Merde. Merde. Merde.
Marco was my friend. My best friend. My straight best friend who’d just happened to have a natural physical response to being touched. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.
I pressed my palms against my eyes and took a long, slow breath.
I stayed in the hallway for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes, listening to the sound of water running. Then it shut off. Movement inside—shuffling, the scrape of the chair, a muffled curse that might have been pain or frustration or both.
I should have gone back in. Should have helped him dry off, helped him get dressed. That was the whole point of being here.
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t make myself open that door and face him again, not after what I’d seen. Not with my pulse still racing and my face still hot and my thoughts spiraling in directions they absolutely should not go.
Coward.
More movement. Long minutes of silence while I stood there uselessly in the hallway, hating myself.
Eventually, Marco’s bedroom door opened. He emerged dressed—gym shorts and a T-shirt—hobbling on his crutches. His gaze stayed fixed on the floor, on the crutches, anywhere but me.
“Let me help.” I moved toward him.
“I’ve got it.”
But he didn’t. He was struggling, his injured foot dangling above the floor, his knuckles white on the crutch grips. I ignored his protest and positioned myself beside him, ready to catch him if he stumbled.
We made it down the stairs slowly. I hovered close enough to help but not touching, and Marco kept his eyes down the whole time. The silence between us felt heavy, awkward in a way it never had before.
In the living room, I helped him lower himself onto the couch, adjusting the pillow behind him. He let me do it without comment, still not looking at me.
“Thanks,” Marco said quietly.
“No problem.”
But it was a problem. Or it felt like it might become one.
So, I did what I always did when things got complicated—I deflected.
“You hungry?” I asked. “I could make lunch.”
“Sure. Yeah. That sounds good.”
I escaped to the kitchen, grateful for something to do with my hands, something to focus on besides the confused tangle of thoughts in my head.
But even as I moved through the familiar motions of making food, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted.
That line between friendship and something else—something more—had gotten blurry in that bathroom.
And I had no idea how to make it clear again.
Or if I even wanted to.
CHAPTER NINE
Marco
Étienne hadn’t looked at me once since we’d come downstairs.
I sat on the couch where he’d settled me ten minutes ago, my injured foot elevated on pillows, and watched him move around the kitchen. He’d said something about making lunch. An excuse to put distance between us, probably.
My stomach churned with a sick, heavy dread that had nothing to do with hunger.
