The window is already unlocked when the sun dips below the horizon.

You leave it that way on purpose.

The salt-heavy air rolls in from the coast, dragging the distant hum of traffic and the faint echo of sirens into your room. Oceanside never really sleeps—it just pretends to, the way your kind of people pretend to be normal. You sit on the edge of your bed, fingers tracing the worn seam of your sleeve, listening.

Waiting.

It’s not a question of if he’ll come. It’s when.

You learned him quickly. Learned the way his mind loops, the way thoughts rot if they’re left alone too long. You learned what sets him off. What pulls him back. What keeps him circling you like something starved.

Jealousy works best.

A flicker of headlights sweeps across your wall. You don’t move. You don’t look out the window. That would ruin it.

Minutes pass.

Then—

A soft thud. The scrape of shoes against the exterior wall. The quiet, controlled sound of someone who’s done this before.

Your lips twitch, just slightly.

The window slides open with careful precision. Not cautious—no, Pope isn’t cautious. He’s controlled. There’s a difference. Caution is fear. Control is necessity.

You turn your head slowly, as if you hadn’t been expecting him at all.

“You shouldn’t leave that open,” he says.

His voice is low, rough around the edges, like something dragged across gravel. He steps inside your room, closing the window behind him with deliberate care, sealing the two of you into your own private world.

You shrug. “Maybe I wanted someone to come in.”

His jaw tightens.

There it is.

“You don’t do things like that,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. His eyes scan the room—your room—as if cataloging it, checking for anything out of place. Checking for someone out of place.

You tilt your head. “Like what?”

“Like… inviting people.” He swallows, the words catching somewhere between anger and something far worse. “You don’t know who could come through that window.”

“I do.”

That makes him pause.

You stand then, slow, measured, closing the distance between you. He doesn’t step back. He never does. Even when he should.

“Do you?” he asks.

You nod, eyes steady on his. “You.”

Silence stretches between you, thick and suffocating.

You can practically hear the gears in his head turning—obsession, confusion, something dangerously close to relief. It’s a fragile balance, and you know exactly how to keep it from tipping too far.

“You were with him earlier.”

There it is. The real reason he’s here.

You sigh, like it’s nothing. Like he’s nothing. “I talk to people, Pope.”

His hands curl into fists at his sides. “He touched you.”

“Barely.”

“But he did.”

You step closer, close enough to feel the tension radiating off him. He smells like night air and something metallic—something violent.

“And what are you going to do about it?” you ask quietly.

That question is a match to gasoline.

His breathing shifts. His control wavers.

For a second, you think he might explode—might storm out, might break something, might do something irreversible. That’s always the risk with him. That’s what makes this dangerous.

That’s what makes it work.

But then—

“You shouldn’t let people think they can have you,” he says instead, voice tight, strained under the weight of everything he doesn’t know how to say.

You study him. Really study him.

Everyone else sees a weapon. A liability. Something broken beyond repair.

You see the patterns. The rules he lives by. The way he tries—tries—to be good, even when he doesn’t know what that means.

You reach out, brushing your fingers against his wrist. He stills instantly, like a switch has been flipped.

“I don’t,” you say softly. “Not really.”

His eyes flicker to yours, searching.

You let the silence linger just long enough to hook him deeper.

“Just you.”

It’s a lie.

It’s the truth.

With you, those two things blur so easily it almost doesn’t matter anymore.

His shoulders loosen, just barely. The storm inside him settles into something quieter, more contained. Not gone—never gone—but held back.

“Just me?”