He meets my gaze, and his answer is instant. “Yes. I will.”
Something in my chest tightens, and for a second I forget how to breathe. I want to say it back, but I don’t. Instead, I take a sip of coffee and let the moment pass.
After a while, he asks, “What about you? Tell me more about you, Andie. Are you graduating soon? What comes next?”
The question is so adult it takes me a second to answer. “I have one year left. I know, I know. I’m a senior now, but with all the work I do, I don’t have enough credits. So it’s a fifth year for me. But I don’t think I want to live in the dorms anymore. Don’t get me wrong because I love my roomie, but it’s time for a change. After I’m done with Century, I don’t know. Maybe find a real job—writing, if I’m lucky. Mostly, I just want to not drown in student loans.”
He nods, then says, “You’ll make it. You’re resilient.”
I snort. “You don’t even know me.”
His hand slides across the sofa, finds my wrist, and rests there. “I know enough. You are an amazing woman.”
For a minute, neither of us says anything. It’s comfortable, the kind of silence that’s only possible with someone who sees you without asking for anything back.
Eventually, I say, “Actually, speaking of moving out the dorms, I’m considering moving in with Stella and two other girls from our hall. There’s nothing set in stone yet, but yeah.”
He goes perfectly still.
For a second, the air between us is razor-thin, every molecule charged. Then he lets out a slow breath, and his jaw tightens.
“Stella,” he says, tasting the word. “My daughter.”
I nod, fighting the urge to apologize, as if it’s my fault for being her friend.
He turns his coffee mug in slow circles, his eyes gone blank and distant. I can tell he’s calculating something, but I don’t know what. Maybe he’s imagining me and Stella in the same room, secrets leaking out in the dark like blood from a nicked artery. Maybe he’s planning how to keep our worlds from colliding.
“I won’t tell her,” I say, softer than I mean to. “I mean, she saw that picture of you from the fundraising event, but I haven’t said anything since.”
He glances up, a flicker of gratitude in his face. “Thank you.”
I twist a lock of hair around my finger, feeling twelve years old and ancient at the same time. “Is that weird, though? I mean, I might be her roommate after this summer?”
He thinks about it, then says, “Everything is weird. But I want you to do what makes you happy, Andie. That’s what’s important to me.”
The words hit me sideways, so earnest and unlike him that I want to laugh, or maybe throw my arms around his neck and never let go.
Instead, I reach for my coffee, and our fingers brush. A static shock passes between us, bright and sharp.
For a while, we just sit like that, side by side, his hand on my leg and my foot tucked up beneath me, both of us watching the city outside the window. The lights looks softer somehow, less dangerous, more dream than reality.
After a while, I stand, bones creaking in protest. My body aches everywhere, but it’s the good kind of ache—a souvenir, a proof of what happened last night.
I look down and see Thomas’s hand still trailing along the back of my thigh. I arch an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
He grins, wicked and warm. “Just appreciating the view.”
I roll my eyes and head toward the bedroom, my bare feet silent on the cold tile.
He calls after me, “If you want a shower, use the one in the master. It’s better.”
I pause at the door and turn to face him. “Are you coming?”
He shakes his head, and for once, I see something close to shyness on his face. “I want you to have it to yourself. You deserve that.”
I’m not sure what to make of this softer Thomas, but I like him, maybe even more than the other version.
In the bedroom, I strip out of the shirt and toss it onto the bed, then walk naked to the bathroom. The mirror over the sink is huge, and I catch sight of myself: flushed cheeks, golden hair wild, the faint shadow of a bite on my collarbone. My body is marked all over, a map of where his hands and mouth have been.
