ELEVEN
CLARA
When I stepped inside,the house was warm and dim, the late afternoon already starting to bleed into evening. I toed off my boots by the door and listened.
The TV was on low in the living room—some sports channel, the soft murmur of commentators drifting down the hall—but Wes didn’t say anything, and I didn’t call out. We were still in that weird phase where every interaction felt like opening a door you weren’t sure you had permission to touch.
I hung my coat on the hook and headed for the kitchen, refusing to look in his direction. The fridge hummed quietly, the same old magnet from the hardware store clinging to its side like it had been there since the dawn of time. The counters were less chaotic than when I’d first arrived, but only because I’d taken a pass through that morning while he pretended not to notice.
No random guys in my house.
The memory of his voice—tight, annoyed, and a little too pointed—made something in me flare. Not hurt, exactly.
More like . . .challenge accepted.
Kit’s words from earlier echoed in my head:Make him mad. Maybe he needs to be mad more than he needs to be sad.
“Okay, landlord,” I muttered under my breath. “Let’s play.”
I rummaged in the junk drawer until I found a pad of legal paper, its sheets a sickly shade of yellow. There was a thick black marker rolling around in there, too, probably from a jobsite. I snagged both and slapped the pad down on the counter.
In big, looping letters, I wrote at the top:
HOUSE RULES
Underneath, I added:
Rule #1: No pity parties.
Rule #2: No sponge baths.
Rule #3: No random guys in the house (per the landlord).
Rule #4: Landlord must attend his own PT.
Rule #5: Tenant reserves the right to eat ice cream for dinner without judgment.
I capped the marker and leaned back to admire my work. It was ridiculous. Petty. Absolutely designed to get under his skin.
It also made me weirdly giddy.
This was my tiny way of reclaiming a little territory in a house that still didn’t feel like mine. If he got to lay down rules, so did I. If he was going to act like my presence was some huge imposition, then he could at least be forced to look at his own reflection in cheap neon stationery.
I peeled the page off the pad and walked over to the fridge. With a small, satisfying smack, I used the magnet to stick it dead center, right at eye level.
“Perfect,” I whispered, a smug little laugh slipping out. I could practically see his face when he spotted it—jaw tightening, eyes narrowing, that muscle in his cheek ticcing.
Affection tugged at the edges of my irritation. I didn’t want to humiliate him. I just wanted him to engage. To do something other than sink into the couch and disappear.
From the living room, the volume on the TV nudged up a notch, like he was flipping channels.
“Anytime now,” I told the note, giving it one last pat. “Go rile up the beast.”
I left the note to do its evil work and climbed the stairs toward my room, scrolling absently through my phone. Kit had already texted a string of dagger emojis and a GIF of someone rubbing their hands together, which made me snort.
“Operation Poke the Bear is underway,” I typed back, then tossed my phone onto the bed.
I dug in a drawer for pajamas and pulled out the softest sleep shorts I owned. Across the hall in the primary bedroom, I could hear the shower kick on and the low rush of water through the walls.