The chaos and the calm. The noise and the nuance. The fists and the finesse.
I tilt my head and say, “We’re weird together.”
He pauses.
Looks down at me with that unreadable expression, the one that says he’s weighing whether to make a joke or say something real.
“Good weird?” he asks.
I nod. “Freakshow weird.”
That gets a grin. Big and stupid and entirely contagious.
“My favorite kind.”
He holds the door open for me, and I step into the salon with the echo of that grin still bouncing around my ribs.
Whatever this is—it’s terrifying.
And maybe that’s exactly what I need.
I wake up to the smell of burnt synth-oil and vanilla conditioner.
Which is weird, because the break room doesn’t have either.
My eyes blink open one at a time, dry and reluctant. There’s a crick in my neck from hell, and a suspiciously shaped crease from the couch cushion etched into my cheek. I push myself up with a groan and glance at the chrono on the wall. Seventeen minutes. I’ve only been out for seventeen damn minutes.
But the dream...
Voltar. In my chair. Shirtless. His head bowed like I was the only person on this planet he trusted not to hurt him. My fingers gliding through thick hair, the way his breath caught when I brushed his temple. My voice low, coaxing, reverent.
The kind of softness I’m not used to. Not from him. Not from myself.
I sit up, the remnants of that dream pressing down like humidity, and rub my face until the image fades, but it doesn't disappear. It just sinks deeper. My hands still remember the feel of his skin. My heart still hears the pause between his breaths.
I try to shake it off, sweep hair, make idle chat with my next client, fake it ‘til I can feel normal again.
But Voltar isn’t something you forget. Even in sleep.
When I get home, he’s there.
Shirt half-open, cooking something with the determined scowl of a man used to defusing bombs and somehow finding dinner more stressful. There’s a smear of something on his cheek. His hair is damp from a shower, curling at the ends like he didn’t bother to towel it off.
My chest tightens.
I tie my curls back into a knot and pour a glass of wine, pretending this isn’t the same man I dreamed about, the same man whose kiss made my knees buckle like bad scaffolding.
He drops a spoon with a metallic clatter and mutters something filthy and poetic under his breath.
I laugh.
He looks up, caught, and grins like I just said something brilliant.
There’s a stillness after that. The kind that hums with potential.
I take a step toward him.
“Voltar…” I say, and my voice wavers just enough to feel real. “What are we doing?”
