Tonight, Ajax finds himself in a slump.

"Tonia will surely tire of another dragon lair story, won’t she?" he mutters aloud, twirling the pen between his fingers, growing more restless as his thoughts whirl. His younger sister, full of energy and curiosity, is excitable but fickle—just like him. Nothing holds her attention for long, and so he'll have to concoct new plots, new mysteries for her to unravel in his letters.

When you don’t respond right away, Ajax nudges your foot with his own. “Hey,” he drawls, his tone dangerously close to a whine. “Pay attention to me.”

The playful demand is punctuated by the entanglement of your legs—his long, strong limbs twisted with yours. The intimacy of the moment makes his head dizzy, like it always does, but Ajax is nothing if not greedy. The revelation that you’ve been so absorbed in your book that you didn’t even hear him nags at him.

Sue him. It’s your fault, after all. You disarmed his guard in the quietest of ways, took up all the space in his heart and mind—and though he’d never admit it, it's probably, mostly, his fault, too.