She liked him like this. Flustered and off-balance. Actually reacting to her instead of just observing from his controlled distance.
It was probably a character flaw on her part. She'd examine that later.
The second rule broke around midnight.
She couldn't sleep. The storm was still howling outside, rattling the windows and making the condo creak in ways that were probably normal but still kept her jerking awake every few minutes. The guest room was fine, more than fine, but it wasn't hers, and she'd never been great at sleeping in new places.
She ended up wandering into the living room. She found herself standing in front of the thermostat, staring at the digital display that read "64°F" and feeling an unholy urge.
Don't adjust it,he'd said. The thermostat is programmed to a specific schedule. Her fingers hovered over the buttons.
She imagined she could hear him breathing in the master bedroom down the hall, steady and even. He probably sleptin a perfect symmetrical position with his sheets tucked in at regulation angles.
She pressed the up arrow. Once. Twice. Four times.
The display changed to "68°F" and she felt a rush of petty satisfaction that was entirely disproportionate to the act. Then she went to the kitchen and left her water glass in the sink.
At approximately six the next morning, she woke up to find a stack of extra blankets outside her door - three of them, folded with military precision. A small note on top said, in neat block letters, "I adjusted the system."
She stood in the doorway holding the note, reading it three times, feeling something complicated and inconvenient twist behind her ribs.
He'd noticed. He'd noticed that she'd been cold, even though she hadn't said anything, even though she'd turned up the thermostat herself, and he'd brought her blankets. He'd left them outside her door rather than knocking. He'd given her warmth without asking for acknowledgment.
Damn it.
She was trying to keep him in a box. An annoying, uptight, control-freak box where he couldn't affect her. But he kept doing small, quiet, thoughtful things that didn't fit the narrative she was building. The box was developing cracks.
She went back to bed and pulled all three blankets on top of herself, burying her face in fabric that smelled faintly of cedar and expensive detergent, and pretended her chest didn't feel tight.
Breakfast was an ambush.
She stumbled into the kitchen around eight, still wearing the oversized sweater and leggings she'd slept in, her hair a chaotic explosion of red curls, her brain not yet online enough to form complete sentences.
He was standing at the stove. Again. He was wearing different clothes so he must have slept at some point, but he looked more alert than anyone had a right to look this early. —a grey henley and dark jeans that fit extremely well. Not that she was paying any attention to how they clung to his muscular legs and cupped the massive—No.
"Coffee's ready," he said without turning around. "Mugs are in the cabinet above the machine. Second shelf. Blue stripe."
She grunted something that might have been thank you and shuffled towards the state-of-the-art coffee maker. The mug cabinet was, predictably, organized by color and size. She grabbed one from the wrong shelf just to see if he'd notice.
He noticed. His shoulders twitched.
She poured him a cup but before she could pour her own, she realized there was already a cup sitting on the counter. A cup containing...
"Is this tea?"
"Hmm."
"Is this chai?"
She picked it up and sniffed it. Her eyes went wide.
"This is chai with oat milk and honey. How did you—I never told you?—"
"You leave your cups everywhere." He still wasn't looking at her, focused on whatever he was cooking. Eggs, from the smell of it. "I noticed what you drank."
She stared at the back of his head. At the neat ponytail keeping his long black hair contained. At the broad shoulders and the controlled movements and the complete absence of any indication that he'd just done something incredibly, unfairly sweet.
"You noticed," she repeated.
