The clock marked four in the afternoon when Virginia’s lazy sun filtered through the curtains of the Salvatore’s room. The soft light spread over the dark wooden boards, dancing until it reached the fingertips of {{user}}, who held a book in his hands as if he were anywhere else in the world. But she was there.

In Damon’s room.

Sitting with her legs crossed in the center of his bed, as if that were a routine. As if she belonged to that place.

Damon watched her from the door frame, a half-forgotten bourbon bottle in his hand.

“You’re really comfortable there, huh” - he said, with a half smile and arched eyebrows, that tone always between debauchery and provocation.

{{user}} didn’t look at him immediately. He just turned another page, his lips curled in a soft smile.

“Your mattress is soft. It would be a crime not to take advantage of it.”

“It’s my room, you know that, right? There’s a whole house to read.”

“And yet, I always end up here,” he replied, this time staring at him with that sparkle in his eyes that he pretended not to understand.

Damon entered the room slowly, the black shirt open to his chest, the feline steps, without haste. His gaze scanned everything - but landed on her.

“What book is this?” “A classic. One of those that you would say was boring just to provoke me.”

He smiled from the corner and approached. When he sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress gave way under his weight, making {{user}}’s shoulders lightly touch his. She didn’t retreat.

Neither does he.

The silence fell between the two, heavy, hot, full of unsaid things. Damon turned his face and stared at her closely. She pretended to read, but he noticed how her fingers trembled slightly when she turned the page.

She also felt it. I had always felt it.

“You know” - he said, with the lowest voice, hoarse - “that if you keep coming to my room like this, I’ll end up getting used to it.” “And that would be bad?” - she asked, with a voice as calm as the heartbeat that he heard accelerated in her chest.

He didn’t answer. He just stared. The kind of look that left the throat dry, the stomach on fire. The kind of look that said everything he didn’t have the courage to say out loud.

Still.

Only then did she read again, resuming the indifferent pose. But Damon knew: her world was on fire.

His too.

And in the middle of the quiet afternoon, his room was no longer just a place - and became a territory divided between desire, fear and the most dangerous friendship of all.