Landen's fingers lingered against his for just a fraction of a second more than necessary. Just long enough for Adriel to feel it. Just long enough for warmth to spark and spread.
Then Landen's gaze lifted. Met his.
Dark. Intent. Burning with something that made Adriel's breath catch.
I remember. It was real. I'm thinking about it too.
"Good work," Landen murmured.
Adriel couldn't speak. Could only nod, his throat closed around everything he wanted to say.
Landen held his gaze one more heartbeat. Two. Then he turned and walked away, moving through the office like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just set Adriel's body on fire with a single glance.
Adriel sat frozen. The file was in his hands, but he didn't see it. Didn't see anything except the echo of that look, burning him from the inside out.
Eventually, he turned back to his work, and for the first time all day, the words on the page made sense.
He carried that with him for the rest of the day, through the 4:00 o’clock meeting where Landen sat at the head of the table and never once looked at him directly, through the slow slide toward 5:00, through the gradual emptying of the office.
When he finally stepped into the elevator and the doors closed, he let himself close his eyes.
The glow was still there. Warm and steady.
He carried it home.
Chapter 16
Adriel
The house looked smaller than he remembered.
It always did, when he came back. Some trick of growing up, of the world expanding around you until the places that once felt enormous, cavernous, inescapable, revealed themselves to be ordinary-sized.
A semi-detached on a quiet street. Cream render, dark trim, a garden his mother kept immaculate. Nothing remarkable about it. Nothing that should make his stomach tighten the way it did when he turned the corner and saw it sitting there in the grey afternoon light.
He rang the bell anyway.
His mother answered in under a minute, dressed as if she'd been expecting a photographer rather than her son. Blouse pressed. Hair set. A single strand of pearls at her throat that she'd owned for as long as Adriel could remember.
"Darling." She kissed the air beside his cheek and stepped back. Her eyes moved over him in that quick, practiced way, top to bottom, a single sweep, and something flickered there before she smiled. "Come in. I've just put the kettle on."
The hall smelled the same. That specific, unchanging smell of her house; lavender polish, dried flowers, something faintly chemical underneath. A whole childhood compressed into a scent.
"You can head up to your room," she said, already moving toward the kitchen. "I've left the boxes in there. I need you to go through everything and tell me what you want kept. The rest goes to the charity shop or the trash." A pause. "I'm thinking of converting it into a study."
"Right," Adriel said.
"Tea?"
"Sure."
He climbed the stairs alone.
The door to his old room was slightly ajar, the way it always had been; his mother had never liked closed doors. He pushed it open.
Smaller, of course. The single bed still against the wall, the same faded duvet cover in navy blue that he'd had since he was fourteen because he'd refused to let her replace it and she'd eventually stopped trying. The desk stood under the window, still scarred from years of use and one regrettable incident involving a compass. The shelves above it were still full.
He stood in the doorway for a moment.
