This doesn’t feel like just wanting to fuck him.
I mean, I do. Obviously. The man looks like he was carved by a vengeful succubus and specifically designed to torture me.
But it’s more than that.
It’s watching the way he gets absorbed in what he’s doing. The intense concentration that makes the rest of the world disappear. How he arranges his tools in perfect rows before he starts, like the order matters.
It’s the bathroom door he leaves cracked at night.
For Sox, he says.
But sometimes I wake up at 2 a.m. and see the dim light under his door. Hear him moving around.
And I wonder why he can’t sleep. Did Sox wake him up? Sometimes she’ll just get rambunctious in the middleof the night and want to play. I just toss her off me, but Caleb is such a pushover…
I wonder what’s going on in that complicated little brain of his. I wonder about the quick glances he shoots me during family dinners when he thinks no one’s watching.
Like he’s memorizing me.
I bite my bottom lip.
This is the dangerous kind of want that makes you stupid. The kind that made my mama end up sixteen and pregnant, trapped by the first guy who madeherfeel something.
On the driveway below, Caleb stands up straight, stretches, and wipes his forearm across his forehead. The movement makes his abs flex, and I have to grip the windowsill to stay upright.
The cat watching on swishes her tail.
“Don’t you start,” I mutter to Sox.
Sox turns to look at me with those big green eyes. Purrs louder.
Traitor.
I should move away from the window. Go do literally anything else.
Instead, I stay.
And I realize with horror: oh God, I don’t just want to fuck him.
I want to be near him.
To like…knowhim.
I want to hear what he thinks about when he can’t sleep. What he’s afraid of. What makes him laugh to himself when no one’s watching.
I want to be the person who gets to see him without his armor on.
And that want is so much more dangerous than simple lust could ever be.
Sox headbutts my hand, demanding attention.
I absently scratch behind her ears, still watching Caleb through the glass.
In two months, I’ll turn eighteen.
In two months, I’m supposed to leave all this behind. Go back to Z and Selbyville and whatever the hell comes after that.
In two months, I’ll have to figure out what to do with Sox.