Chapter 11 #2
The way he is, it feels procedural—boundaries respected, variables contained. Safe.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he says.
“I’m trying to, yes.”
“Don’t,” he insists. “I like hearing what I do to you.”
My mind blanks.
It doesn’t sound like him—or maybe it does, the version I’ve always suspected lived under all that restraint.
His hands still for a fraction of a second, the only hint he realizes what he just said.
I try to process the words still hanging between us. “Did you mean to say that out loud?”
He gives a short, incredulous laugh that sounds more like surrender than humor. “Freudian slip.”
His hands move to my hips. “Is this okay?”
I nod my head because it is. But it’s a jump from where we were even yesterday, and a bit disorienting.
He starts there, working the sore muscles along my outer thighs. He doesn’t cross any lines, just applies enough pressure to make me breathe through it, wondering if he will. Wondering if I want him to.
There’s something about it—the focus, the weight of his attention, the way he works in silence, seemingly cataloging my every reaction.
The ache dulls under the press of his thumbs.
Then he pauses. “You have a tattoo.”
I glance down, heart galloping at the way he’s hovering over me. How intimate it looks.
How intimate it feels, the way he’s taking in the dips and contours of my body.
His eyes are eating me alive in a way I didn’t expect.
The black ink curves along my upper thigh, half-hidden by shadow. Mortui vivos docent.
“Yeah.” My throat’s dry. “It means ‘the dead teach the living.’ Kind of my version of carpe diem, but you know. Make it morbid.”
“I know what it means,” he says finally.
Before I can ask what’s going through his head, he sits back on his heels and reaches for the hem of his T-shirt. My brain short-circuits as he pulls it over his head in one clean motion.
“What are you—”
He turns slightly, and I see it: ink across his ribs, just under his right pec, the same phrase in nearly the same lettering. Mortui vivos docent.
My mouth opens, then closes again. “You—”
“Got it after… well. You know when,” he says, almost matter-of-fact. “A needed reminder when cases get too complicated. Not that I’ve had any since, but maybe again someday. Sometimes we just have to listen to what the victim says. Drown out everything else.”
I don’t say anything. Mostly because I can't find any words that would properly express all the things going through my mind right now.
He gives me a faint, knowing smile.
Suddenly the space between us doesn’t feel so wide anymore, metaphorically or otherwise.
For a second, I just stare at it. The matching curve of ink on his skin. Same phrase. Same weight behind it.
He’s probably already classified this entire moment as something rational and unremarkable. Meanwhile, my brain is busy sifting through every implication—how much of what drives me also drives him, how maybe I’ve never really understood the full extent of that until now.
“It’s fitting,” I finally say, because it’s the safest thing I can come up with.
“Yeah,” he says, pulling his shirt back on. “It is.”
I sink back against the bedding, trying to will my pulse into something resembling normal, though I’m not sure I know what that feels like anymore.
He pats my thigh, catching my expression. “Better at all?”
He means my sore muscles. The pivot is dizzying.
I nod instead of answering.
“Good.” He leans back on his heels, rubbing a thumb absently across his jaw, seemingly assessing his work.
Something in me lets go. My shoulders finally drop, my breathing levels out, and the vise wrapped around my sternum loosens.
He must notice, because he shifts onto the bed again and settles beside me, one arm sliding around my waist.
I don’t overthink it this time, just let myself sink back into him. The warmth of his body seeps through the thin layers between us, and our breathing falls into the same rhythm.
If he notices the easy way my hand finds his in the dark, he doesn’t call attention to it. He just threads our fingers together, steady and sure, until the noise in my head finally settles.
Theo
Theo lies completely still, her weight warm against him, the room gone quiet except for the small, steady sound of her breathing. She’s already halfway to sleep, fingers curled loosely around his. He should move—should put distance back where it belongs—but he doesn’t.
He watches the rise and fall of her chest, the way her hair fans against the pillow, the tiny crease between her brows that hasn’t quite faded even now. The urge to smooth it away is unbearable. He’s already crossed too many lines in one night.
Still, his mind won’t stop cataloguing details—her scent, the faint warmth where her skin touches his, the subtle weight of her thigh resting against his leg.
Every breath she takes feels like a test of his self-control.
He tells himself this is nothing more than proximity, that it’s human instinct to hold onto something soft and good when the rest of the world feels hard and cold. It’s a lie he almost believes.
He’s imagined holding her before, in moments he’d rather forget—long nights spent trying to reason his way out of wanting her. But none of those stray thoughts come close to this. Nothing he’s ever pictured accounts for how she fits against him so easily.
A strip of moonlight cuts across her face, catching on the tip of her perfect nose. He lets his fingertip run down it just once—barely a touch. Just enough to reassure himself this is real, that she is.
He shouldn’t have touched her at all. He knows that. But as she exhales against the base of his throat, that unconscious sound of trust, regret feels like the wrong word.
He closes his eyes, tells himself he’ll pull away once he’s positive she’s fully asleep.
He doesn’t.
Lila
My bladder wakes me at some time around 3AM. I carefully extract myself from Theo’s arms—because apparently that’s a thing now—and stumble toward the bathroom.
On the way back, I do what any sleep-deprived, emotionally conflicted person would do; I text my best friends.
Lila: Emergency.
Calla: ANOTHER ONE? Is this a REAL emergency?
Serena: It might be since it’s 3AM. Scale of 1 to you thinking your spleen ruptured because you ate expired sushi, where are we?
Lila: Why are you two awake?
Serena: Five and a half seasons deep in my rewatch of Dexter and I can’t stop now.
Calla: Why are YOU awake?
Lila: I’m currently fake-dating a man who feels like a goddamn space heater when he’s curled around me in bed and I think I might be developing a severe case of feelings. Send help.
Serena: …
Calla: ....
Serena: We told you. We TOLD YOU.
Lila: No, see, this isn’t my fault. This is HIS fault. He’s the one who pulled me in.
Lila: He sensed the weight of my day.
Calla: So what you’re saying is you’re cuddling now.
Lila: It wasn’t cuddling.
Lila: The massage was also very… clinical. That’s all.
Serena: Right, right.
Serena: WAIT A DAMN MINUTE WHAT MASSAGE
Lila: …
Calla: Lila.
Serena: LILA.
Lila: I don’t even know what else to say. Other than my muscles do feel great.
Calla: I’m getting a plane ticket. I need to witness this downfall in person.
Serena: If this doesn’t end in a full-blown I hate you but let’s make out moment, I’m suing.
Lila: You are both useless in a crisis.
Lila: Also I don’t think he has actually ever hated me.
Calla: YA THINK?
Serena: Also, friendly reminder. You once said you’d rather lick a public bathroom floor than fall for a man like Theo.
Lila: I WAS YOUNG AND ARROGANT.
Calla: This was literally a week ago.
Lila: Time is a construct.
Serena: You’re delusional.
Calla: And smitten.
Lila: I hate you both.
Calla: No you don’t.
Serena: Get back to your boyfriend.
I aggressively turn off my phone and crawl back into bed. Theo shifts slightly, mumbling something unintelligible in his sleep, and—without thinking too hard about it—I tuck myself back into his warmth.
I’ll unpack this in the morning.
Or maybe never.