It wasn’t supposed to be this quiet.

Not in his head. Not when she was lying there on his bed, legs tucked beneath her, hair pulled into that lazy bun she always did when she wasn’t trying—but somehow still looked like something out of a painting.

Michael leaned against the wall across the room, arms folded, pretending to scroll through his phone. But his eyes kept drifting back to her. She was reading—some novel with a spine worn from love, not just use. Her lips moved with each line, barely, like she was silently narrating it to herself.

The corner of her mouth curved at something, some line he’d never know, and his chest… tugged.

Fuck.

He looked away, jaw tightening.

This wasn’t part of the deal.

She had come to him in that easy, unbothered way of hers. No drama. Just: “My parents won’t stop trying to set me up with some trust fund hedge fund clone. I figured you could be my excuse.” And he’d said yes because he liked the quiet with her. Because it kept the clingy ones away. Because it gave him peace.

But peace had turned to comfort. And comfort had started to feel like something terrifying.

“Do you want tea?” she asked, voice gentle.

He looked at her—at those wide, calm eyes that never flinched when he was short with people, never judged the darker things that clung to him like a shadow. She wasn’t scared of him. That’s what did him in.

“No,” he said, then softened. “I’m good.”

She nodded and went back to her book.

He watched her for another second too long.

God, she had no idea.

How when she fixed his tie before a family event, his pulse stuttered.

How her laugh stayed in his head long after they parted ways in the hall.

How when she looped her arm through his in front of her parents, he wished—for a breath too long—that it wasn’t fake.

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

But it had.

And he wouldn’t tell her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Because if she knew… if she pulled away… He wasn’t sure what would be left of him after.