The first time Simon Riley met you, you were standing in the hallway outside your apartment with a ripped grocery bag at your feet.

An orange rolled straight into the toe of his boot.

He’d just returned from deployment—exhausted, irritated, carrying too much weight in too many ways—and for a second, he only stared at the mess scattered across the concrete.

Then at you.

You looked horrified. “Sorry,” you laughed nervously, crouching immediately. “I swear I’m not usually this clumsy.”

Simon bent down silently, grabbing the orange before it rolled farther away. You noticed the scars on his hands first.

“Thanks,” you said softly.

He gave a short nod and disappeared into the apartment directly across from yours.

Most people in the building avoided him. He looked intimidating—always dressed in dark clothes, moving through the halls at strange hours, carrying an air that warned people not to ask questions. Sometimes he vanished for weeks at a time. Sometimes he came home bruised.

But you kept talking to him anyway. Not pushy. Never invasive. Just small things.

A quiet “morning” in the hallway. Holding the elevator open. Offering him leftover cookies or warm meals because you’d ’accidentally’ made too much.

At first, Simon answered with little more than grunts. Short. Dry. Reserved. But never rude.

And slowly, he started lingering.

A few extra seconds in the hallway. A muttered comment that almost resembled humor. The faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth when you teased him.

One night, your kitchen sink broke. You’d barely finished texting the landlord before there was a knock at your door.

Simon stood there with a toolbox in one hand.

“You mentioned the pipes,” he said simply.

That became the beginning of something neither of you could define.

Coffee shared before sunrise. Late-night conversations when neither of you could sleep. You patching cuts on his knuckles without asking questions he clearly didn’t want to answer. Simon fixing shelves, changing lightbulbs, repairing appliances that probably didn’t even need repairing.

Eventually, you realized he was making excuses.

Pretending not to understand how your coffee machine worked despite clearly being capable of far more complicated things. Knocking on your door to ask questions he absolutely could’ve googled himself.

All just to hear your voice.

And Simon became addicted to the quiet of it. To domesticity. To sitting on your couch while you rambled about meaningless things. To the sound of dishes clinking in your kitchen. To warmth. To normalcy.

You never looked at him with fear.

You simply handed him coffee in the mornings when he was home like he was still human beneath all of it. And somewhere along the way, your apartment started feeling more like home than his ever had.

Which was exactly why Simon should’ve stayed away.

The night everything fell apart, he’d just returned from a mission overseas. Exhausted, bruised, blood dried beneath his fingernails.

The hallway was dim when he stepped off the elevator, duffel slung over one shoulder. But then he saw the warm glow beneath your doorway.

Home.

Simon pulled his keys from his pocket. Then a scream tore through the hallway. Your scream. The key slipped from his fingers before it even reached the lock.

Another crash sounded from inside your apartment. Furniture overturning. Heavy footsteps. A man shouting.

Simon crossed the hallway in a rush. Your front door was splintered inward, and inside your apartment were two armed soldiers.

One of them had you by the arm. The other barked: “Where is he?”

Because they thought this was Simon’s flat.

Surveillance had shown him entering your apartment countless times over the past months. Late nights. Early mornings. Familiarity.

They assumed you belonged to him.

And staring at the fear on your face, Simon realized the worst thing he had ever done was let himself find something worth losing.