I snap the laptop shut enough to get his attention.“Are you going to contribute?”I say, sharply, “or just stare holes through me?”
His grin appears.“You get cute when you’re bossy.”
“Reece.”
The way I say his name shouldn’t sound like that.It does anyway, and he hears it.I know he does because his eyes lift, catch mine, and something unreadable settles there.
“Alright, alright,” he says, leaning back and raising his hands in surrender.“I’m working.”
He isn’t.His notebook remains open but untouched.The pen stays between his fingers, unmoving.His eyes drift back to me the moment I turn away, following the line of my arm as I reopen the laptop.
It’s happening again.That constant pull.The weight of his attention rests exactly where my skin is most aware.
I type a sentence and backspace it twice.My focus slips.My breathing goes shallow.I tuck my hair behind my ear and catch his reflection in the screen watching the movement, his mouth curving.
I clear my throat.“If you’re not going to help, I’m leaving.”
That gets him.
He leans in, close enough that the mattress dips again, close enough that the air between us warms.He points at the screen, finally.“That paragraph.Your argument’s good.You just buried it under too many words.”
I blink.“You read it.”
“Twice,” he says.“You always do that thing you know when you’re nervous.”
I don’t bother asking him what he’s talking about, and I shift my head to glare at him.“I’m not nervous.”
His eyes flick down to my hands, to how my fingers curl around the edge of the laptop.“Sure,” he mumbles.
That’s it.He’s starting to get to me.
I snap my laptop shut and stuff it into my bag along with my notebook and pens, sliding off the bed in one quick motion.Papers crinkle as I force them into places they don’t belong, my hands no longer steady enough to care.
“This is pointless,” I say, voice tight.“You don’t care.I can’t afford to tank this because you think it’s fun to fuck with me.”
He straightens immediately.The lazy posture disappears, shoulders squaring, attention snapping into place.
“That’s not what this is.”
“It always is with you,” I fire back, the words tumbling out now that the dam’s cracked.“Everything is a fucking game.A joke.A way to get a rise out of people so you can feel powerful for five minutes.”
I sling my bag over my shoulder and head for the door, chest burning with frustration.
“Red,” he says, behind me, but I keep moving.
His hand grips my wrist.Not rough, but firm enough to halt me.
The contact triggers something inside me.A jolt runs up my arm and settles in my chest, stealing my breath and making my knees threaten to give way.My skin tingles where he touched me, my pulse racing as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong.I hate my body for betraying me when my mind screams to run and my feet refuse to move.
“Let go,” I say.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he steps closer, close enough that I feel his warmth against my back and catch his breath ghosting through my hair when he exhales.
The room suddenly feels smaller, as if the walls have leaned in to see what’s going on.
“You walk away every time it gets real,” he murmurs.“That pisses me off.”
