Evan
Molly sleeps like she’s survived a war — my war, our war, the kind that ends in the sheets and leaves the battleground smelling of sweat and sex. She’s draped across me like a net, a wild tangle of red hair fanned across my chest and neck, one leg hooked over my thigh as if to pin me down. Even in sleep she’s staked her claim, dug her flag deep. She owns this moment, owns me, and if I let myself, I might almost believe it’s a good thing. That I could be the man who wakes up with a woman like her and builds something; maybe not forever, but at least something real.
I count her freckles. I watch the daylight spill across her face in thin, horizontal slices, the blinds cutting up the sun into something less harsh than usual. The room is warm and quiet, except for her slow, heavy breathing. For a minute, I let my brain go empty. I focus on the fact that I’m in a bed, with her, and the only hand holding me down in this moment is Molly’s, possessive and alive, her pulse ticking against my ribs.
She shifts in her sleep, her grip tightening, her breath hot against my chest. When I try to slide an arm out from under her, she clamps down, muttering something half-formed and angry into my skin. I stifle a laugh, and then she does it again, this time intelligibly: “Don’t you fucking dare move.” It’s muffled, cartoonish, and I can’t help but think that in another life, one where I’m not a goddamn walking disaster, this would be my morning every day. My ol’ lady; our bed; our house; our lives.
I smile before I can stop myself. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyes crack open, green and sharp even half asleep. “You think you’re funny?”
“I know I’m funny.”
She snorts and buries her face in my chest again. For one breath, for two, the world stays quiet. Just us. Just this peace in bed where the only things that exist are her and me and this warm feeling in my chest.
Then it hits.
June.
Midnight.
The leash tightens around my throat.
My body doesn’t go cold, it goes tight. As if it remembers what it’s built for — protecting my last remaining family, carrying the burden of whatever it takes to keep my sister alive, the duty I’ve held for all the years since our parents died. The duty that’s cost me so much with every reckless decision June’s made. This warmth in my chest is real. That's the problem. Real things break real people
Molly shifts, sliding her palm over my stomach, absent and gentle. She’s awake now, but still soft in that dangerous way — like she trusts the bed to hold her, like she trusts me to hold her.
She doesn’t just love me. She trusts me.
That’s my opening. And I hate that I see it. I hate that I know how to use it.
She lifts her head, eyes tracking my face.
“Everything okay?” she says, voice rough with sleep.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I say too quickly.
Her brow lifts. “Fine? That’s not an answer. Even I know that.”
“It is. It’s just not the one you want.”
She rolls her eyes and starts to sit up, sheet dragging down her shoulder. I catch it and tug it back up over her like I’m being decent, like I’m not about to do something rotten.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice light. “Come here.”
Molly pauses, suspicious. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She narrows her eyes like she’s deciding whether to stab me with a spoon, then scoots closer anyway, shoulder bumping mine. She pretends she’s annoyed, but she’s not fooling anyone.
“What?” she demands.
I stare at the ceiling for a second, gathering the lie into something that sounds like truth. The contractor story isn’t even hard — Icanfix things. Ihavefixed things, just not the things that matter — June’s life, my life. But that I know how to work with my hands is what makes it clean. That’s what makes it dangerous.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” I say, and the words taste like gun oil and regret the moment they’re out.
Molly goes perfectly still, the stillness that belongs to prey more than predator, which is funny because she’s never anyone’s victim. Her palm rests on my chest, right over my heart, and her thumb arcs a lazy circle, but it’s a pressure point disguised as affection. She can feel the spike in my heart rate and, for a second, her whole face changes—softening at the edges, her eyes going gentle. That simple touch almost makes me stop, almost makes me roll over and let this morning be what she wants it to be. But I’m not built for that; there’s a hole in my soul where normal should be.
