Chapter 18
BEA
The apartment wrapped around us in that quiet, familiar way that usually felt like control.
I dropped my bag onto the chair by the door, the leather hitting wood with a dull, heavy thunk. My fingers were already moving—phone out, screen lighting up, notifications stacking faster than I could read them. Mentions. Messages. Alerts. Work waiting to be handled.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my shoulders down as I scrolled, already drafting responses in my head, already reorganizing the narrative—a soft sound cut through it.
Bento sat near the edge of the living room, tail curled neatly around his paws, golden eyes locked on the doorway like he’d been waiting. Not aggressive. Not puffed up.
Just… watching.
Waiting.
And then his gaze shifted. Past me. To Alois.
I felt it before I turned—the way the space behind me settled into something heavier, something quieter. He hadn’t moved far from the door. Boots still planted on the hardwood, shoulders squared out of habit more than intention, like he hadn’t decided yet if he belonged in the room or not.
Which was new.
Weeks of this—of sharing space, of navigating each other around tight corners and tighter routines—and he’d never hesitated before. Not physically. Not like this.
Bento’s ears flicked once. His tail twitched.
And then, slowly—deliberately—he stood.
I didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt whatever silent negotiation was happening in the middle of my living room.
Bento took one step forward. Then another.
Alois didn’t react. His hands stayed loose at his sides, his posture unchanged, but I caught it anyway—the micro-tightening through his shoulders, the almost imperceptible shift in his weight like he was bracing for impact.
Last time had been… a disaster.
Hissing. Claws. A full-scale rejection of Alois’s existence that had left scratches and tension neither of them had acknowledged out loud.
This was something completely different. Bento stopped just within reach. Tilted his head. And then—like he’d made a decision he was willing to live with—he brushed once, lightly, against Alois’s leg.
Not lingering.
A test.
My breath caught.
Alois didn’t move. Didn’t look down. Didn’t reach. He stayed exactly where he was, like even acknowledging it might break whatever fragile thing had just happened.
Bento stepped away a second later, entirely uninterested in making it a moment, tail flicking as he turned toward the kitchen like nothing had happened.
I swallowed, my gaze dragging back up to Alois.
He was already looking at me.
Not sharp. Not assessing.
Just… there.
And then he looked away first.
I stared at him for a second before forcing my attention back to my phone, the screen already dimming in my hand.
“Your answers were clean,” I muttered, my voice steadier than I felt. “You didn’t give them anything too devastating.”
Behind me, I heard the soft, familiar sound of the kettle shifting on the stove as the heat caught, metal ticking faintly as it warmed.
“I wasn’t worried that I would,” Alois replied.
I turned.
He’d moved now—just enough to set his keys on the counter, his jacket already shrugged off and tossed over the back of the chair like he’d done it a hundred times. Like this was his space.
“You should be,” I groaned, stepping further into the apartment, setting my phone down harder than necessary. “You gave them a line they’re going to replay.”
His gaze flicked back to me.
“What line?”
I crossed my arms without thinking, leaning my hip against the counter like I needed the support. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about.”
His mouth twitched—barely there. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything.
“Enlighten me.”
My jaw tightened. “You grouped me in,” I snapped. “With the team. With the people you ‘care about.’ Was that the plan sticking or your true feeling spilling out?”
The kettle let out a low, rising hum behind me, the sound threading through the space like tension made audible.
Alois pushed off the counter slowly, closing some of the distance between us without making it obvious. “That’s what a good boyfriend does,” he remarked with a subtle shrug.
I stared at him.
The whistle of the kettle cut sharp through the room, loud enough to break the moment whether I wanted it to or not. I grabbed it off the burner, the heat biting into my palm through the handle as I poured water into the mug already waiting on the counter.
“You’re overthinking it,” he snickered.
I let out a quiet laugh that didn’t feel like one. “That’s literally my job.”
“That’s your problem.”
I turned, mug in hand, the heat seeping into my fingers as I leaned back against the counter again. “And pretending things don’t mean anything is yours.”
His gaze dropped.
Not to my face.
Lower.
Just for a second.
My pulse kicked.
And then his eyes came back up like nothing had happened.
“Is it?” he asked.
I bit my lip. The answer sat, sharp and complicated in the back of my mind. It was not something I was willing to hand him.
“What do you want to eat?” Alois asked, as if the last three minutes had been magically erased from his mind.
The shift was so abrupt it took me a second to follow.
“What?”
“Food,” he sighed, already reaching for his phone. “You didn’t eat.”
“I—” I stopped, because he wasn’t wrong.
“I’ve got it.”
I watched him for a second, the way his shoulders had dropped just slightly, the way the sharp edges of him had dulled in the quiet of the apartment.
The tension from the arena still sat in his body—I could see it in the set of his jaw, in the way his fingers flexed once around his phone—but it wasn’t driving him anymore.
He looked… tired.
Not physically.
Deeper than that.
“What are you ordering?” I asked, softer now.
He didn’t answer right away.
Just tapped something on the screen.
And then—“Same thing you always get,” he offered.
My brows pulled together. “Which is?”
His gaze flicked up, just long enough to catch mine.
“Sesame chicken. No carrots. Extra sauce. Steamed dumplings. Hot and sour.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You pick around the carrots,” he added, like it was nothing. “And you always say you’re not that hungry and then eat half of mine.”
Heat crept up my neck before I could stop it. “I—” I huffed out a breath. “That’s not—”
“It is,” he said simply, already confirming the order.
I stared at him.
“You’ve been paying a lot of attention for someone who doesn’t care,” I sneered. The realization sat heavy in my chest, pressing against something I’d been keeping firmly contained.
His thumb paused on the screen. “Comes with the job,” he replied.
The order went through with a soft tap. He set his phone down on the counter, exhaling through his nose like that had taken more out of him than it should have.
His head turned slightly, eyes catching mine again, that same unreadable expression settling back into place. “What?”
I shook my head, pushing off the counter. “Nothing.”
Lie. He knew it.
Swallowing a report, Alois moved past me toward the living room, the space narrowing for a second as we passed each other. Close enough that I felt the heat of him, the faint scent of soap and something clean and distinctly him brushing against my senses.
I grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch, the soft fabric brushing against my fingers as I moved to sit, curling one leg under me as I tried to settle into something that felt normal.
Alois sat on the opposite end of the couch, leaving space between us.
Deliberate.
Respectful.
Wrong.
I pulled the blanket over my legs, the warmth welcome against skin that had gone cold somewhere between the arena and here.
I could feel his eyes on me—the weight of them, the quiet awareness that had been building all night now settling into something sharper. Something harder to ignore.
My fingers tightened in the fabric.
My instinct was to deflect. To joke. To move. To do anything but sit in the weight of what felt too close to real.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It settled around us, thick and warm, threading through the space in a way that felt… different.
Bento jumped up onto the couch a second later, landing lightly between us before turning in a slow circle and settling with his back pressed—lightly, deliberately—against Alois’s thigh.
I froze.
Alois didn’t react. Didn’t acknowledge it at all. He just… let it happen.
Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it didn’t mean anything. But it did. God, it did.
Because Bento didn’t do that.
Didn’t trust anyone.
Now he was here. Between us. Bridging something neither of us had named.
For a moment, I let myself take Alois in. At the way his shoulders had finally dropped, the tension bleeding out of him in slow, quiet increments. At the way his eyes had softened just enough to take the edge off the sharpness that usually lived there.
At the way he didn’t push.
Didn’t perform.
Didn’t make a moment out of something that could have been one.
And something in me—something I’d been holding tight, keeping contained, managing and controlling and structuring into something safe—cracked just enough to let something else through.
Something warmer.
Something more dangerous.
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself, the fabric soft against my skin as I leaned back into the couch.
The rest of our evening stretched into a normalcy that was too comfortable. We were both too tired to fight it. Or at least I was.
After the takeout was delivered, we settled into a rhythm of light conversation about events, meetings, practices, games and the gala. It was so easy and relaxed. Alois spoke, not much, but enough to keep the conversation flowing.
“Tux fitting right after,” I finished before popping a dumpling in my mouth.
Alois glanced at tomorrow’s schedule without complaint.