Chapter 14 #2
“You’re violating our unspoken rule,” I said softly, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t wake Imogen next door.
At least I didn’t have to worry about Sebastian hearing since his room was down in the basement, as far from here as he could be without actually leaving the house.
“Finding me twice in twenty-four hours is bordering on harassment.”
“Turn off your light, Novak,” Rhys’s voice came through the receiver, quiet, gravelly, and entirely too intimate for one in the morning. “You’re burning a hole through my retina.”
I blinked, leaning slightly toward the window. Through the glass, I saw the faint silhouette of a figure standing behind the blinds four houses down.
“My lights aren’t even on!” I protested. “It’s just my laptop screen.”
“Even worse. All the blue light is terrible for sleep.”
I straightened my posture. “Are you sitting in the dark spying on me?”
“I’m lying in bed, trying to sleep, but my fake girlfriend is operating a lighthouse down the street,” he countered smoothly. His shadow moved behind the blinds, but didn’t disappear. I could hear the faint rustle of bedsheets through the speaker, followed by a soft exhale. “Why are you still up?”
“Homework,” I sighed, resting my forehead against my knees. “I have a million things due Monday and somebody is forcing me to go swimming tomorrow so I need it done tonight.”
“Which classes?” he asked.
“Chemistry and Accounting Fundamentals, also known as hell on earth.”
“I never took accounting, but I did pretty well with chem. Read me the problem.”
I paused, holding the phone away from my ear to look at the screen as if checking to see if I was actually talking to Rhys Montgomery. “What?”
“Read me the problem. I’m bored, my head still throbs if I close my eyes too tight, and you clearly need professional intervention before you cry into your textbook.”
A quiet, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I reached down, pulled the notebook off the floor, and flipped back to the page.
“Fine,” I said, settling back into my pillows. “If twenty-five grams of sodium reactant produces... wait, no, I’m not doing this. You’re going to make fun of me.”
“I am definitely going to make fun of you,” Rhys agreed effortlessly. “In fact, I’m already judging you. But read it anyway.”
For the next twenty minutes, the quiet night air between our two houses was filled with the low, steady rhythm of his voice through the speaker.
He walked me through the equations step-by-step, breaking down the conversions into simple, effortless steps.
He was surprisingly patient—far more patient than Sebastian and Lavender ever were when helping me with homework—never raising his voice when I got confused, just pausing, letting out a low mm-hmm’s, and explaining it a different way.
“See?” Rhys said after I successfully calculated the theoretical yield for problem eighteen. “You’re not stupid. You just overcomplicate the setup.”
“I don’t overcomplicate it,” I murmured, resting my chin on my knees, staring out at the faint square of light down the street. “The setup is just naturally complicated.”
“Only if you let it be.”
There was a long pause on the line. Neither of us hung up. The faint, rhythmic sound of his breathing came through the receiver, so clear it felt like he was sitting on the edge of my mattress rather than five doors down.
“By the way, I never asked—is your head feeling any better?” I asked softly, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, it’s fine now. Dad even brought home some actual ice packs from the hospital, so I didn’t have to smell like frozen peas anymore.”
I let out a soft, breathy laugh. “That’s a shame. The vegetable aesthetic really suited you.”
I dropped my textbooks on the chair and climbed into bed, pulling my duvet up over my shoulders as a cold draft seeped through the window pane.
The warmth of the blanket wrapped around me, making my eyelids suddenly feel ridiculously heavy.
The exhaustion from the rain, the stress, and the emotional whiplash of the day was finally catching up to me.
“Hey, Ainsley?”
“Hmm?”
“Did I scare you yesterday?”
The question was so quiet, so careful, that for a second I thought I’d imagined it. I squeezed my eyes shut against the dark, my heart giving that now-familiar, fluttering thud against my ribs.
“When?” I whispered, though I knew exactly what he meant.
“In the car,” he said. “When I kissed you. I know I said I had an idea, but I didn’t give you a heads-up. I just did it.” He paused, his breath catching slightly. “I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.”
I rolled onto my stomach, burying my face partially in my pillow, holding the phone tight against my ear.
“You didn’t scare me, Rhys,” I said softly.
“You froze for a second,” he noted, his voice carrying a rare, vulnerable edge. “I thought... I was worried I crossed a line.”
“I was just surprised,” I admitted, my cheek warm against the cotton pillowcase. “That’s all. I didn’t expect you to... go all out.”
A low, faint chuckle sounded through the speaker, warm and deep, sending a tiny shiver down my neck.
“I don’t do things by halves, Novak,” he murmured. “You should know that by now.”
“Clearly,” I mumbled, my eyes growing heavier by the second. “Next time, give me a proper warning so I can prepare myself.”
“Noted. I’ll issue a formal written notice twenty-four hours in advance.”
“Thank you. That’s very professional of you.” I let out a long, quiet sigh, my body sinking deeper into the mattress. My laptop screen had dimmed into sleep mode, plunging my room into total darkness except for the thin sliver of moonlight creeping through the blinds.
“Rhys?” I slurred, my words slowing down as sleep pulled heavily at my limbs.
“Yeah?”
“Your light’s still on.”
“I know.”
“You should turn it off. You need to rest your brain.”
“I will,” he whispered. “In a minute.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My eyes closed, the heavy fog of exhaustion finally rolling over my brain, taking the chemistry equations, the rain, and the lingering confusion with it.
The last thing I was conscious of was the warm, steady sound of his breathing on the line, keeping watch over the dark street between us.