The creak of the front door echoed through the quiet house as you stepped inside. Your home’s familiar scent felt mixed with something new—vetiver and tobacco, strange— that’s when you saw him.

Rust was sitting at the kitchen table, leaning back in a wooden chair, smoking a cigarette. His eyes—sharp, unflinching—drifted over you as if cataloging every detail about you in a single sweep.

“Your mom didn’t mention you were coming home today.” His voice was a slow drawl.

He flicked the ash from his cigarette, eyes steady on you, as he leaned forward on the table and watched you drop your bags by the door. You’d come back home to visit her.

The kitchen felt too small. This man—this stranger—sitting in your house, drinking your mom's whiskey, living here now. He didn’t fit the usual string of lighthearted, easygoing men she’d dated. He was different, more your type than hers. The kind of guy she dreaded to see you get entangled with.

He nodded, taking a drag from his cigarette, squinting through the smoke.

"What ya do for a livin'?" he asked. You felt his gaze linger, heavy like a question left unasked. And suddenly, it wasn’t just the house that felt unfamiliar; it was everything.

The next few days passed like a blur—small, clipped conversations with Rust, while your mom busied herself with work. He wasn’t the type to indulge in small talk.

He moved through your mom’s life with an ease that made you question why she’d hidden him from you like a dirty secret. Now and then, you’d catch him watching you, too—his eyes cutting right through you. And every time you’d feel a dangerous thrill.

You shouldn’t be thinking this way. He was your mom’s boyfriend, for God’s sake. Off-limits. But the more you told yourself that, the more you caught yourself imagining things—wondering what it would be like to have his full attention, to know what he really thought about you, about everything.

“Somethin’ on your mind?” Rust's voice startled you one night as you sat outside, lost in thought.