Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
LUCAS
I’m on the mat in the living room, legs folded, spine long, arms stretched. Slow inhale, hold, then exhale. Again. Breathe through it, let it go.
It’s what I do when everything feels too loud. Pilates helps me quiet the noise even when I can’t hear anything at all.
Three days. I haven’t gone to teach Alexander ASL in three days.
I’ve been stretching for over an hour now, trying to lose myself in the rhythm and silence. Trying to chase him out of my head. But every breath I take carves the shape of his name deeper into my chest.
I haven’t seen him since Sunday. Since that… whatever that was: an argument, a rupture, a goodbye. I don’t know. But I miss him. God, I miss him so much it physically aches.
And it’s stupid, isn’t it? Missing someone who was never really mine to begin with. Someone I shouldn’t want, shouldn’t be with. I hate myself for feeling this way. I hate my heart for betraying me.
But I’ve fallen for Alexander.
Somewhere between all the silence and the chaos of him, I fell. And I didn’t even notice until it was too late. That argument didn’t just shake me; it broke something open. And in that aftermath, I saw it clearly. I’m in love with him. I don’t know when it happened, only that it did.
And I hate myself for it.
Because I begged my heart not to feel, I made a promise to myself—to stay safe, to stay numb, to stay untouched. And now look at me. Cracked open and aching for someone I told myself not to take seriously.
I told him I wasn’t good enough for someone like him. And maybe, deep down, I believed it. But the moment those words left my mouth, my chest ached with regret. Because, as much as I told him not to want me that way… a part of me wanted to be enough. For him. Just him.
After Ashley dropped me off that day, I went straight to my room and collapsed onto my bed, eyes burning but dry. Tyler only had to look at me once to know something had happened. When I told him I’d basically pushed Alex away, he pulled me into his arms without a word.
I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I just stood there, motionless, wrapped in his warmth, and wishing it were Alex.
On Monday, I didn’t get out of bed.
I stayed cocooned under my blanket, eyes open, mind blank, until Tyler came home from work and practically dragged me to the kitchen to eat something. I didn’t even taste the food, I just chewed because he looked worried.
On Tuesday, he pulled me out of the house entirely.
Took me thrifting, like he was on a mission to resuscitate me.
Then he dragged me into a salon where I received a manicure, a pedicure, and a wax treatment, even though I barely have any body hair to begin with.
I moved through it all like a zombie, numb and disconnected. But I guess it helped—a little.
Now today, I’m on the mat stretching and pretending I’m okay. Trying to trick my mind into clarity, but it’s no use; my thoughts keep spiraling, smoke I can’t wave away.
If the ASL job with Alex is over, then what happens next?
There’s still some money in my account—from the past week’s payments, but it won’t last. Not with my mom’s debt still coiled around my neck like a noose.
Not if I want to stick to my promise of transferring out of community college and getting a fresh start next year.
The future looks like a blurred, crumbling road.
And the weight of it sits heavy in my chest.
Mike keeps showing up at my apartment, and I keep telling him that I won’t be coming. I wonder when he will get tired.
I flinch when a hand touches my shoulder. Tyler. I blink up at him, startled, coming back to reality.
He signs, “Someone’s knocking. Are you expecting anyone today?”
I shake my head and shrug, lips parting for a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I hadn’t heard the knock. Of course, I hadn’t—I took my hearing aids off to focus.
“I’ll check,” He signs back before heading toward the door.
I nod and close my eyes again, falling back into the rhythm. Inhale. Exhale. Sink deeper.
A few minutes pass.
Then I feel it—
His scent hits me first. Sandalwood, Amber, a trace of lavender. It’s subtle, but consuming. Familiar. Like muscle memory. Like something that’s made a home in the back of my mind and refuses to leave. It wraps around me like a second skin, like a shield.
I inhale, and it’s all I can do not to collapse into it.
When I open my eyes, he’s there.
Alexander.
Standing in the middle of my living room, still and silent, like he’s always belonged there. His eyes are on me, unreadable as always, but heavy with something, one I don’t know how to name.
I blink. Once. Twice.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just watches me with that quiet intensity, like he’s trying to commit me to memory.
My chest tightens.
His gaze drags over me, where I’m still on the mat, flushed, damp, and breathless. I must look a mess.
But the way he looks at me—it isn’t disgust. It isn’t judgment.
It’s something like longing.
And I swear, for a second, I forget how to breathe at all.
My fingers twitch against the mat. My pulse hammers behind my ribs like it’s begging to be let out. He hasn’t even said a word, and yet I feel like I’m unraveling, thread by thread, under the weight of his silence.
I whisper his name in my head, but I’m too scared to speak it aloud.
Too scared that if I do, this moment will break.
I rise slowly from the mat, trying to calm my breathing, but it’s not the Pilates making my chest rise and fall like this. It’s him.
My eyes flicker toward the doorway. Tyler stands there too, surprise still flickering in his eyes before he catches himself. Without a word, he steps closer and presses my hearing aids into my hand. His fingers are gentle, his smile even gentler.
Then he turns and walks back to his room.
I slip them on with trembling fingers. Everything sharpens. Sound returns.
But nothing compares to the way Alexander is looking at me. Still. Focused. Intense.
His gaze trails down—slow, deliberate, like his eyes are hands.
I know what he sees. The cropped tank top that clings to my skin.
The black shorts that ride a little too high on my thighs.
The socks bunched up my legs. I feel my whole body blush, heat blooming under my skin like fire caught in a jar.
Then his eyes return to mine, and my breath catches.
“…Why are you here?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper, Unsteady and Small.
But I know he hears it. And I know he’s not going to leave.
He doesn’t respond immediately. He steps further into the room, closing the distance slowly. His gaze burns into me, not angry—but hungry, unreadable, a kind of longing so sharp it cuts.
“Aren’t you mad at me?” I murmur, my fingers curling slightly at my sides. “After what I said. I thought…”
“You think that little argument was enough to scare me off?” His voice is low, controlled, but there’s something simmering beneath it. “You haven’t been showing up, and you keep sending Mike away. What did you expect me to do? To wait around until you disappeared completely?”
My heart kicks in my chest. He sounds calm, but I can feel the edge in every word.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to see me again,” I admit, my throat tightening. “I thought I ruined everything.”
He doesn’t reply but studies me for a moment, quiet and unwavering, his eyes trail over my face like he’s trying to memorize the exact way I look right now.
Like I’m something rare. Something addictive.
And God… the way he looks at me makes my heart stumble in my chest. That hunger in his gaze—it isn’t subtle. It’s full. Possessive. Like I’m the most intoxicating thing he’s ever seen.
“Show me your bedroom, Lucas,” he finally says. It’s Soft. Almost gentle. But the weight behind the words hits me straight in the gut.
My stomach flips violently.
Because I remember.
I remember Saturday night.
When I had whispered the same thing to him.
When I had asked him to show me his room, he did, not just the walls or the furniture, but himself. He had kissed me like he was starved, touched me, made me moan his name, and held me like I was the only beautiful thing in his world.
The memory rolls through me like a wave of heat, thick and slow, leaving my skin burning. My chest tightens.
I look away instinctively, my gaze faltering. My cheeks flush before I can stop them, and when I glance back at him, the faint smirk playing on his lips tells me he knows.
He knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“I’m still waiting,” he says, voice low, husky, and threaded with something unspoken that shoots straight through me.
With my pulse pounding in my ears, I give him a slight nod.
Then I turn around, walking the narrow corridor to my room. Every step feels loud in the quiet. My feet are heavy, my body tight. I can feel him behind me—close, close enough that the space between us hums like a live wire.
I reach for the doorknob. my hands trembling
And still, I don’t stop.
***
It feels surreal having Alexander in my room. He looks too big for the space, too sharp and powerful for the soft, quiet world I’ve built here.
My room isn’t much—just a small bed pushed against the wall, the green sheets neatly made, a knitted blanket folded at the edge.
My desk is cluttered with scattered textbooks, and a small shelf holds stacks of romance books.
Pastel fairy lights droop lazily along the wall, beside a poster of Lana Del Rey, another of Conan Gray, and a few of my favorite band—BTS.
By the window sits my cactus, a stubborn little thing that somehow keeps living despite my neglect.
I tried to make the space livable and warm.
Alex doesn’t say anything as he scans the room. His gaze is calm, thoughtful, but something darker lingers behind it.
Then, without a word, he walks to the chair at my desk, turns it slowly, and sits, sprawling a little, like he owns the entire place. He looks up at me. That voice of his, deep, smoky, and so dangerously soft, cuts through me.
“Come here.”