Too curious for my own good, I leaned back and sneaked a peek.
He was still on the mat, sweaty hair damp at his temples now, shoulders flexing as he braced. His arms looked carved. His mouth tightened with effort.
My stomach flipped.
I grabbed a dish towel and fanned myself once, pretending it was the heat from the stove and not the fact that my roommate looked like a sin with a pulse and a bad attitude.
I refocused on dinner and lifted my shirt away from my neck.
The onions softened, sweetening in the pan. Garlic followed. The smell rolled through the kitchen like warmth you could taste.
I forced my attention back to the cutting board and kept moving. Chopped. Stirred. Salted. Tasted. Adjusted.
A pot lid clinked. A spoon scraped. The small, ordinary sounds piled up until the house started to feel ... less empty. Less sharp around the edges.
My phone buzzed with an email reply from a photographer, and that rush came back—professional excitement, the clean hit of progress.
Work mode, my brain purred. Safe. Familiar.
Another grunt pulled my attention sideways again.
I risked one more glance.
Wes had switched exercises, seated now, shoulders hunched as he worked dumbbells with deliberate control—biceps curls, slow and punishing. Sweat glistened along his forearms. His hands tightened around the weights like they’d offended him personally.
My pulse tripped again as my throat went bone dry.
I turned away so fast I nearly flung garlic across the room.
“Focus,” I whispered to the food like it could hear me and rechecked the recipe.
The kitchen smelled like butter and heat and something that wanted to be called home. I leaned into it. I let the rhythm of cooking pull me forward—one step, another, then another—until the awkwardness I had felt became background noise instead of the soundtrack.
Somewhere behind me, the mat shifted. A soft thud. The unmistakable sound of weights being set down.
A pause.
Then heavier footsteps, moving off the rug.
Not toward the stairs or the bathroom, but toward the kitchen.
Wes’s footsteps stopped at the edge of the kitchen like he’d hit an invisible line.
I kept stirring until the sauce thickened and steam curled up into my face—because if I looked at him too directly, I was going to think of him in a way I didn’t have the bandwidth for.
Unfortunately, my body did not care about my bandwidth.
Sweat had darkened the collar of his T-shirt. A sheen caught along his forearms and throat, and the heat of him—fresh from working out, all muscle and effort—rolled into the room like another element. My stomach dipped. A spark low in my belly fluttered, hot and intense.
I focused harder on the pot.
He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, filling the doorway with that heavy, silent presence that made the kitchen feel smaller.
I glanced up anyway.
His eyes were on me. Not skimming past. Not politely avoiding, butlooking.
My pulse stuttered like it had tripped over its own feet.
