He crosses to the desk and flips open his laptop. Its glow turns his face into planes of blue and shadow.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Applying for jobs.”
“At three in the morning?” My tone accidentally has no joke to it. “Well, that’s… good. I’ve been wondering why you hadn’t applied to anything since the fire. We agreed it wasn’t your fault.”
He exhales, a long, frayed breath, and guilt twists in my stomach. This is familiar. This is what I expected: not just a boyfriend, but an obligation.
“I don’t want to distract you from something important,” I say softly, “the way you don’t distract me.”
He doesn’t look at me. “Is Alistair’s three a.m. invitation really so important?”
“It’s not exactly an invitation,” I say, sitting up because, fine, I do owe him some explanation. “I’ve tried not going before.”
Ash’s fingers remain on the keyboard. “I thought you wanted to break things off with him.”
Yes. This I expected. This is exactly what I expected.
My ribs feel too tight. “Are you going to make me?” I hear the defensiveness in my own voice and hate it instantly.
“I’m not going to make you do anything.” He closes the laptop and climbs back into bed to look at me. “I want you to be happy. Is this making you happy?”
No. It’s making me feel owned, cornered, and exactly how I expected to feel after Paradise. But the word that comes out is, “Yes.”
He watches me, and then something in his expression shifts.
“Move in with me,” he says.
His offer drops through me too fast to catch.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he adds quickly. “Not because of tonight, and not because I think you need saving. You’ll still have your studio. You’ll still have everything that’s yours. I just don’t want Alistair being the reason you stay trapped.”
He’s shirtless, asking me to move in like it’s nothing, like I’m someone you build a life around, instead of a debt somebody else still owns.
“Uh…”
“I’ll have the place cleaned,” he adds, completely missing my stunned silence.
“I don’t care about your place being dirty,” I say, once I find my voice.
“Then let me help. I want to help.”
Help. Is that what he thinks this is about? Trading my freedom for shared dinners and acceptable curfew times?
He shifts to sit cross-legged in front of me, surrounded by his things, in a place he paid for with his massive bank account.
“I know you want your freedom.” He takes my hands, pulling me back from the edge of panic. “But Alistair is not freedom.”
“Uh, this feels like a big step. How long have we even been together?”
“Then don’t answer yet. I’ve made the offer, and I want you to know I mean it.”
That’s all the permission my brain needs to jump three steps ahead to imagine my toothbrush by his sink, my jeans in his hamper, and our lives blending together until leaving would require untangling. The thought hits like vertigo.
I don’t know what scares me more, needing the help or liking the picture.
I do need a place to live. This isn’t how I imagined independence, but maybe that’s because I’m incapable of imagining good things happening to me. I can’t stay under Alistair’s control forever. But I also can’t walk away while he pays my rent.
