So why does it feel like I'm trespassing?
I head inside through the side door, flipping on lights as I go. Each room exactly as I left it this morning, barely touched.
I should unpack. The duffel I brought is still sitting in the bedroom, everything I own crammed into one bag. Clothes that need washing. Toiletries. A few paperbacks with cracked spines. The watch Brennan gave me for my birthday the year before hedied—silver band, simple face, still running perfectly. That's it. That's the sum total of my life.
Ten years in the Army and I fit everything that matters into a bag I can carry.
Instead of unpacking, I stand in the middle of the living room and try to imagine what this place could look like. Really look like, if someone lived here. Couch over there, maybe—something big and comfortable, the kind you can sink into. TV on that wall. Bookshelves, because Robin will want somewhere to put his cookbooks when he visits.
A kitchen table where people could actually sit and eat. Where I could invite people over. Where Jason could cook, if he wanted to. If I let myself want that.
I scrub a hand over my face.
I need sleep. That's what I need. Thirty-six hours without rest and I'm having domestic fantasies about a guy I met three hours ago. Imagining him in my kitchen, at my table, in my life. Exhaustion and relief and too many feelings I don't know what to do with.
It's not real. It can't be real. I don't do real.
I strip down and fall into bed. The mattress is comfortable enough but the sheets are stiff and unfamiliar, that crisp new-cotton smell instead of something lived-in. Nothing smells right. Nothing feels right. The house is too quiet, no ambient noise of a base or a city or other people existing nearby.
I lie in the dark and stare at the ceiling and think about Jason's pulse under my thumb. The way he shivered when I said his name. The want in his eyes, naked and obvious, like hiding wasn't something he knew how to do.
I could wreck him so easily. Push him up against a wall, pin his wrists above his head, take everything he's so clearly offering. He'd let me. He'd probably beg for it, all that eagernessturned desperate, that pretty voice saying please and more and yours.
And then what?
Then I'd have to figure out how to be something I've never been. Gentle. Present. The kind of person who stays for breakfast. The kind of person who deserves someone like him.
I'm hard. Have been since I left the bar, if I'm honest. My body knows what it wants, even if my brain is still trying to talk me out of it.
I don't touch myself. Don't let myself have even that much.
Because if I start thinking about him that way—really thinking, really letting myself want—I'm not sure I'll be able to stop. And Jason deserves better than being someone's relapse. Someone's exception to the rule. Someone I'll hurt because I don't know how to do anything else.
I roll over and close my eyes and try to think about nothing.
It doesn't work.
Chapter 3
Jason
Monday night, and I'm on my fourth batch of vindaloo.
The first one wasn't spicy enough. I followed the recipe exactly, measured every spice, did everything right—and it came out tasting like something you'd get at a mid-range chain restaurant. Fine for normal people. Not fine for someone who said ghost pepper was a starting point.
The second batch had the right heat but the spice balance was off. Too much cumin, not enough coriander, and I got heavy-handed with the garam masala at the end. It tasted like heat without complexity, like I was just trying to burn someone's mouth instead of actually feeding them.
The third was almost perfect. Beautiful color, layered flavors, the kind of slow-building heat that makes you sweat but keeps you reaching for another bite. Then I got distracted thinking about the way Ash's thumb felt pressed against my pulse, and I burned the onions. The whole thing tasted bitter underneath, a charred note that ruined everything else.
This one. This one is going to be right.
I'm sweating over the stove, adjusting heat levels, tasting obsessively from a small spoon I keep rinsing between samples. The kitchen smells like toasted spices and coconut milk and desperation. A fine sheen of sweat covers my forehead, partly from the steam and partly from nerves I can't quite shake.
Vaughn wandered through an hour ago, took one look at the multiple pots on the stove, the scattered spice containers, the manic energy radiating off me, raised an eyebrow, and wisely said nothing. Just grabbed a beer from the fridge and retreated to the garage like a man who knows when to pick his battles.
It's just lunch. It's just food. It's just—
It's Ash. It's cooking for Ash, who said he likes spicy food with a look in his eyes that made it sound like a challenge. Who looked at me like I was something worth looking at, worth touching, worth coming back for.
