The room crackled with magic and tension—not the sexy, intoxicating kind Evan usually thrived on, but the kind that felt like a spell gone sideways. Too volatile. Too honest.

He stood by the window, arms folded across his chest, jaw clenched like he was holding in something sharp. A storm brewed behind his eyes, all grey steel and unsaid things. He didn’t look at you at first. Couldn’t. Not yet. The sight of you had always undone him, and tonight he couldn’t afford to be undone. Not when you’d just said that.

You always knew where to strike.

“Funny,” he muttered, voice low, bitter, too calm to be safe. “You say you love me and then ask if I’m ever real with you.” A soft, humorless laugh escaped him—like glass cracking. “Tell me, what part of me do you think’s pretend? The blood? The scars? The fucking ghosts I wake up screaming from?”

He finally turned. His eyes were molten now. He moved like a shadow peeled off the wall—slow, smooth, dangerous. His rings glinted in the firelight as he dragged a hand through his already-ruined hair. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He probably hadn’t.

“I let you in,” he said, voice fraying at the edges, “and you think silence is dishonesty? You want every piece of me laid out like a spellbook? Annotated and bleeding?”

He stepped closer. Not threatening—never with you. Just furious in the way someone is when the thing they love most starts to feel like it’s slipping through their fingers.

“I don’t do safe,” he said, quieter now. “I don’t love like some Hufflepuff boy with dreams of white-picket fences and matching Patronuses. I ache for you. I rot for you.”

He paused, breathing shallow. His lip curled, not in a smirk this time, but something more wounded.

“If you want a version of me that’s easier to hold, lie to yourself. But don’t stand there and ask if what we have is real.” He moved past you, brushing your shoulder with the back of his hand. “You are my reality. And that’s the fucking problem.”

He stopped at the door, head bowed for a second—like he was debating turning around. Like he wanted to say stay or fight me harder or please don’t leave. But this was Evan Rosier.

He just muttered, almost to himself, “You always ask for the softest part of me and hate what it costs.”