He doesn’t. I do.
I see the angle, thumb at her nape, fingers curling, forcing her shoulder back until she gives that small embarrassed laugh she uses when she’s trying not to take up space. I imagine taking that hand and crushing every fucking bone until the sound matches the snap of a twig in snow.
I slow my breathing and force the image down. I don’t act on impulse. If I did, I’d already be watching her stand over his grave.
They haven’t known each other long. Two weeks, three days, four hours, and twenty-two minutes. They’ve gone on three dates, of which I am intimately aware.
The first date—a casual drink at a local pub that rolled into three hours of talking under dim yellow lights.
The second—an impromptu lunch he invited her to, a half-eaten sandwich in a crowded café, abruptly cut short when his phone rang.
The third—a night of too-loud music in a club she’d never have chosen herself. But she laughed anyway. Too quick. Too polite. The laugh she uses when she’s trying. Her discomfort was palpable even from the corner where I watched. Dean must’venoticed too. Because the next morning, he waited outside her apartment building with an apologetic smile and a Starbucks cup with her favorite coffee. A cinnamon dolce latte. Extra cinnamon.
He’s learning her.
But tomorrow? Tomorrow will be the fourth. Dangerously close to a pattern. To habit. To expectation.
I don’t fucking like it.
I hear the latch, the creak of wood, then the slam of her front door. Her footsteps float down the stairs, light and airy. She passes beneath the flickering landing light, and I see her the way I always do—in fragments. The shape of her calf under those wreath-print pajama pants, the bare strip of ankle above her socks, her sweater riding up when she steadies the laundry basket against her hip so that for one breath her waist shows—pale, warm, real. A glimpse she doesn’t know she gives.
A glimpse I take anyway.
She heads down to the basement laundry room, still humming. Always humming.
The woman lives in a crummy apartment, spending her days wading through other people’s pain, doing supervised hours at a child advocacy center for next to nothing while putting herself through her master’s on whatever’s left of her inheritance.
What the fuck is there to hum about?
The door groans as she shoulders it open, and I wait, letting the seconds stretch while I count the rhythm of her movements. The sound of her rifling through the basket, a pause, a frustratedsigh, then her quick steps back up the stairs because she forgot detergent. I smile at the predictability of it.
The hall goes quiet again, and I slip inside.
The laundry room breathes damp and warm as the machines shudder and click. Her basket sits open on the table, full. Folded jeans, the cream sweater she wore yesterday, a tangle of flannel.
Lace catches on my fingers when I shift the pile—soft, almost weightless, but it drags heat up my arm like a spark finding gasoline. The straps are so thin they look breakable. Like they were made to be snapped. Made to be pulled between teeth. My grip tightens before I can stop it, and the lace bites back, delicate and sharp all at once.
I picture her stepping into it. One leg, then the other—hips swaying slightly as she drags it up her thighs. I see the way it would cling to her skin, the way it would sit against her, a whisper of white stretched over the softest part of her.
My mouth goes dry, my body reacting like it recognizes her even though I’ve never touched her. Like it already knows exactly how she would feel under my hands.
Heat settles low in my gut, and my mind immediately tries to kill the thought before it becomes an impulse. Because if I let myself think about her like that for too long, I’ll do something I can’t undo.
Something permanent. Something Dean Murdoch would bleed for.
I swallow hard, forcing the image down, but it clings anyway—lace and skin, her thighs parting, the faint stretch of fabric over?—
Fuck.
I can’t lose control.
I drag in a slow breath through my nose, forcing control into my lungs like a drug, then shove the lace back into the pile. I lift a pair of socks to cover the fact that my hand hovers.
A piece of ribbon lies lost in the heap—bright red against pale cotton, coiled loose from the gift she wrapped. She must’ve dropped it without noticing. A careless toss when she bundled the basket.
Careless.That’s the thing about her. She scatters pieces of herself without knowing, and I gather them because I’m the only one who sees their worth.
I hook it around my finger once, twice. The satin is cheap, rough if you rub it the wrong way. It bites, and I like that it does. I like that even something soft about her has an edge.
