My grip tightens around the glass.
"I'm not thirsty," I say. The words come out clipped.
"You are." His eyes hold mine. Dark, steady, giving away nothing. "Drink."
I drink. Not because he told me to. Because my throatisdry and I refuse to be petty about water. I swallow, and Ihis gaze tracks the movement at my throat, until I lower the glass and look directly at him.
"I need to go to the bookstore," I say.
A beat of silence. "Which one."
"The campus store. I need a business journal that’s been on backorder online and the professor wants a physical copy by Thursday." I keep my voice level, matter-of-fact. "I need to go today."
He takes a slow sip from his own glass. Watching me over the rim. "I'll have it delivered."
"You don't know which edition."
"Tell me."
"I need togo," I say, and something sharper bleeds into my voice now, something I don't entirely try to contain. "I didn't agree to be your prisoner. I agreed to two weeks. That doesn't mean I stop being a person with a life and a schedule and things I need to handle."
He's quiet for a moment. Not the quiet of someone searching for words—the quiet of someone deciding which ones to deploy.
"Get dressed," he says finally. "Something practical."
I blink. "You're taking me."
"I'm going with you." His tone makes the distinction feel important. "There's a difference."
***
The SUV is black, matte finish, no logos on the exterior. Inside it smells like leather and the scent of a car that's been detailedtoo recently, too thoroughly. The seats are firm. The space between us is not large enough.
I sit with my back straight, knees together, hands loose in my lap, staring at the city moving past the passenger window. I am extremely aware that he is eighteen inches to my left.
I watch the reflection of his hands in the glass. Those hands. I know exactly what those hands are capable of now, how precisely they move, how much pressure they apply, how they feel wrapped around my hips—
I look back at the window.
Stop.I shut down the spark the thoughts ignited before they lick through my body and become a raging fire.
The silence in the car has a texture. It isn't empty—it's full of everything neither of us is saying, everything from last night still sitting between us like an object neither of us will pick up. I watch the city and try to think about the textbook, about Dr. Okafor's syllabus, about anything grounded and academic and entirely unrelated to the man beside me.
At a red light, he shifts in his seat. Just a small adjustment—shoulder rolling back, spine settling—and the movement in my peripheral vision ripples like a disturbance in water. I track it without turning my head. The t-shirt pulls slightly across his chest when he moves. I follow the line of his forearm against the wheel. The way his jaw sits in profile, clean and hard. The light changes. He accelerates smoothly, unhurried, and the motion presses me back into my seat. He doesn't speak. Neither do I. The quiet accumulates, and by the time we reach campus, I feel like I've been holding my breath for the entire drive.
The bookstore is warm, slightly overcrowded for a Tuesday afternoon, and the new book smell warms the cold spaces left from our drive. My shoulders drop a fraction the moment I step inside. My first campus job was at this bookstore and returninghere, even if for a little while, returns part of my soul. I’m Jana Spears again and not just some guy’s prize.
This is mine. This world—backpacks and syllabi laced with the anxiety of the rapidly approaching finals week—this is where I live. Where I make sense.
I stride toward the academic section without looking back at him.
It doesn’t matter.
He stays a half-step behind my left shoulder, close enough that I'm aware of his body heat even through my hoodie, close enough that when I stop to scan a shelf, he stops too. Not crowding me. Not touching me. Justthere.
I pull two editions of the business journal from the shelf, comparing the tables of contents. It could have waited, I could not. Not when, not knowing or controlling the events in my life was driving me crazy. Plus, I wanted to pick at him. Childish, immature, stupid, but he deserves it.How could he have left me hanging like that?
My eyes move down the page. I'm trying to focus. I can’t. I'm reading the same line for the third time because behind me he shifted his weight—barely anything, a half-inch adjustment, but my body registered it. My pulse climbs from the warmth at my back, and I'm furious with myself… With him.
