through a minefield. Every moment charged with the potential for disaster. I can’t think straight when he’s there. Can’t focus on anything except the way he moves, the way he looks at me, the way my body reacts to his presence.
I press my pencil to the paper, trying to lose myself in the familiar rhythm of drawing. Lines appear without conscious thought, sharp angles, careful shading.
When I pull back to look at what I’ve created, my stomach drops.
Blue eyes stare back at me. Raiden’s eyes, rendered in graphite with the distinctive malformation in the right pupil. The irregular dark spot bleeding into the iris.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, slamming the sketchbook shut.
His face isn’t conventionally beautiful. I know that objectively. His nose is a bit crooked, probably broken during a game. His jaw is too square, his features too harsh. But there’s something about the composition—the way everything comestogether—that I can’t look away from. Raw. Compelling in a way that classical beauty never is.
Well, I’m an artist. I notice these things. It doesn’t mean anything.
My phone rings, startling me.
