There was a beat of silence, then the thud of hurried footsteps. Her door opened, hinges soft. “Yeah?” she called back, closer now.
She appeared at the top of the stairs a moment later, one hand on the railing, hair pulled into a ponytail that was already working pieces free. Her cheeks were still pink from the cold. Her mouth looked a little swollen, like mine.
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
Focus.
“I’ve got PT,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m gonna head out.”
A small line formed between her brows. “Oh.” She came down two steps, socked feet careful on the wood. “Let me grab my shoes. I can?—”
“I’ve got it,” I cut in, faster than I meant to. Her eyes flicked up, surprised. I forced my shoulders into a shrug that felt like it belonged to someone else. “They’ve got parallel bars and ugly carpet. I think I can manage the parking lot.”
The joke landed flat between us.
Clara paused on the stair, fingers tightening around the banister. The shift in her face was tiny—just the barest dimming of something bright, a shadow that crossed her eyes before she caught it and smoothed it away.
“Oh,” she said again, lighter this time. “Sure. Yeah. Of course.”
She tried for a smile and it almost worked.
Guilt punched me square in the chest.
She was reading it exactly the way I’d earned—the guy who’d kissed her like a starving man, then agreed it was a bad idea, then made sure he didn’t have to be trapped in a car with her.
Self-preservation tasted an awful lot like cowardice.
I hooked my fingers tighter around my keys so I wouldn’t reach for her. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I said. “Try not to strangle the yarn while I’m gone.”
Her mouth twitched, a flicker of real amusement slipping through. “No promises.”
For half a second we just looked at each other—her on the stairs, me at the bottom, a whole house and one very stupid rule between us.
Roommates. Friends.
I turned before I could wreck it any more than I already had.
The front door clicked shut behind me, the cold outside hitting my face like a reprimand, and I walked to the truck, telling myself distance was the right call.
My body throbbed with a different opinion all the way down the driveway.
The drive into town was only fifteen minutes, but it felt like an hour.
My hand sat at ten and two on the steering wheel, knuckles pale, jaw locked so tight my molars ached. The heater hummed, blowing warm air at my face. Outside, the world was allwhite and gray—plowed banks along the road, bare trees, the occasional smear of lake effect hanging low over the fields.
Inside my head, it was Clara.
Clara on the hill, cheeks flushed, laugh breaking open the air.
Clara in my lap, snow in her hair, mouth hot and eager on mine.
The soft, desperate little sound she’d made when I dragged her down against me, the way her whole body had gone pliant and hungry at the same time. The snap of control I’d felt when she opened for me like she’d been waiting.
My dick had not mellowed in the intervening drive time.
It had settled into a steady, sullen throb that made every bump in the road a reminder. The memory played on a loop, high definition and unhelpful—her taste, her fingers in my coat, the exact grind of her hips when she’d tried to get closer.
I adjusted myself once, muttering a curse, and focused on the double yellow lines.
