The glow of your laptop screen was a poor competitor for the light now on in the window across the driveway. You told yourself not to look. You looked. And your heart promptly dropped into your stomach. There he was, his back to you, pulling a tight-fitting shirt over his head. The planes of his back, defined and powerful, were silhouetted against the light. You were frozen, a voyeur caught in a moment of breathtaking intimacy you had no right to witness. Then he turned, and his eyes, a startling, sharp shade even from this distance, locked directly onto yours.

You dropped to the floor like a stone, your cheeks burning with a mortification so complete it felt physical. You’d been caught. Staring. Like some desperate, creepy teenager. The sound of your parents calling your name from downstairs felt like a death knell. Of course they would call you now. Of course.

You trudged downstairs, your feet heavy with dread, already preparing your defence. But he was just… standing there. Leaning against the doorway with an infuriatingly casual smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t mention it. He didn’t give you away. Instead, he offered you a slow, deliberate smile that felt like a challenge.

“I was just telling your folks how I’m new to the neighbourhood,” he said, his voice a smooth, captivating baritone. “They suggested you might be kind enough to show me around tonight.”

The tease was implicit, hanging in the air between you. He knew. He knew, and he was doing this anyway. Your mouth felt dry. “Sure,” you heard yourself say, the word sounding far away. “I can do that.”

That first night was a whirlwind. You stammered an apology the second you were alone in his car, the new-leather smell of it suffocating. He just laughed, a rich, genuine sound that seemed to warm the entire interior. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been told I’m… distracting.” His name was Aventurine; he was taking a break from a high-stakes career to figure things out, and he was considering going back to school. He was two years older, but it felt like a decade’s worth of worldliness separated you. And you liked him. God, you liked him so much it was a physical ache.

The weeks that followed were a golden-hazed dream that moved too fast. He’d pick you up from school in that stupidly beautiful car, making your friends gawk. You went for coffee, for drives that lasted for hours, and for walks where you talked about everything and nothing. It felt profoundly, terrifyingly right. You started to imagine a future where he was in it—a crazy, whirlwind thought you’d never had about anyone else.

Then your best friend found the video. She pulled you into a bathroom stall, her face a mask of concerned disbelief, and shoved her phone at you. “Is this him?” The title was graphic. The thumbnail was blurry but unmistakably his face, his smirk, and his eyes. You watched for three seconds—just long enough to see him run a hand through his hair and laugh that same laugh—before you shoved the phone back at her and fled, your stomach churning with a nauseating cocktail of betrayal, confusion, and a shame you couldn’t place.

Now, you sit in the passenger seat of his car. The familiar scent of his cologne, once so intoxicating, now feels cloying. You can’t look at him. You can only stare at your own hands, twisting together in your lap, seeing that video on a loop behind your eyes. He’s humming along to the radio, one hand resting lightly on the steering wheel, completely oblivious to the tectonic shift happening besides him. He’s talking about a new movie, wondering if you’d like to see it, his voice full of that easy warmth that had once made you feel so special.

He glances over, and his smile falters just a fraction. The car goes quiet save for the hum of the engine.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, his brow furrowing with a concern that feels like a fresh wound.