9. Shay #2
So I just stand there while he washes the plate, my arms crossed tight over my chest. I watch the muscles in his forearm shift as he works, the tendons in his wrist flexing with an easy, practised competence.
My mouth goes dry. I think about those hands, how they could just as easily pin my wrists above my head, his whole body a heavy, grounding weight.
The thought of him holding me down, not to fight but just to keep me, hits so hard my breath catches.
He dries his hands on the bar towel that’s always either on his shoulder or tucked into the back of his jeans.
The towel.
It’s faded black, the cotton worn soft. In the corner, BYRNE’S is embroidered in faded green thread.
I’ve seen that towel wipe down the bar a thousand times.
I’ve seen him use it to grip a hot pan. I’ve seen it slung over his shoulder while he listens to one of Jude’s dramatic stories, his expression unreadable.
It’s a part of him. A part of this place.
It smells like him. Not soap or the coffee from this morning, but the actual scent underneath. The one that’s just his.
Something deep in my gut gives a low, possessive thrum.
Declan sees me staring at the towel. He puts it down by the sink without a word.
I spend the next hour trying very hard not to look at it again.
We end up on the couch, watching some movie about a fake spy that is, objectively, one of the worst things ever committed to film. Every ten minutes, someone falls out of a window or gets hit in the face with a pool noodle.
Declan thinks it’s hilarious.
He doesn’t just chuckle. He laughs, a deep, rough sound that makes his shoulders shake.
It vibrates through the cushions, and I’m hyper-aware of the eight inches of worn leather separating my thigh from his.
Close enough to feel the heat coming off him.
Far enough that I can pretend it doesn’t matter.
“You have terrible taste,” I tell him during a scene involving a mistaken identity and a lot of whipped cream.
He glances at me, the corner of his mouth ticked up. “You’re still watching.”
“I’m emotionally trapped by this narrative.”
He just laughs again and reaches for the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t defend the movie. He just enjoys it, completely unbothered by my opinion, and for some reason that’s more infuriating than any comeback would have been.
I steal some popcorn, which feels like losing.
By the time the credits roll, my feet are tucked under me and I’ve got his throw blanket pulled over my lap.
At some point, he stretched his arm along the back of the couch.
His fingers rest a few inches from my shoulder, not touching, but the warmth of him presses against my side.
The almost-touch is torture now, and I can’t stop imagining them sliding into my curls, tugging just enough to tilt my head back so he could drag his mouth down the column of my throat.
My pulse hammers at the fantasy, the restraint costing me more with every slow breath I take.
I want it so badly my skin feels too tight.
His thumb is rubbing a slow circle over a worn patch of leather on the armrest.
“You sit here a lot,” I say, just to say something.
He looks down at his hand, then at the worn spot. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks toward the door that leads out of the apartment. “From here,” he says, his voice quiet, “I can see the top of the stairs.”
I follow his gaze. The stairs that lead down to the bar.
“It’s a habit.”
The quiet way he says it lands somewhere deep and unwelcome. I know what it’s like to build a life around something that can’t leave you.
“That’s some serious old-man shit, Byrne,” I say, getting to my feet.
He just looks at me, a faint smile playing on his mouth. “You going to spend the whole day insulting me?”
“It’s a valid hobby.”
The fact that I’m smiling when I say it is the problem. I’m already moving toward the bedroom. “I should get my stuff.”
Declan doesn’t move from the couch. “Okay.”
Just that. No argument. No stay. The lack of pressure should be a relief, but it feels like a dare.
I head for the bedroom because I need my shoes, and because the air in here is starting to feel too thick. The messy pile of mail on the counter, the stack of records beside the stereo, the clean laundry he folded but hasn’t put away yet. It’s not curated. It’s just a life, happening.
The bedroom looks different in the daylight. Softer. The bed is a wreck, my side more than his. Pillows crooked, blanket kicked to the floor. His closet door is ajar, showing a neat line of dark shirts.
I should grab my bag and go.
Instead, I bend down and pick up the shirt from the floor. It’s a dark blue Henley, soft from a hundred washes, and it smells entirely of him. I toss it onto the bed. Then my hands are moving on their own, pulling the blanket straight, fluffing a pillow.
I stop, staring at what I’m doing. “Oh, no. You are not,” I mutter to myself.
From the other room, Declan calls, “You okay in there?”
“Fine.” My voice is tight.
“Need anything?”
“No.”
My eyes land on the bar towel by the sink, visible through the open door.
I don’t consciously decide to walk back out there. One second I’m in the bedroom, the next the towel is in my hand. The cotton is warm from a patch of sun. I rub my thumb over the embroidered letters. BYRNE’S. His name. His place.
Declan is standing by the couch now, watching me. He doesn’t say anything, which is somehow worse.
“What?” I snap.
He just looks at me. At the towel in my hand.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?” His voice is low, even.
“Looking at me.”
“I don’t want to.”
Heat rushes up my neck. “That’s creepy.”
He considers this for a second. “Yeah. It might be.”
I should put the towel down. I should make a joke about brand research or some other bullshit my brain is usually so good at producing. But I just stand there, holding it.
I turn and walk back into the bedroom, the towel still in my hand. Declan follows, his presence a heavy weight in the doorway. He doesn’t say anything.
I put the towel on the bed. Right in the middle of the rumpled blankets, next to the Henley I stripped off him last night. My hands hover over it for a second, then smooth the worn cotton, adjusting the edge so the green embroidery faces up.
Oh, no.
The shirt. The pillow. The towel. It’s not tidying.
I’m nesting.
My lungs seize. For years, I’ve watched the others do this. Milo buried under a mountain of Callum’s hoodies. Jude arranging Rhys’s button-downs like a museum exhibit. I always thought it was pathetic. A biological trap I was smart enough to avoid.
And here I am, in Declan Byrne’s bedroom, arranging his things into a soft, stupid pile like my body has been waiting its whole life to betray me.
The panic I’m braced for never hits. Instead, a wave of sheer, bone-deep relief washes through me, so total my knees almost give out. I’m just so tired. So tired of being the one who never needs anything.
The bed smells like him, the apartment is warm, and for the first time in my life, someone made me breakfast without making it feel like a debt.
My throat burns.
Declan takes a quiet step into the room. The space shrinks. He’s four feet away, maybe less, and my body is wired with the exact distance. Every muscle is screaming to close it, to turn and press my face into the solid warmth of his chest and just… stop.
“Shay.”
“Don’t.” My voice is sharp.
He stops.
“I’m not—” I swallow hard. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know.”
That fucking gentle voice again. It guts me every time.
I finally look at him, because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment.
He’s leaning in the doorframe, huge and solid, just watching me.
His eyes are on the bed, on the stupid pile I made, and then they’re on me.
His scent is thick in the air, that cedar and smoke that’s already started to feel like mine.
There’s no demand in it. It’s just a fact of the room, like the walls or the floor.
And the look on his face is the thing that undoes me. It’s quiet. Patient. No one has ever looked at me like I’m something worth having without also looking like they’re calculating the cost.
My hands curl into fists. My whole body feels like a pulled string, humming with the need to close the space between us.
To walk right up to him, press my face into the solid wall of his chest, and just for a second, not have to hold myself up.
I imagine his mouth on mine, not rough like before, but slow, deliberate.
His hands finding the bare skin under my shirt, mapping every bone like he’s learning a new language.
I stare at the towel because I can’t look at him. “The first night was an accident,” I say, my voice rough. “Last night was a negotiation.”
I finally lift my head, meet his steady green eyes.
“I want to know what this is when we both choose it.”