15. Kael
KAEL
By the time the granola bar’s half gone, I’m wishing I could take it back. Had I really told him I ruined her life? I had, and it’s because of the way he was looking at me. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered if my existence wrecked Mom’s.
“It’s not all I care about,” Ash says while I force down another bite of the gritty, dry granola bar. After today, it tastes incredible. “I know you don’t care about money, but you can see why it matters so much to me.”
“Oh, I care about money,” I correct. “I just don’t have any.”
“You’re lucky you have something you love as much as art.”
“You’re lucky you have two million dollars.” I instantly regret the jab when his shoulders drop. “Not that it’s luck.”
“No. It is luck,” he says. “I work hard, but I didn’t earn the opportunities I got. Hearing your story…”
“Please.” I wave him off. “I didn’t earn my love for art, and it doesn’t pay rent in San Francisco. Enter Alistair.”
Ash stares into the dark beyond the firelight. “Ever wonder if you’re making the right choices?”
“Constantly,” I say, wondering if that same question made Mom leave. “In middle school, I tried getting my first boyfriend with one of those circle-yes-or-no notes.”
“A classic.”
“Turns out, it’s not such a good idea to leave a paper trail,” I say, remembering the bullying. “My gram used to say, ‘We're all wandering in the dark, trying to find the light.’”
A gleam sparks in Ash's eyes, but he looks away.
“You’ve got to live your truth. I’d say you’ve done pretty well,” he says, and starts pulling his shirt over his head. “Fire’s working. I’m actually getting hot.”
Oh God.
My heart stutters. His undershirt rides up with the pullover, revealing his stomach, lean and ridged. A vein disappears beneath the waistband, and all I can think about is following it.
“Hot,” I repeat, unable to look away.
Possibilities simmer in Ash’s incongruence. I have the feeling that if I crossed the room and kissed him, he wouldn’t stop me.
He’s predictable that way. The same slow grind that built his fortune and sculpted that body is what lets me keep catching his lingering stares. Steady isn’t usually my type, but there’s something more. Like an Escher drawing, he’s familiar and somehow impossible to pin down.
“You okay?” he asks, catching me staring this time.
“Just, uh, enjoying the fruits of your labor.”
He doesn’t get it. Of course he doesn’t. He’s already back at his laptop, the screen glow swallowing his face and whatever curiosity I had about what he’d do if I actually crossed the room.
“Sunrise is six forty tomorrow,” he says.
“Huh.” He’s oblivious to my disinterest.
“I’ll set my alarm, but set yours too. I could sleep forever after today.”
I reload the firebox, steal a glance at his laptop to confirm he’s back to spreadsheets, then look at the small, grubby couch.
“Take it,” he offers. “I’ll be fine on the floor.”
Under different circumstances it might feel chivalrous. With his laptop already open again, it just feels… predictable. I flop onto the couch, sending up a cloud of grime that reminds me this isn’t exactly the sexiest place to test my theory anyway.
I peel off my sweatshirt and ball it up as a makeshift pillow. Without muscles to flex, I feel ridiculous fake-stretching with my arms over my head, but Ash’s eyes flick back to his laptop the second I catch him looking. Predictable. Annoyingly so.
He is thinking about me. Even after seeing his body, it’s the memory of his hand on my cheek that does things to me. So gentle. With everything I know about Ash, I never expected that… kindness, sensuality, understanding. He saw me.
No. He’s a rich asshole, and I’m just horny. That means there’s one quick fix to purging this confusion.
“I’ll say it,” I begin, letting our tension burn through my restraint. “I find you attractive. You’ve been looking at me all day. I’ve been looking back. So…” I stand and step forward to close some distance. “You want to do this? Before bed?”
“What?” Ash folds his laptop half-closed, a hand on his chest like a caricature of shock.
“We’re adults.” I take another step, close enough to pop the thin veil of propriety between us. “And you have been staring at me all day.”
“I have not!”
“You have. And you’re not half bad yourself”—the understatement of the century—“I know what you want.”
He stays barricaded behind his laptop, siphoning away my courage. I have enough for one more step.
He stands, shock sliding into something more guarded, a cage for something wild.
“You think you’ve got me figured out?” he asks, stepping closer.
“Uh-huh.” I hold my breath to let him close the distance.
“Each week, I invest the same amount of money at the same time,” he says, voice low, almost a purr.
The content is a snoozefest, but his breath is warm on my face.
“I follow the same workout regimen. I publish a podcast about minimizing risk.” His hand brushes my arm, sending a shiver through me.
I don’t care what he’s saying. “You really think I’m the kind of guy who does one-night stands?
” he asks quietly, a breath away. His hand stays on my arm. “I’m not. Too much risk.”
His expression isn’t playful. It’s… dismissive.
I push him away. “You’re an asshole.”
Ash drops back behind his keyboard, smirking. “You know me so well.”
“Yeah,” I say, flopping onto the couch, the smell of damp earth and something faintly rotten rising from the cushions. “Scared of losing control, you’d rather be lonely than honest. And you do hear how that makes the rest of us sound, right? Like anyone who has a one-night stand is reckless trash.”
“That’s not what I said.” He doesn’t look up. “I said I’m not reckless enough for one-night stands.”
If that’s true, it’s infuriating. If it’s a lie, it’s infuriating. Ash is infuriating.
“Did you think saying ‘you know me’ would be a turn-on?”
“Your loss,” I mutter, rolling so my back faces him and the fire. The cushion reeks, but I’m committed to stonewalling.
“Hope I didn’t embarrass you,” he says.
“Ash—I was trying to figure you out. Now I’m sleeping.”
“Figure me out?” he asks, still not letting it go.
I roll back over. He’s cross-legged by the furnace, laptop a little wall between us, hazel eyes fixed on me. Why do they feel like they see straight through me when I can’t decipher him even when he spells it out?
“Not that I’m having loads of casual sex,” I grumble.
“Oh?”
“One-night stands don’t make you reckless,” I say. “They make you free.”
“I can see the appeal.” It doesn’t sound like it’s the idea he finds appealing so much as the way I said it. “I mean, I get how that might be… nice. I’m just not wired that way.”
Since seduction didn’t pry clarity out of him, I try something else. “How are you wired?”
“I told you. Conservative. Disciplined. Calculating, and then avoiding, risks like this. Even if I do find you… attractive.”
Ash’s chosen word sounds like it survived three rounds of internal compliance review, and I don’t know why that’s still working. Fuck me, he’s making it endearing.
“Didn’t you kiss some guy at a holiday party?”
“That was a screwup, and it cost me years of freedom.” His misery flickers across his face as he stares into a cobwebbed corner. “Guess we’re after the same thing.”
“Peas in a dusty, haunted pod.”
His lips twitch.
We fall into a hush, firelight dancing, our almost still echoing between us until the room settles into the strange lullaby of his typing and the crackle of the flames.
“What are you working on?” I finally ask.
“Since I can’t ask you for Alistair’s endorsement, I’m updating my résumé.”
There it is. Clarity without the sex.
I scoff and roll back over, smell be damned. “No sympathy for the two-million-dollar man.”
Stubbornness holds until I drift off, mouth-breathing my way into a sleep deep enough that nothing could wake me.
Until a horrible banging and a jolt of adrenaline do.