The room smells of antiseptic and cold metal, the hum of thefluorescent lights the only sound between them. Tall doesn't look at her. His shoulders stay rigid above the waterline, jaw locked, expression carved into a mask so still it's almost inhuman. But underneath that stillness—just beneath it—she sees it. The exhaustion. The bruised pride. The hurt that he's trying to keep underwater with the rest of him.
Naomi exhales, arms folding tight across her chest. “Okay,” she says finally, voice breaking the quiet. “So, full disclosure—I’m not great at this. Feelings, talking, all that crap. I tend to…make jokes or spiral into panic instead. In case, you know, you hadn’t noticed.”
No reaction. Not even a twitch. He keeps his eyes pinned to the far wall like she’s an echo he can outwait.
“I just—” she swallows, gaze dropping to the churning water between them because looking directly at him makes her chest pinch, “I don’t want you thinking that night didn’t matter to me. Because it did. It scared the shit out of me, so I acted like it didn’t. I play everything off. It’s—” her throat tightens, “it’s what I do.”
Her words drift into the cold air and freeze there, unanswered, hovering like a fog.
“Because why would someone like you want me? I’m nothing,” she admits, softer now. “So when you—when we—” she stumbles, cheeks heating, “I don’t know, I thought maybe it meant something. And then you disappeared, and I felt stupid for?—”
“Can you not?”
The words slice clean through her rambling. His tone is sharp, not raised, but final in a way that stings worse than shouting.
Naomi stops mid-breath. “What?”
He finally looks at her. And the coldness in his eyes isn’t anger—it’s protection. Fortress-thick, desperate protection.
“I don’t want to do this,” he says. “Whatever this is.”
Her chest knits tight. “Tall?—”
He cuts her off again, faster this time, like he’s shutting a door before she can wedge her foot in. “We fooled around in a closet. It doesn’t need a sequel.”
For a second, she forgets how to take in air. The words shouldn’thurt this much, but they do—mostly because they’re meant to. He’s doing it on purpose. She knows it. The flicker in his eyes gives him away—a flash of anguish, visible just long enough before he turns away again.
Naomi’s throat burns. She should leave. She knows she should. But instead, her voice comes out small and raw. “Why are you really mad?”
Tall stares at the opposite wall, shoulders tense, water rippling around him.
She leans forward, anger seeping through the hurt. “Because I pulled away—” her voice catches, “or because you care?”
That gets him. He finally breaks—his eyes snapping to hers, lit with fierce, wounded heat.
“You don’t get to do that,” he snarls. “You don’t get to wreck me and then act surprised I stayed wrecked.”
Naomi goes completely still.
The snark dies in her throat, because she realizes he means it. There’s no smugness in his voice. No dry bite. Just hurt—raw and stripped down and shoved between clenched teeth because he’d rather be angry than exposed.
The shock is like a splash of ice water.
He was wrecked. This giant, impervious warrior of a man was hurt by her stupid, cavalier attitude. By her inability to express anything without sarcasm.
She’d told herself he didn’t care and hid behind her shitty attitude like armor. She’d convinced herself he was indifferent, because that was easier than confronting the fact that she made him feel something real—and then ran from it.
Her eyes sting. “I fucked up,” she whispers. “And I’m sorry.”
He leans his head back, eyelids lowering, breath shaky despite his attempt to make it sound even. Water runs in slow drips down his chest.
“Just go,” he says finally. “I don’t need the distraction.”
Naomi waits. One beat. Two. Three.
Hoping, hating that she’s hoping.
But the silence only stretches.
