He’s the least emotionally expressive of all of us, the biggest hardass, the one who shows love through actions rather than words. He’d rather take a bullet than talk about his feelings. But he’s also the oldest, and growing up we were the closest. And he can read me better than almost anyone. Sometimes better than I can read myself.
He’d know something was wrong the second I walked through the door. He’d look at me with those sharp eyes and see right through whatever bullshit excuse I tried to give him. He’d ask about it in that gruff way he has, with blunt words and zero patience for deflection, and eventually I’d crack and tell him that I kissed Chloe’s teacher against her apartment door last night and haven’t been able to stop thinking about doing it again.
So I jog past the gym with my head down, loop back toward home by a different route, and try to convince myself that running away from my problems is the same as running toward a solution.
It’s not. I know it’s not. But it’s all I’ve got right now.
By the time I get back, the sky has started to lighten at the edges and I’m breathing hard, sweat cooling on my skin despite the cold, and my legs burn in a way that should feel satisfying but doesn’t.
I didn’t outrun anything. The thoughts followed me the whole way, kept pace stride for stride. Emma’s face. Emma’s mouth. The way she looked at me right before she closed the distance between us, like she knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t going to let anything stop her from taking it. Fuck if that wasn’t hot.
The shower is hot enough to turn my skin pink, steam filling the bathroom until I can barely see the tile. I stand under the spray and let myself think about it. Really think, instead of shoving it away every time it surfaces.
My hand drifts down before I can stop it. I’m hard again and I grip myself with a groan, leaning my forehead against the cooltile. I stroke slowly, letting the hot water run down my back, and this time I don’t fight the images that flood my mind.
Emma in that navy dress, the fabric clinging to her curves. Emma’s hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer. Emma’s breath catching when I pressed her against the door, the way her whole body softened against mine like she’d been waiting for it. Like she’d been wanting it as badly as I had.
I imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped. If I’d pinned her wrists above her head with one hand and used the other to hike that dress up around her waist. If I’d slid my fingers between her thighs and found her soaking wet for me, desperate and needy, whimpering my name. I imagine telling her to be quiet, that anyone could walk by, and feeling her clench around my fingers anyway.
I imagine pulling her inside and pushing her down to her knees in front of me. Watching her look up at me with those green eyes, lips parted, waiting. I imagine fisting my hand in her hair and guiding her mouth exactly where I want it, watching her take me deep while I tell her how good she looks like that. How perfect. How she was made for this.
I imagine bending her over the arm of her couch afterward, flipping that dress up and spanking her ass until she’s pink and squirming, until she’s pushing back against my hand and begging for more. I imagine making her count each one, making her thank me for it, making her admit how much she likes it.
I imagine what she’d feel like when I finally pushed inside her. Tight and hot and perfect, her nails raking down my back while I fucked her hard enough to make her forget her own name. I imagine her coming apart underneath me, clenching around me, sobbing my name while I told her she was mine.
I come with a groan, spilling over my fist, pleasure crashing through me in waves. It takes me a long moment to catch my breath, my heart pounding, my legs unsteady.
I rinse off and stand there in the cooling spray, staring at the tile like it might have answers.
What the fuck is happening to me?
I’ve never thought about a woman like this. Never wanted to possess someone so completely, never had these kinds of fantasies where I’m in total control and she’s giving herself over to me entirely. It’s not who I am. I’m steady. Careful. I don’t lose my head over anyone.
But apparently I do over Emma.
The eggs are getting cold on my plate. I’ve been sitting at the kitchen table for twenty minutes, fork in hand, not eating. Nala is weaving between my ankles hoping for scraps, and the second cup of coffee in my mug has gone lukewarm. Outside the window, the sun is finally up, pale November light filtering through the trees, and the house is still too quiet without Chloe in it.
Victoria wrecked me when she cheated. When she left me and Chloe for someone who could give her the life she actually wanted—the travel, the freedom, the existence unburdened by a child she’d never really wanted in the first place.
And it wasn’t even the heartbreak that destroyed me. We’d never been right for each other, not really. We got married too young, had a baby before we were ready, spent years trying to force something that was never going to fit. The cracks were there from the beginning; we just kept papering over them and hoping they’d hold.
What destroyed me was watching the life I wanted implode right in front of me. Realizing I’d invested everything in something that was never as solid as I thought. Standing in the wreckage of my marriage wondering how I’d missed all the signs, how I’d let myself believe in something so fragile.
I rebuilt myself carefully after that. Brick by brick, wall by wall. The restaurant gave me something to focus on, a problem I could solve with hard work and long hours. Chloe gave me areason to keep going, a person who needed me to be okay even when I wasn’t. I built a life where nothing could surprise me, where I knew exactly what to expect, where the walls were high enough that nobody could get close enough to hurt me again.
Safe. That’s what I built. A safe, predictable, controlled existence. And it worked. For six years, it worked. Emma is the opposite of safe. Emma walks into rooms and makes me forget my own rules. She shows up at my restaurant with coffee and convinces me to blow off work for a fall festival, and I go. Because when she looks at me with that challenge in her eyes, that spark of mischief, I can’t seem to remember why I’m supposed to say no.
What scares me isn’t that I’m attracted to her. I’ve been attracted to women before and managed to keep my distance just fine. What scares me is that my walls don’t seem to work on her. She walks right through them like they’re not even there, like she doesn’t notice I built them. She looks at me and I forget why I put them up in the first place. She smiles and I start thinking maybe I don’t need them anymore. Maybe I could let someone in again. Maybe it wouldn’t destroy me this time.
That’s dangerous. That’s the kind of thinking that gets you wrecked. That gets you standing in the wreckage of another failed relationship wondering how you let it happen again.
I push the eggs around my plate and finally give up, scraping them into Nala’s bowl. I know what I should do. Keep my distance and let whatever this is fade until it’s just an awkward memory we both pretend to forget. That’s the safe choice, the one that protects everyone involved.
I also know what Iwantto do. Drive to her apartment right now, knock on her door, and pick up exactly where we left off. Stop fighting this thing that feels bigger than both of us. Let myself fall, consequences be damned.
The responsible choice is obvious. It’s the same choice I’ve been making for six years: prioritize stability, protect what I’ve built, don’t take risks that could blow up in my face.
But sitting here in my quiet kitchen, morning light stretching across the table, I’m not sure I have the strength to make that choice again.
