Something else.
I shift my weight, suddenly aware of how close we are. How the corridor is too narrow, too private. The scent of ozone and steel on his skin stirs something low in my belly.
“You always leave presents for girls you watch from the dark?” I ask, tone sharp, trying to reclaim ground I’m not sure I’ve lost.
He shrugs. “Only when I mean it.”
I scoff, but it’s weak. My voice shakes, just a little. “What do you mean, then?”
His jaw flexes. His eyes don’t waver. “That you deserve something that fits. Not just what’s handed down.”
I stare at him.
The corridor hums between us.
My heart knocks once—hard.
I step closer. Not enough to touch. Just enough that I can feel the heat rolling off him. My pulse is a wild, fluttering thing.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper.
“Neither should you.”
I should leave.
I should turn around and run, back to the safety of stage lights and curtains and pretending I’m no one.
But I don’t.
Because the truth is, I’m tired. Of hiding. Of flinching at every shadow. Of pretending I don’t see what’s right in front of me.
So I don’t run.
I stay.
Right there, in the corridor, with Roja watching me like he’s been waiting for this moment all his life.
The corridor feels narrow behind us, like the air itself is closing in, dense with heat and something unsaid. I don’t look back, but I hear him—Roja—his footsteps a quiet echo behind mine. A tether. A warning. A promise.
Up the stairs, the silence grows weightier. The coil of tension pulls tighter with every step. The second-floor light flickers as I punch in the code, my breath catching in my throat not from nerves, but anticipation. The kind that builds low and slow, like a storm you let roll toward you instead of running from.
I don’t speak. I just open the door and step inside, the air in my room a few degrees cooler than the hallway but no less charged. Roja steps in behind me. The soft whir of the automatic lock is the only sound between us before I turn—press the manual latch with one sharp click.
The kind of click that says: we’re staying.
My place is small, stripped down. A cot against the wall, a low dresser, a flickering lamp casting long golden slants across the worn wood floor. I don’t light the main overheads. I want shadows.
I want honesty.
I want to see, not be seen.
I move slowly—aware of every breath, every beat of my pulse against my throat. I reach for the scarf first, fingers curling beneath the knot, sliding it loose. I let it fall, soft as a whisper, and then I lift my chin and meet his eyes.
He hasn’t moved.
But his gaze—gods, his gaze—trails over me like smoke, lingering on skin still damp with sweat, on the faint red marks where the fireline straps dug in too deep. He doesn’t devour. He studies.
Like I’m a secret unfolding just for him.
