The wall is on my right. Declan is on my left. He shifts back to his original position, sealing the exit.
I slide my hands into my lap, knotting them together. The booth is tight. My hip presses into his. My thigh, from hip to knee, seals against the hard line of his.
A tiny, imperceptible shift from him: his knee angling a fraction outward, blocking the aisle from anyone bumping into me as a waitress squeezes past.
It’s not for me, I tell myself. It can’t be.
The heat that rushes through me doesn’t care.
I’m close enough to smell him. He doesn’t smell like the bar. Not like spilled beer or stale sweat. He smells like cold night air, sharp and clean, and something else beneath it. Soap. Clean.
It’s the most confusing thing in the world. He’s a threat, he’s a man, he’s huge—and he smells… safe.
The contradiction is its own kind of panic.
My mind screams.Trapped. Trapped. Trapped.
I’m pinned between the wall and him. He’s a fortress, and I’m the one locked within his territory.
I try to make myself small, to press into the vinyl. There’s nowhere to go. He is an immovable object. He doesn’t shift. He doesn’t pull away to give me space. He doesn’t acknowledge the contact at all.
He just sits. A wall of heat, burning me alive.
His silence has a temperature, and I can feel it on my skin.
I keep my body rigid, hands fisted in my lap. Every breath feels like it’s stealing his air. The bar’s noise spikes, the walls closing in. But it’s a dull roar compared to the screaming silence of the man beside me.
Conversation becomes a wall of sound I can’t parse. I nod and pretend to follow, fingers tracing the slick condensation on my glass, the cold an inadequate anchor.
When I set the glass back down, his hand shifts too, knuckles brushing mine as he moves his beer bottle closer. It’s nothing—barely contact at all—but the jolt that shoots up my arm feels anything but accidental.
Adrian leans in to whisper something in Clara’s ear. She throws her head back and laughs, a pure, happy sound—hisexpression morphs, softening, possessive. That’s what it looks like to be safe with someone. To be someone’s territory.
I have to look away. My eyes snag on Declan.
He’s not talking; he just listens. And I am agonizingly aware of him. My nerves hyper-focus on his thigh, solid and unmoving against mine. He’s taking up his space, and in doing so, he’s claiming the space I’m in.
This isn’t neutral. It’s a statement.
I am here. I will not move.
It’s a strange, terrifying kind of control. He’s not touching me, not quite—just letting the closeness stand, forcing me to be the one rattled by it.
And my body… my traitorous body isn’t screaming danger in the way I expected. It’s not the cold, sick panic of him. It’s a hot, throbbing, different kind of panic.
Why does the solidness of his leg against mine feel… anchoring?
Our eyes meet. The noisy bar fades to a dull, distant roar.
His eyes are green—a sharp, startling green that cuts through the dim light. It’s the same look from the tunnel. Not flirtation—dissection.
I should look away, but curiosity pins me open. The world tilts; noise drops out; I'm caught.
My heart stutters into a frantic, sick rhythm, and I wrench my gaze down to my water.
A few minutes later, the conversation ramps up. The noise presses in, a physical force. My shoulders lock tighter, breath shallow. I’m right on the edge of making an excuse, of bolting for the door, when a low voice slices through my panic.
“You don’t like crowds.”
