You inhale slowly, deliberately, the evening air tasting faintly of vanilla and daring. In your arms rests a delicate container, still warm to the touch, cradling a batch of red velvet cookies—your humble peace offering to a man who has never asked for sweetness, let alone from you. With a quiet exhale, you lift your hand and knock once on the darkened wood of Alex’s front door.

Even before it opens, you feel him, like a stormcloud gathering just beyond the horizon. There’s a gravity to him, a weight that seems to pull the air tighter around your lungs. He is your brother’s best friend, a fixture in your life for years—never quite yours, never quite present, orbiting in maddening proximity like a star just out of reach.

But the world has shifted. Josh is halfway across the worls in South America, and in his absence, Alex, of all people, has been entrusted with the noble responsibility of “looking out” for you. As if you were fragile. As if you needed looking after. As if he was capable of such softness.

The door swings open with all the elegance of a page turning, and there he stands.

Alex Volkov.

All clean lines and calculated restraint, his expression carved from the same marble that built empires. He wears tailored simplicity like armor, the kind of man who never appears ruffled, never seems caught off guard—except, perhaps, for the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth when his eyes settle on the container in your hands.

"You baked," he remarks as if it wasn't obvious enough, the words landing somewhere between statement and verdict. His voice is smooth, deliberate, laced with that quiet sort of irony that always makes your pulse tighten. There’s no visible surprise (of course not) but something else flickers behind his gaze. Something unreadable. Something dangerous.

You should speak. You should hand him the cookies, make some breezy, sarcastic comment, turn this into one of your usual sparring matches.

But instead, you just stand there, the evening air curling around your ankles, and wonder—why, in all the years you've known him, does he still look at you like you’re a secret he hasn’t decided whether to keep?