He knew. He had to know my secret.
The shower replayed in my mind for the hundredth time in ten minutes—a loop I couldn’t stop, couldn’t escape. Étienne’s arm around my waist, helping me into the shower. His hands steadying me, cautious and gentle. The steam rising around us in the bathroom, making everything feel closer.
And then I’d gotten hard.
Completely, obviously, mortifyingly aroused.
There’d been no hiding it. No way to pretend it wasn’thappening. Étienne had glanced down—just long enough to see—and the expression on his face…
Horror. That’s what I’d seen. Or maybe disgust. He’d gone pale, his eyes going wide, and then he’d jerked his gaze away so fast it was almost violent.
“I’ll be right outside,”he’d stammered, already backing toward the door.“Just call if you need—if you?—”
He hadn’t even finished the sentence. Just fled, leaving me sitting there naked and humiliated in the shower.
My hands clenched into fists against my thighs. I wanted to hit something. Wanted to rewind time and undo the last hour. Wanted to have better control over my own goddamn body.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I’d spent seventeen years making sure no one had any reason to suspect.
And then Étienne had moved in, and all that discipline had started slipping. The casual touches. The comfortable intimacy. Sharing space, sharing routines, sharing a life that felt dangerously close to one I couldn’t let myself want.
I’d thought I could handle it. Thought I could keep the lines clear in my head—friend, not more than a friend. Teammate helping teammate. Temporary arrangement that would end when his apartment was ready.
Except I’d gotten hard while he was touching me, and now he knew.
Or at least, he suspected. He had to.
My jaw clenched. Maybe I could fix this. Maybe if I just pretended nothing had happened, we could move past it. Physical reactions were just biology, right? It didn’t have to mean anything. Lots of guys got erections from physical touch, from being naked, from nothing at all.
I took a slow breath, trying to calm the panic clawing at my chest.
The question was: what happened next?
Would he confront me? Ask uncomfortable questions I couldn’t answer? Or would he do what I would do—pretend it never happened, bury it beneath layers of silence and avoidance until we both forgot?
Neither option felt good.
I couldn’t lose him. Not like this. Not because my body had betrayed me at the worst possible moment and shown him something I’d never meant for anyone to see.
The thought of going back to the isolation I’d lived in before Étienne felt unbearable. Three years of friendship, of someone knowing me—not all of me, but more than anyone else ever had. Someone who texted me stupid memes at midnight. Someone who brought me coffee without being asked. Someone who’d insisted on helping me even when I’d tried to push him away.
I’d ruined it. One moment of lost control, and I’d ruined the best thing in my life.
Cabinet doors opened and closed in the kitchen, and plates clinked together. I shouldn’t be watching him. Should give him privacy, give myself space to get my head together.
But I couldn’t stop.
My eyes tracked his movements like I was studying game tape. The way he reached for the top shelf and his shirt rode up to expose a strip of skin on his lower back. The efficient movements of his hands as he assembled sandwiches. The unconscious grace in how he moved through the space—my space, but somehow it had become ours.
Everything I’d trained myself not to notice was suddenly impossible to ignore.
The slope of his shoulders. The way his hair fell across his forehead when he bent to grab something from the fridge. The easy strength in his body.
I was staring. I knew I was staring. And I was terrified itshowed on my face—all the desire I’d kept locked away, all the feelings I’d never let myself acknowledge.
“Turkey or ham?” Étienne called from the kitchen.
I blinked, trying to focus. “What?”
