Once, he noticed me staring.
He paused mid-sentence.
“What?” I asked, too quickly.
His eyes darkened, just a fraction. Then he looked away. “Nothing.”
His constant, deliberate restraint, was what made it unbearable.
The tension sharpened in the weeks that followed.
Our shoulders brushed when we turned corners too close. His hand hovered at my back when we crossed streets.
Never touching.
Always close enough.
One night, on a darker stretch of road, he reached for my hand without thinking. I slid mine into his.
He squeezed once, grounding. His thumb brushed my knuckles like it belonged there.
I stared at the faint scar along his jaw.
“You’re doing that thing,” he said quietly.
“What thing?”
He stopped walking. Looked at me. His gaze dropped to my mouth.
The air thickened.
Silence stretched.
I stepped back, not because I wanted space, but because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.
He didn’t follow.
Later, sitting on the porch steps, knees angled toward each other, I told him about Brandon.
About the quiet loneliness. About shrinking myself.
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “I never want you to feel like that again.”
“You can’t promise that,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “But I can promise I’ll never make you feel unwanted.”
I nodded. “I know.”
The porch was quiet again, the night settling around us.
“I wasn’t trying to make Brandon sound awful,” I added after a moment. “Honestly? Compared to Sophie’s husband, he was a prince.”
Ethan snorted softly. “Low bar.”
“I don’t even want to hear about that situation,” I said. “It makes my head hurt.”
He hesitated. “She… she married someone, right? Last time I saw her, she’d sworn off men completely.”
