Αικατερίνη

next, you learned that price was in the military. he never shared too many stories, but you heard enough about the ones who had his back.

and sometimes, when he came home from deployment, he showed up at your door with a tired smile and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

“got a spare couch for a few days?”

the door was already opening wider to let him through. “only if you leave the muddy boots by the door.”

the first time he invited you to a barbecue at his place, you almost didn’t go. it would be interesting to finally see his comrades, yet the introverted side of you kept insisting it would be awkward.

“you sure they won’t mind?” you asked, mulling the idea over.

john, he’d insisted you call him that now, let out a low huff on the other end of the line. “havin’ someone normal ’round might do ’em some good.” there was a hint of a grin in his voice.

when you arrived, his house smelled like grilled meat and charcoal smoke. the rest of the team came into view.

a tall masked man leaned against the fence, listening to whatever the mohawked man was yapping about.

the man in the baseball cap was laughing near the cooler with a sharp-eyed woman, sipping something fizzy.

those sharp eyes clocked you immediately as john guided you closer.

his big, warm hands settled on your shoulders, giving a reassuring squeeze that kept you from fleeing.

“everyone,” he said casually, “this is her.”

all eyes locked on you, and you tried not to cringe under the sudden attention.

“didn’t know you had friends outside of us, sir,” the mohawk quipped.

“pipe down, mactavish.”

the day turned out far better than you’d expected.

kyle, the man with the million-dollar smile, and johnny, the one who could never seem to stay still, turned out to be hilarious storytellers.

you found yourself chatting with kate about the places you’d travelled, realising she had a stern yet motherly air about her.

a gruff “thank you” was even earned from the tall masked man - simon, you learned his name - after offering him a second helping of the dessert you baked. you’d noticed how he’d practically vacuumed down the first plate. even helped you rinse the baking dish afterward.

the dreaded question never came. no one asked what you were to john price.

what you missed, though, were the knowing looks they shared when you casually snatched the tongs from the captain to help him flip the burgers while he insisted he had everything under control.

it was not the first time they heard about you, after all.

it stayed that way for a while.

john would disappear for weeks, sometimes months.

then it became routine for him to text whenever a deployment was ending, never failing to show up at your doorstep once he was back.

there were always new scrapes and bruises that concerned you.

and sometimes, there was a hollow look in his eyes, times when he hovered a little closer than usual, like he needed to be near someone untouched by whatever he’d seen out there.

he’d stay a few days. sleep. drink coffee on your balcony. fix random things around your apartment.

before long, the rest of the team slipped into your life too. easy laughter, familiar faces.

and then john would be called to another mission.

neither of you ever tried to define what you were to each other.

back in 2d

you’d grown used to receiving simple texts from random numbers. burner phones, non-traceable, john had mentioned before.

the quickening of your heart was just excitement from seeing him safe and sound again, you assured yourself.

three days passed. then four.

missions ran long. something might come up at the last minute, you convinced yourself.

still…

when the doorbell rang on the fifth evening, you rushed to the door so fast your slipper slid against the floor.

john would’ve scolded you for opening the door before checking who it was—

simon.

alone.

“fuck!” the tall man’s hands shot under your arms.

if it hadn’t been for his fast reflexes, your kneecaps might’ve slammed to the floor with how fast your body gave out.

your voice came out thin. “is he…?”

“he’s alive—price is alive!”

like a marionette with its strings cut, your limp body was dragged inside by this mountain of a man. he made sure you were steady in the chair before returning with a glass of water.

“hospital,” simon said after making sure you took a sip. “banged up, but he’s tough.”

your hands were still shaking.

“woke up and told us to pass it on. didn’t wanna have you worryin’.”

simon let out a quiet sigh, knowing your reaction was more than friendly concern.

for two grown adults, the pair of you were fookin’ clueless.

a week later, john was sitting on your couch with his leg stretched out, still wrapped in a brace. 

the stubborn expression that told you he already thought he was healed enough was clear on his face.

before handing his second beer of the night, you reminded him, “doctor said no running, no tinkering about, and no being stubborn.”

john snorted. “doctor says a lot of things.”

“you’re lucky i convinced him i’d look after you instead of letting you stay at the hospital.”

“and miss this five-star hospitality?” he said, taking the bottle. “would’ve been a bloody tragedy.”

you rolled your eyes at his sarcasm. for a while, the room was quiet.

eventually, he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“you didn’t sign up for this.”

not following his line of thought, you looked at him, confused.

“for taking care of me.” he gestured vaguely at the brace, the couch. “should’ve spent your saturday out with some bloke who can actually look after you.”

you frowned. “you know i’m not looking to date—”

“that’s not the point.”

silence filled the room.

“figured it was better this way. us not bein’ together.”

“john—”

he cut you off. “just… let me finish.”

“didn’t want you lyin’ awake, wonderin’ if i was still breathin’ somewhere halfway ’round the world,” he continued quietly. “didn’t want you waitin’ for a knock at the door, someone tellin’ you i’m comin’ home in a box if i’m lucky.”

the words sat heavy in the space between you.

“but i’m a selfish bastard,” he added roughly. “still want you in my life.”

a prickling burn filled your eyes. “you’re unbelievable.”

he blinked.

“my heart stopped when i saw simon at my door. i thought you were dead, john!”

the way you said his name made his chest tighten. the tears slipping down your cheeks nearly undid him.

“i’ve always known what your job means. i’ve known the risks when i let you into my life. i know one day something could go wrong.”

“love—”

“maybe i’ve always hoped there’d be something more. but you never said anything, and i didn’t want to ruin whatever this is between us.”

you drew in a shaky breath, fighting to keep your voice steady.

“if you think keeping your distance was protecting me from the worst”—embarrassedly, you wiped at your cheeks—“you were a little late.”

something in his expression shifted then. like a wall he’d kept carefully built finally cracking.

“bloody hell. c’mere.”

before you could react, he tugged you down onto the couch. a quiet grunt of pain escaped him.

“john—your leg—” you protested.

“i’ll live.” his arm slid around your shoulders, gathering you close against his chest. “pain is proof this is real.”

he dropped his face to your hair, breathing you in, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“i’m an idiot.”

calloused thumb brushed gently beneath your eyes, wiping away the last traces of tears. he leaned down, pressing a slow kiss to your forehead. 

then another, softer, deeper, when his lips found yours. lingering longer this time, tasting the faint salt of your tears.

“could’ve done this ages ago, eh?”

you sniffed, playfully smacking his chest.

“well,” he murmured, basking in the warmth of your skin, eyes soft under that gruff exterior. “think i owe you a proper date, yeah?”

“took you long enough.”

for the first time that evening, he let out a real laugh.

his hand slid warmly along your arm as he held you closer. “better late than never.”

later that night, after you’d fallen asleep in his arms, john’s phone lit up. a new group chat message blinked on the screen.

she kicking you out yet, cap?

chuckling softly, he typed back:

seems keen on keeping me around might move in together after all

almost immediately, an all-caps FINALLY appeared.

he doesn’t give you enough time to think about refusing him — he eases himself forward, body slipping past the threshold with a quiet sort of inevitability. he fills your space the moment he steps inside — just immense in his own body.

“what needs fixin’, dove?” he asks, shrugging out of his coat. he’s grown accustomed to you needing him for something. a plumbing leak, a burnt out bulb, a window that won’t latch.

you smile as you turn the lock behind him. “nothin’ broke this time.”

“shame,” he murmurs, he enjoys taking care of you.

john hangs his jacket on the hook by the door, movements unhurried and fluid. then he turns back to you.

the shift in the air is subtle but instant when his eyes fix on yours.

he reaches for you slowly, calloused fingers curling around your wrist, drawing you close, hips leaning in to meet yours.

your bare foot nudges the toe of his boot when you step closer. his other hand slides into the dip of your spine, broad palm settling there, steadying you like you might drift away if he didn’t.

he smells of smoke, the last cigar he must’ve had in his flat before wandering down the hall.

“you sleep at all?” you murmur, your voice barely more than breath.

his jaw shifts beneath his beard. the smile stays, but it pulls straighter.

“twenty minutes here and there.”

your expression softens before you can stop it.

“that why you’re knockin’ at two in the mornin’?” you ask quietly, your fingers tracing a languid trail up his arm.

instead of answering, he dips his head.

his nose pushes into the curve of your neck, slow and unhurried, beard grazing your skin in a way that you missed deeply, in a way that makes your skin pebble. his hand tightens almost imperceptibly at your back as he inhales you, like he’s grounding himself.

when he speaks, his voice is low and gravel-deep, you feel the vibration against your skin.

“y’know i can’t sleep without seein’ my girl.”

the words curl warm in your ear. it’s possession dressed as affection. you never quite know which one he means.

his lips part against your jaw and your back bends like a bow in response, a soft breath slipping from you as he sears a slow trail of open-mouthed kisses along your warming flesh. he rewards you with a hum, like you’ve done exactly as expected.

his hand drifts from the small of your back, sliding lower with a familiarity that makes your pulse quicken. roughened fingers slipping beneath the waist of your shorts, easing past the fabric to palm your ass.

your breath catches, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. you could stop him — this — you know that, he knows that.

but you don’t.

because this is the rhythm you two always fall into when he’s home — he arrives restless, and you unwind him inch by inch like a spool of yarn that never quite stops spinning. the string of him looping through your touch, tangling in your fingers, tugging you closer even as it loosens him.

he eases back to meet your gaze, his free hand comes up to your jaw, tilting your chin up. your eyes are flicking across his face, taking him in this close — the wrinkles adorning his ocean eyes, the half-healed cut on his forehead, the salt & pepper in his beard that seems to multiply every time he’s away.

“eyes on me, dove,” he murmurs the direction and your eyes flick to his immediately. “you gonna let me see my girl?”

“yes, sir.”

By the time you reach the second floor, the cold has settled into your bones.

The landing on your floor sits directly outside your neighbor’s flat, the brass 2A tacked there a stark contrast against the black door. The hallway runs narrow and straight to your own door, the dim fluorescents overhead cast a flickering pale glow that never quite reaches the corners. An earth-toned floral runner threads throughout the entire length of the building, its pattern long faded, fibers worn thin and frayed down the center where tenants have passed in and out for years. The white walls that contain it all are scuffed dirty and nicked, marked up by furniture and careless feet.

Your neighbor’s flat is always giving the impression that it might be back on the market.

Most front doors offer some indication of life – a welcome mat, a potted plant, a pair of muddy trainers set to the side.

Not his door, though. Right now, his door offers post.

It began modestly enough, a single envelope resting against the door. Then more joined it as the days passed – thick envelopes, junk, rolled up circulars and magazines that curl at the edges after a few days of being stepped over. The stack grows and grows, leaning against the wood as though it expects, at any moment, to be scooped up by the man whose name is printed on the address line.

You notice his absence before the absurd amount of post clues you in, though. Once you’ve learned his rhythms, his comings and goings are impossible to miss. When he leaves it’s the hurried weight of heavy boots stomping, doors and drawers slamming shut in the early hours. It’s always followed by a melancholy sort of silence, not the daily hush of an empty home, but a stretched quiet that haunts behind your shared wall for weeks on end.

Then when he returns, you’re greeted with the rush of water through the pipes, the pungent curl of cigar smoke creeping through the vents, and the sounds of his TV carrying through the wall until nearly four in the morning.

He’s never introduced himself, never offered you more than a polite passing nod. You don’t know what he does, not really, and until now, you never really gave him much thought. 

And only now because you nearly break your wrist because of him.

Your fingers are aching from grocery bags, your thoughts are already drifting toward dinner, and just as you hit the landing your shoe catches the slick edge of a magazine on the floor. The loss of balance is immediate, and unfortunately, graceless. The hallway tilts, the floor rushes up, and oranges spill across the hall and down the stairs. The carton of eggs bursts open against the carpet with a tragic crack. One of the bags split entirely, spilling its contents in every direction. 

For a long moment you just kneel there, the traitorous copy of ‘Guns & Ammo’ that caused your fall lies beside you, addressed to one: Jonathan Price. An incredulous breath of a laugh escapes you before you bat the cover out of sight. 

You flex your wrist carefully — achey, but it moves. So, you get yourself to your feet and collect your groceries piece by annoying piece, salvaging what you can, muttering to yourself about why you should stick to takeaway as you coral oranges back into the torn plastic bag.

Before heading inside, you bend to straighten the stack of mail beside his door, patting it neatly into the frame so it no longer sprawls across the carpet.

However, the post continues to arrive.

And Jonathan Price continues not to.

As the days pass, the stack inevitably builds thicker. Something about weeks of untouched post just feels wrong. So, when pass his door on your way back from work, on an unconscious whim, you gather his post up and take it inside with you. And you continue to do so, piling it on the table in your entryway, every single day.

Except Sundays. There’s no post on Sundays. 

Six weeks pass in total before, one evening, the pipes in your shared wall suddenly gurgle to life.

You’re standing at your sink, hands submerged in sudsy dishwater when the rush of plumbing vibrates through the plaster with the unmistakable sound of his shower warming up.

You wait until the pipes quiet again before gathering the stack of envelopes and ads. It’s heavier than you expect when you lift it. Thick enough now that it takes both arms to hold it all securely against your chest.

Down the short corridor, you make your way to his door and knock once. The rap lands quieter than you meant it to, swallowed by the heavy wood almost instantly. You hesitate, second-guessing yourself until you lift your hand to try again when there’s a metallic click and the door opens just enough to shroud your neighbor in shadow. For a second, he’s only an imposing shape, but then the light catches him properly as he leans forward a bit.

He fills the frame without even trying. You have to tip your chin just to meet his eyes, this close he’s far broader than any glimpses you’ve caught in passing allowed you to register. He’s thick through the shoulders, forearms corded beneath the long sleeves of a worn grey tee that looks softened from years of washing. It clings where it stretches across his chest, molded to him in dampened patches like he pulled it on too soon after stepping out of the shower.

His jeans are loose everywhere except around his thighs, slung low enough that a strip of black elastic and milky skin catches your attention. Your gaze unintentionally trips over the trail of dark hair that whispers up and beneath his shirt.

You can feel your ears starting to warm before you flick back up to his face, meeting a set of ocean-deep irises ornamented by crinkling lines at the corners, tired purple crescents stamped underneath. His beard is grown out past neat — thick and slightly unruly along his jaw, salt and peppered throughout. 

Steam drifts out lazily from behind him, carrying the clean scent of soap into the corridor — it's mild, fresh, a little spice beneath it all.

His eyes settle on you with a subtle recognition, view slightly narrowed before, almost immediately, dropping to the stack of paper you’re gripping.

“Evenin’,” he says almost cautiously, voice roughened, like it hasn’t been used in a while. Or used too much, maybe.

You clear your throat.

“Hi,” you manage, “I’m next door.” You tilt your head toward your flat, never under the assumption that anyone remembers who you are.

His gaze lifts again, meeting yours. There’s a vague hint of amusement glinting in his eyes, it reaches the corner of his mouth, pulling up.

“I know,” he nods gently, almost encouragingly, like he’s urging you to continue with your spiel. 

You shift the weight of the envelopes and extend them toward him before you can overthink it.

“Right, erm… your post,” you swallow thickly, then proceed to ramble, “It kept piling up. For, like, a long time. And, anyway, I ended up slipping on a magazine a few weeks ago, and then I thought it might be better if someone kept it from takin’ over the hall until you were back.” You inhale through your nose, catching a breath before continuing despite yourself. “And now you’re back, so…”

His eyes widen before he reaches his arms out to takes the heap from you, the simple transfer of weight draws you a half-step closer to him. His fingers brush yours in the exchange — callouses scratching softly, warm. The contact is brief, but it’s also entirely impossible to unfeel.

“You slipped,” he repeats lowly, not accusatory, more like confirming he heard you properly.

“I’m fine,” you assure him quickly. “I just meant… like, it was a lot of post, is all,” your voice tapers off as your mouth starts to feel dry.  

“You’re not hurt?”

You shake your head, “No.”

“You’ve been takin’ it in,” his eyes scan the envelopes before lifting back to you, like he’s quietly calculating something. “All of it?”

“Yeah.” You hesitate, then add quickly, “I knocked once. But no one answered.”

“Yeah, I, uh, had t’work.”

“I didn’t open anything,” you continue, suddenly aware of how that all might’ve sounded. “Obviously.”

He smirks at that, his voice becoming something far smoother than it was when the door first opened. “I didn’t think you had.”

There’s a subtle warmth in his tone now. It does something curious to your pulse. You can feel it tap-tap-tapping just below your jaw.

He balances the pile in one large hand and steps back, widening the door.

Your gaze drifts past him inadvertently and into his flat. It’s uncluttered and tidy – not unlived-in exactly, but lacking the charm that makes a place feel claimed. The furniture is purely functional and dated, the walls bare, the floor impossibly clean, the hardwood shines like it was just buffed. 

“M’grateful for that,” he adds after a beat, head bowing enough to move into your line of vision and catch your eye, smirk still prevalent. 

“It was startin’ to look abandoned,” you babble before you can stop yourself.

“Abandoned,” he echoes, gaze sharpened.

“I just meant— it didn’t look like anyone was coming back.”

Something in his expression settles, one of his shoulders roll. 

“Oh, I always come back, love,” he croons just over a whisper and unhurried, like he knows something you don’t. 

Your cheeks warm and your head can’t decide between shaking and nodding, fingers twirling into the soft threads of your jumper.

“No, yeah, of course. I didn’t mean—”

“I’m John, by the way.”

He adjusts his weight again, shifting back under the shadow behind him. This interaction feels like it should be over already, you’re almost wishing it was, but you give him your name in return. He repeats it back slowly, like he’s testing the shape of it on his tongue. There’s something deliberate in the way he says it, like it’s being filed away somewhere permanent.

“Would y’like to come in?” he nods his head. “Least I can do is make you a cup’a tea.”

You hesitate, a pause small enough to miss if he wasn’t watching for it. He notices your hesitation without pushing it. There’s no persuasion from him, no charm turned up for effect. Just patience, like he already figures you will. 

Your eyes flick from his, past him, and back again. You step inside before you even understand why, just, caution to the wind. Survival instincts at an all time low. But there’s something about him that draws you there. 

His flat smells clean – shower steam still clinging to the air, layered over something warmer. Smoke, maybe. Something musky and grounded that feels likely distinctly his. The door clicks shut behind you.

The place is spare. A brown leather sofa floats in the center of the room, the cushions perfectly aligned as though they’re reset after every use. A low coffee table in front of it holds nothing but a neatly stacked set of coasters and a remote placed dead center.

To the side of the TV, a tall wooden bookcase stands in the corner, books neatly arranged, spines perfectly even, each shelf organized by size. There are no pictures on the walls, no decorative clutter on the tables or mantel. It’s as if you’ve stepped into a hotel, but even they put artwork up. 

John moves toward the kitchen with an ease that wasn’t there in the hallway, shoulders a little looser. You follow, watching him push the rescued post neatly into the corner of the counter — probably the messiest part of his flat now. 

The kitchen is very similar to yours, appliances a little more dated, but just as compact. A short galley space with a small honey oak table at the end beneath the window.

“I meant to put a hold on it,” he says, glancing down at the envelopes. “But I left on such short notice...”

“You travel a lot?” you ask, leaning against the doorway, hands coming together in front of you, fingernails scratching at your palm anxiously. 

He’s already filling the kettle at the sink, water rushing loud for a moment before he shuts it off.

“More than I’d like,” he admits. 

“For work?”

“Yeah.”

The burner on the stove blooms blue beneath the kettle with a soft tick-tick.

“You don’t exactly look like someone who works from a laptop.”

That earns you the faintest chuckle before he fully turns around, resting his hip against the pristine white countertop. 

“No?”

“No.” You shake your head. “You’re gone for long stretches.”

His eyes travel your form, a single brow perking with an interest.

“You keepin’ tabs on me, then?” he asks curiously.

You shrug at that, allowing a small smile to spread.

“Hard not to when you’re the only other person on this floor.”

He offers a short hum then reaches into the cupboard, his shirt riding up with him, you get a peek of his toned tummy as he pulls two mugs down. The ceramic clinks.

“And what d’you do when you’re not monitorin’ me?” He looks at you again just as the kettle begins a low, building thrum. 

Your head tilts involuntarily. “I work normal hours and take it home with me. Watch shit TV and order too much takeaway.”

He tsks before he asks, “Don’t cook?” An edge to his tone that’s not quite judgmental and not quite disappointment, but somewhere in the middle.

“I can,” you defend. “I just don’t always see the point.”

The kettle clicks off and he pours the water slowly over the tea bags, steam rising in soft spirals. “There’s always a point,” he says.

“Do you cook?” you ask after a beat. 

“When I’m home.”

“Which isn’t often,” you add. 

He sets the kettle aside and finally meets your eyes again. “Not often enough,” he agrees, his features softening.

“And when you are?” 

He leans back against the counter again. “When I get home? First few nights are rough. Might get pizza,” he admits casually. 

“Jet lag?” 

The corner of his mouth twitches faintly. “Somethin’ like that.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Not well,” he shrugs. “Cup’a strong tea helps.”

“Tea?” you quirk a brow. 

“Yeah, it’s almost the only thing that settles me.”

You step further into the kitchen without thinking, drawn in more by his incredibly vague answers. “Settles you from what?”

He bites the corner of his cheek, like he’s assessing how much you’re actually asking for, or maybe how much he’s willing to divulge — which doesn’t seem like much at the moment.

“Lack of noise,” he answers at last, nudging one of his chairs out with his foot, wood stuttering over tile. He gestures to it and you move to sit without question.

He brings your mug, leaning over your shoulder with a large hand placing it right in front of you, you notice a few partially healed scrapes across his knuckles.

“Sorry, don’t have any milk yet. Just got back.” 

“S’alright,” you reply quietly, wrapping your fingers around the ceramic. It’s nearly too hot to hold, but you welcome the burn; the tingle that blooms its way into the soft of your palm.

John doesn’t sit. Instead, he stays leant against the counter across from you, mug resting in hand, watching you take your first cautious sip.

There’s something steady in the way he looks at you. You only came over to deliver his post. You’re still not sure how it turned into this.

“You live alone?” he asks suddenly. 

You pause mid-sip and peer at him over the rim of your mug, lips pursing. “And what exactly do you plan on doin’ with that information, John?”

His eyes widen just slightly before the tips of his ears grow pink 

He exhales through his nose amusedly. “Poor choice’a words,” he concedes, scratching at his beard. “Mind’s still in work-mode.”

“You interrogate people for a living?” you tease, unknowingly.

That has him choking around his tea, forcing down a cough that has him hiding behind the mug as he gathers himself. 

An unbridled laugh slips free before you can stop it, and something in his posture relaxes at the sound.

“Sorry, you okay?”

“Mm,” he nods far more than he needs to. 

“Well,” you turn back to your tea, “I do live alone. But I know how to use a knife, so don't be weird about it.”

He absorbs that quietly, tongue pressing briefly to his cheek, a thoughtful hum low in his throat.

“Right.”

You narrow your eyes and huff. “That’s all I get? Just ‘right’?”

He sets his mug down, gaze lingering on you longer than necessary. “Place next door’s quiet,” he says slowly. “Jus’ wasn’t sure if you had someone in there I hadn’t clocked.”

“But you’ve clocked my noise levels?” you press, unable to help it.

“Shared wall,” he reminds you.

“And?”

“And,” he says, eyes steady on yours now, “it’s good to know who’s on the other side.”

And after that, the conversation slips into something easier. You learn small, unremarkable things about each other, the kind that don’t really feel important at the time. Like how he prefers mornings to nights. That you can’t even make toast without burning it. That neither of you necessarily trust the boiler in the winter time. It’s nothing intimate, not really. But the way he listens makes it feel like everything you tell him is a secret he’s learning, like each answer matters.

Time warps in his kitchen without either of you noticing. The tea cools in both of your mugs before it’s finished, warmth from the kettle fizzles out, and the distance between question and answer shortens. The conversation stretches easily until you glance toward the door and you’re reminded that this isn’t your flat. 

“Well,” you say softly, “I should really let you finish settling in.”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Just watches you stand and carry your mug to his sink.

“I’ve interrupted long enough,” you add with a polite smile.

“Hardly,” he breathes, pushing off the edge, leaving his own mug on the counter in his wake.

He moves to the door with you, pulling it open and leaning against the frame, hand resting loosely on the knob.

You stop halfway into the corridor and turn back toward him. 

“Try to get some sleep,” you tell him gently. 

Something shifts behind his eyes, like he wasn’t expecting you to remember anything he’d said to you. But his silence after that makes you feel like you’ve misremembered things.

“You said it’s harder when you first get back, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he admits, before averting his gaze to the floor. 

“Well, good night.”

“G’night.”

You don’t look back as you step into your flat, but you don’t hear his door close until yours opens. And even then, it takes a second longer than it should.

—————

John can’t sleep.

He didn’t sleep the night before either, despite how heavy his lids were. He laid there on his back, staring up at the slow rotation of his ceiling fan, listening to the quiet eerily settle around him. He thought of you more than he likely should have — the way your skin seemed to glow under his gaze, how your smile pulled the apple of your cheeks up and round, how soft your fingers felt when they brushed his.

Your perfume, too. Fruity, light. How traces of it lingered in his kitchen for so long after you left he couldn’t tell if he was imagining it, if it was something his brain cooked up to fill the silence in your wake.

John really wants to sleep tonight.

But on the other side of that godforsaken wall comes a sharp clatter followed by muffled swearing. Then something else hits the floor with enough force that he sits up before he’s even aware he’s moving. If he closed his eyes he might even believe he’s back on base at this point – and that certainly does nothing to calm his mind.

Another thud. Louder this time.

It’s enough to make him swing his legs over and push himself out of bed. Hurriedly, he steps into the jeans he left folded neatly on an armchair in his bedroom. Boots on but untied, he heads out and down the hall. The sounds grow louder the closer he gets to your door, and though two decades of training have taught him to assess chaos with haste, he can’t quite decipher what he’s hearing.

He knocks once, and the door creeps open a fraction on its own. He frowns instantly, jaw tightening – you’ve left it, not only unlocked, but completely unlatched.

You appear seconds later, rushing forward to pull it open the rest of the way. Your hair is wet, plastered to your temples, chest rising and falling too fast. There’s panic humming under your skin, but John barely registers your appearance at all. His eyes are still on the door a moment longer before they meet yours, and even then, he’s really just thinking about how it was unlocked. 

“You’ve a habit of leavin’ that unsecured?” he asks, voice edged in a tone that’s harsher than he really means.

You blink at him, dazed. “Huh?”

“That latch isn’t decorative, duck.” He nods toward the deadbolt. “I could’ve walked straight in.”

A beat passes where you just stare at him, wheels turning and trying to catch up.

Then, he blinks a few times himself, and he finally sees you. Taking in your appearance, remembering why he’s here in the first place, his spine stiffens.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

“I—uh, the— the sink—” you stammer, eyes squeezing shut briefly before you step back and sweep an arm vaguely toward the disaster behind you.

He shifts his gaze past you and to the kitchen faucet spraying in erratic bursts. Water ricochets off the basin and across the counter, a pot teeters on the sink’s edge, your cabinets are streaked dark where it’s soaked into the wood. The floor has its own shallow tide.

John steps forward without a word, you move aside instinctively. The space narrows as he passes, his arm brushing your chest.

He reaches the counter in, what seems like, two strides, boots squelching across the tile. One large hand clamps around the base of the faucet while the other tests the handle. It jerks violently in response, spraying harder, drenching the front of his white tee shirt.

“Christ,” he mutters.

He bends, reaching beneath the sink cabinet, keeping one hand steady on the fixture to redirect the spray. Water splashes down his forearm, soaks into his denim and leaks into his boots. His cheek presses briefly against the counter edge as he feels blindly for the valve underneath.

Behind him, you start to hover — unsure, a little guilty. He can feel you there. Aware of the way you shift your weight, the tension in your breath. Of the way you’re watching him. Of the fact that your door was unlocked when you were alone. How anyone could have walked in. That thought lodges somewhere unpleasant in his chest.

But there are more immediate and pressing matters at hand, so he files it away for later.

“Did this just start?” he asks, voice echoing faintly in the cupboard.

“Yes. It just— it wouldn’t turn off properly and then it—”

His fingers find the valve and he twists harder, effectively closing off the flow. The spray sputters, the pipes groan and then it all just… stops.

The silence that follows is almost disorienting, going from overstimulation to nothing but a slow drip of water and some breathing.

“Oh my god,” you huff, letting out a shaky exhale. “Thank you— seriously— I… I don't know what I would've done.”

John straightens slowly, bracing his hands against the edge of the sink to center himself. He looks down at his saturated clothes, the faint ripple in the water around his boot as he shifts.

“Drown,” he replies evenly, “by the looks of it.”

You grin, a soft laugh slipping out despite yourself. If you weren’t so exhausted, you probably would’ve snorted. “I was handling it just fine before you showed up, actually.”

His shoulders rise as he slowly inhales. “I’m sure you were,” he answers mildly.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

He glances down at the shallow tide circling his boot, then at the cabinet door hanging slightly crooked from where you must’ve wrenched it open in a panic.

“I’m reservin’ judgement.”

“On account of what?”

He tips his chin toward the floor, shifts his boot as if to prove his point. “On account’ve the evidence.”

You follow his line of vision and heat creeps into your cheeks.

“Okay, so it escalated,” you concede.

A short laugh slips from him before he reins it in.

“So I see,” he replies, this time there’s no hiding the amusement.

You move behind him, water splashing underfoot. “You didn’t have to come over, you know,” you say – saccharine sweetly, John thinks.

“I don’t know. The noise suggested otherwise.”

You cringe. “Was it that loud?”

“I only knocked because it sounded urgent,” tone less teasing now.

“You could’ve ignored it,” you nearly sing-song, the corner of your mouth twitching with the threat of a grin. He could have stayed in his flat, but he didn’t. 

He looks half over his shoulder again.

“Is that what you would’ve preferred?”

“No.”

“Right then,” he murmurs, nodding once. 

You go to take a step forward at the same time he pushes off the counter, reaching for a towel just as he turns toward you, and there isn’t enough space in the kitchen for both of you to correct in time. Your palms land flat against his chest with a wet slap before you can stop yourself.

His shirt is soaked through, the cotton warm and heavy beneath your hands, bonded to the breadth of him in a way that makes it impossible not to feel the shape of what’s underneath; muscle that doesn’t need to flex to be felt. Your palms flatten, pressing, fingers splaying unabashedly as if to test the reality of him. You can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing under your touch, the heat of him, his solidness, close enough that if either of you leaned even slightly forward there would be no space left between you at all. The thought is tempting.

And John doesn’t mean to look at you the way he is. It isn’t deliberate. But your black tee is no better off than his, soaked through, cotton clinging to the soft curves of your body, outlining you in a way that requires very little of his imagination. The lights catch the damp fabric and he’s tracing swells and valleys he has no business tracing. 

He has to force his eyes upward only for it to snag on a single droplet of water slowly rolling down the column of your neck, it travels over your clavicle and disappears beneath the stretched edge of your collar.

You pull your hands away from his chest once you notice the moment tipping. 

“Sorry,” you exhale, and it breaks the spell.

He steps to the side a full step, creating space deliberately, dragging his gaze upward successfully this time.

“You, erm… you keep a mop?” he asks, voice cracking and a little rough, heel of his hand rubbing his bearded jaw. “Towels, maybe?”

You blink at him once, twice, like your brain needs a second to rejoin your body.

“Yeah,” you manage. “I do.”

You step around him this time with more caution than before, suddenly aware of how narrow your kitchen truly is, how little room there is for any more miscalculations.

“In the hall closet,” you mutter, disappearing around the corner, leaving him alone in the quiet of the kitchen.

The room somehow feels smaller than it did before – not because of the water or the mess, but because something in the air has shifted and neither of you have decided what to do with it yet. John exhales slowly, dragging a hand down over his face as if he can physically wipe the moment away. 

From the hallway comes the muted thud of a closet door, followed by something scraping against drywall and the soft rustle of movement.

“You alright back there?” he calls, voice steadier now, back in control of itself.

“Fine,” you answer, slightly breathless. “Found it.”

When you reappear, you’re clutching a mop in one hand with an armful of towels gathered haphazardly against your chest. You look determined in an endearing sort of way that makes something in his chest yawn. He clears his throat quickly before the feeling can settle into something more dangerous.

“Alright,” he says, stepping toward you and relieving you of the mop before you can protest. “Let’s get this sorted before your floor decides to buckle.”

You look up at him, face scrunching, reaching back out for the handle. “Oh, you don’t have–”

He pulls it out of your reach and sighs. “Humor me.”

He works methodically, soaking up what he can while you kneel beside him and press towels into the worst of the puddles, the fibers darkening beneath your hands. The air smells faintly metallic now, musty from dirty water.

The only sounds for a while are the soft scrape of the mop, the quiet rustle of fabric, the steady rhythm of shared movement in a space that feels too small.

John wrings the mop out over the sink, forearms flexing as he twists the handle and squeezes out the excess water. You have to remind yourself not to gawk at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back, shoulder blades rolling as he moves.

When most of the water has been cleaned up, he crouches to inspect the pipes beneath the sink again. One knee rests against the tile, sleeves pushed higher now, brow drawn together in concentration as he checks the valve with deft hands.

“Cartridge in the tap’s gone,” he mutters, tightening the valve again. “Handle can’t shut the water properly anymore. Maintenance’ll replace it in five minutes.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to tell them,” you sigh, wiping your temple with the back of your wrist and leaving a faint streak of wet there.

He turns to you, blue eyes softening almost imperceptibly. “Just tell ‘em it won’t shut off fully. They’ll know what that means.”

You nod, committing the issue to memory as if it’s more complicated than it is.

He rises and reaches past you to push the window open a few inches, letting a swirl of cool night air slip into the room. It curls around your ankles and lifts the damp edges of your shirt, carrying the scent of wet pavement and the distant hum of traffic.

“Keep it open till it’s dry in here,” he says, brushing his hands together lightly as if to rid them of the last of the mess.

He heads toward the door, and you follow. On the other side of the threshold, he pauses. He peers over your shoulder – to the sink, the cabinet, the open window, the floor – checking each detail like he’s committing it to some internal list. Only after that does he land on you, but he quickly skips to your door, to the deadbolt you hadn’t turned earlier.

He tips his chin toward it. “Lock it properly behind me.”

You follow his gaze, fingers already reaching for the lock. “I will,” you say, trying and failing to keep the smile from pulling at the edges of your lips. “Thanks again. I don’t even know what to say,” you breathe a nervous laugh. 

“Don’t have to say anything,” he shakes his head. “Just… don’t touch it until maintenance comes, yeah?”

“I promise you that I won’t,” you giggle quietly. 

“Good,” he takes a small step backward, eyes lingering for a beat. 

“Night, John,” you murmur. 

“Night.”

You close the door, sliding your latch into place as promised. And on the other side, he waits just long enough to hear it catch.

————————

Two days after the flood, you’re stepping out of your flat, tote bag sliding off your shoulder, phone unlocked in your hand, half-reading an email you should have responded to last night, when your hear the creek of John’s door opening at the same time, stealing your attention.

He’s standing there with his keys still in the lock, coat on but open. There’s a faint flush in his cheeks likely from being outside, a takeaway coffee balanced loosely in his free hand.

There’s a split second where you both recalibrate. He blinks a few times as you walk in his direction, taking his keys out and slipping them into his coat pocket, foot planted to hold his door from shutting. 

“You alright?” he asks, tone casual, like nothing unusual has ever happened between you.

“Yeah,” you reply, equally steady. “Are you?”

He nods once. “You get your sink sorted?” he asks as you drift toward the staircase. 

“Oh, yeah. Landlord sent someone ‘round yesterday.”

“Any good?”

You huff a faint laugh. “Very enthusiastic about pipes. Less enthusiastic about fixing them.”

He scowls slightly. “They fix it?”

“Yes,” you say. “Apparently I ‘over-rotated the cartridge.’ Which sounds a lot like something you say to avoid admitting it was old.”

“It means you forced it.”

“I did not force it,” your jaw falls open slightly in offence. 

“You forced it,” he repeats dryly. 

“It was an old tap!” you insist.

He studies you for a second, eyes glinting with an admiration for the way you stand your ground over something so inconsequential. 

You reach the the stairwell landing, passing by him closely as you take the first step down, hand on the banister, turning sideways to keep him in your sights. 

“You call straight away?” he asks casually enough that it should feel that way, but there’s something in his tone that’s almost challenging. “Or did you try fixin’ it again yourself?”

“I called straight away.”

“Good girl,” he replies absently, the words folded so naturally into the rhythm of the conversation that they almost disappear. Almost.

Your breath hitches quietly, every nerve inside of your body coming alight with a current that zips up your spine, tingling the base of your neck before spreading through your jaw until every bit of flesh above your neck begins to glow. Your belly tightens with a molten fever that begins to reach places far lower than it should.

He’s not even looking at you, he just adjusts the lid on his coffee like he hasn’t altered the chemical composition of the air between you.

“Off to work?” he continues mildly, eyes flicking to yours.

You clear your throat, steadying your voice before you answer.

“Y-yeah.”

“Right,” he says, as if concluding the world’s most ordinary exchange. “Have a good one.”

You nod once, adjusting the strap of your bag higher on your shoulder, mouth running dry.

“Yeah, you too,” you manage as he pushes his door open and steps inside. 

He glances once more from the doorway, offering a tight line of a smile before the door closes and separates you.

——————

The sun’s an orange yolk dropped into the cradle of a purpling sky. You’re halfway home from the office when you notice the liquor store’s neon sign buzzing red against the early dark.  You slow on the sidewalk, hands tucked into your coat pockets, breath fogging in front of you.

There’s no obligation, of course. He saved you from your untamed sink because that’s just the kinda guy he is. But the memory of it, of him, has lingered with you for days now, slipping in uninvitedly while on calls with clients, during meetings with your boss, fingers flexing unconsciously against your thighs as you remember the solidness of his chest beneath them that night.

The distraction was at its worst today, with John’s ‘good girl’ chanting like a feverish prayer that only the devil themself could’ve conjured and stitched into the back of your skull – his voice, the bass of it, reverberated between your ears for so long you found yourself wishing the vibration would travel lower.

He looks like a whiskey man, you decide.

Inside the store, the air smells like cut cardboard and oak, a little dusty. You wander longer than you should, reading labels you can’t pronounce, lifting one bottle after another, circling the aisle with the indecision of someone pretending to know what she’s doing. Your shoes stick faintly against the hardwood as you pace.

The clerk notices your hesitation eventually.

“Need a hand?” he asks.

“I’m just looking for something… smooth,” you decide, though it comes out more like a question than an answer.

He nods as if he’s heard that a thousand times before and points you toward three options just in front of you. You choose the one priced in the middle, not too expensive, but enough to be considered a gift, you think. You carry it to the counter with an anxious flutter beneath your ribs.

The building’s stairs feel longer tonight. Each step echoes louder than the last, paper bag crinkling in your grip with every movement. By the time you reach your floor, your pulse has climbed into your throat. You pass his, going to your own door first, stepping inside just long enough to set your purse down on the table and search deep into the pit of your gut to find some bravery. 

You could leave it at his door with a note, you consider.

But you won’t, because that’s not really what you want to do, is it?

The hallway between your flats feels like it begins to narrow with you in it, the overhead light flickering ominously as it always does. His door is only a few steps away, and yet the walk toward it feels more like a trek.

John hears your door before he hears the knock.

The old building carries sound in that way old buildings do. Your door opening and closing is a sound he’s come to recognize now. The soft chime of your keys too, because everyone’s keyring sounds different, the jingle is unique, yours are no exception.

So when the knocks come a few seconds later, he already knows it’s you. 

He stands at his kitchen counter, rag still in hand, his heartbeat behaving in a way it hasn’t outside of work in a number of years. He doesn’t know how, in less than a week, he’s gone from not knowing your name to timing his morning coffee run with when you leave for work just to get a glimpse of you, to catch the scent of your perfume in the stairwell.

By the time he reaches the door, he’s aware of the way his shoulders square on their own, the way his hand smooths over his beard, the way his fingers rake through his hair before he turns the handle.

And when he finally opens the door, you’re right there. It takes him half a second too long to draw in a full breath. 

Your work coat is still on and hanging open at the collar, the fleece folding over just enough to reveal that hollow at the base of your throat that he just can’t keep himself from finding every time you’re in front of him. Your cheeks are glowing from the stairwell, clothes still carrying the cold, hair slightly mussed from the wind, perhaps.

“Hey,” he breathes, voice getting caught in the folds of his chords enough to crack on its way up. 

You lift the brown bag in response, that crooked little smile he’s starting to recognize appears like you can’t quite decide whether to commit to it or not.

“A thank you,” you present it to him, the base of it resting in your hand precariously.

His eyes land on the bag and then return to your face.

“Should I be concerned?” he asks with a teasing lilt.

You step closer to the door, holding it out for him to take.

“It’s just whiskey, John,” you giggle and instantly wish you could take back the hyenic sound that leaves you.

He takes it from you and peers into its depths, letting out a low appreciative whistle.

“That’s… very generous.”

“I didn’t know what you liked,” you admit, aware of how exposed this feels, almost embarrassing now with how slick your neck is beginning to feel. “The man at the store said this one was smooth. I figured that was safe.”

He studies you for a moment in a way that warms your skin even more beneath your coat. Like he’s weighing your intention behind the gesture.

“Be a shame,” he starts, moving to the side of the doorway, “to let it sit unopened.”

“You invitin’ me in?” you ask, aiming for lightness and landing somewhere breathless instead. 

This was the idea, wasn’t it? That he would invite you in? So why do you want to run back down the hall now?

“I am,” he nods. “If you’d like.”

He opens the door wider, and when you step past him the air changes in that way it always does when you cross into someone else’s space. Not just in temperature, but in atmosphere and energy – the smells change, the lights change, the sounds change.

He puts the whiskey down on his entry table, holding his hand out while he asks for your coat. You shrug out of it so he can hang it on the hook beside the door. 

You quickly notice, however, it doesn’t smell like soap tonight.

It smells like food.

Butter and garlic and something a little smoky, like an iron pan that got a little too hot on the burner. There’s rosemary in there somewhere, you think. It makes your stomach rumble a little, suddenly aware that you left work on a granola bar and a few cups of lukewarm coffee.

“Oh…” you murmur before you can stop yourself, gaze drifting into the kitchen. “Were you eating?”

“Was about to. Just finished cookin’.”

You look closer this time, there’s a plate on the counter with a steak resting in its own juices, some mash beside it still holding the groove of the spoon, green beans piled neatly on the side.

It looks good, but you instantly feel guilty.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, taking a small step backward toward the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can come back.”

He exhales a faint huff of amusement from behind as he slips around you, his hand brushing along the small of your back as he passes toward the kitchen. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”

“I did,” you insist, following behind him now like you're being pulled. “You were literally about to eat.”

“And you were ‘literally’ about to go home and order takeaway,” he counters mockingly without even looking.

You stop short in the threshold, a hand finding rest on your hip. “Excuse me?” you scoff.

At the counter, he looks over his shoulder, one brow lifting. “Let’s not pretend.”

He’s still faintly smiling as he reaches for a knife.

“I wasn’t,” you lie, though even to your own ears it sounds a bit defensive. You were definitely planning on ordering palak paneer for the third night in a row.

“S’that why I see Indian outside your door every night? I thought it might be becomin’ part of the decor…”

Your mouth falls open despite the grin yanking at your edges. “First of all, that’s, like, borderline stalking.”

“Shared hallway,” he replies entirely unapologetic.

“Second of all,” you continue, undeterred, “sometimes it’s Italian.”

He hums thoughtfully. “Right. A woman of culture then.”

He slices into the steak with an adept sort of ease, cutting it into even strips before he reaches into the cupboard to bring down a second plate. It takes a moment before what he’s doing dawns on you.

“John,” you step further into the kitchen, hand reaching out before pulling it back. “You don’t have to feed me.”

“I know,” he says, back still turned. “But I reckon you’re hungry…. So, have a seat.”

He transfers a few pieces of steak to the second plate, adds another spoonful of mash without asking whether you want it, then nudges a few green beans alongside it.

“I didn’t come to eat your dinner,” you continue your weak protest. 

He doesn’t wait for you to say anything else, he just slides the plate along the laminate countertop towards you and then tips his head to the small table by the window.

“Sit,” he says, not too firmly, just with an expectation that you will.

And you do, which is something you’ll have to dissect later.

You hesitate half a second before taking the plate and floating toward the chair. You lower yourself into it, perched on edge stiffly, feeling a little unsure of yourself despite having sat here before. 

You can feel John notice your tentativeness, a quick sideglance from him as he finishes up pricks at the hairs on your arms.

“Sit comfortably,” he corrects pointedly, as though amending the first instruction. His voice is low and even, commanding even when he isn’t trying to be.

Heat creeps up your spine, but you reposition anyway, scooting back until your shoulders touch the wooden stiles, tucking one leg beneath the other. Only then does he set a fork and knife beside your plate, fingers brushing yours in the exchange. He places a glass of water in front of you too, condensation pooling around the base of it almost instantly, leaving a ring that distorts the grains in the honeyed wood. 

He grabs his own plate and sits across from you.

The table isn’t very large, you become acutely aware of that very quickly. Beneath it, his knees hover close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from them. If you extended your leg any further, it would press against his without any effort.

“There,” he murmurs, voice quieter now, eyes lifting to yours across the small space. “Eat somethin’ proper for the first time this week, will ya.”

You take a bite mostly to busy your hands. The mash is still warm, butter melted into salty pockets. The steak all but melts between your teeth, tender in a way you’ve never managed to get it yourself, seasoned simply and perfectly and with the confidence of someone who has never once second-guessed himself over a pan.

“This is so good, John,” you say, before you’ve even fully swallowed. “Like — really good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You nod, watching one brow lift. “And not ‘I’m being polite’ good. Actually good.”

“Mm. High praise from such a cultured young duck,” he replies, dry as anything.

“I don’t just hand it out willy-nilly,” you say primly, the tips of your ears tingling.

That draws a soft breath of laughter from him. “No, of course not,” he agrees. “You don’t strike me as the type.”

“And what type is that?” you ask before you can stop yourself. 

“Stubborn,” he answers, a little too easily, eyes steady on yours.

You tilt your head. “Think you’ve got me all figured out then?”

“It’s kind of my specialty,” he says. “Believe it or not.”

“Is it?” you press. The fork turns between your fingers in thought, like you might actually learn something deeper about him right now. “And what else have you figured out?”

He considers you for a moment. “That you ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m curious,” you say. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“Yes.” You lean forward slightly, elbows finding the table. “Asking questions means I’m interested. Asking a lot of questions means I’m very interested.”

Something shifts in his expression at that, a subtle recalibration, like he hadn’t expected you to say it so plainly. His eyes hold yours for a beat before he glances down at his plate, the corner of his mouth doing something restrained and infuriating.

“Careful,” he says, low and easy.

“Maybe I don’t see what there is to be careful about.”

He looks at you again then, and there’s something in his eyes that is slightly too warm to be neutral.

“No,” he says, almost to himself. “I don’t suppose you do.”

You hold his gaze, refusing to be the first one to look away, even as the back of your neck starts to prickle pleasantly. Eventually, he picks up his fork again, and you take it as a small victory.

“So,” you say, after a moment, tilting your head like the thought has only just occurred to you. “How long have you been holding out on me like this?”

He glances up. “Holdin’ out? On you?”

“Yeah.” You gesture lightly at your plate. “I’ve been living next door to this for how long, exactly?”

“Fourteen months,” he answers, immediately and without blinking, like the number was already sitting on the tip of his tongue.

Taken aback, your hand goes slightly clammy around your cutlery. Less than a week ago you were fairly certain he barely registered your existence.

A faint exhale of amusement leaves him at your silence, eyes dropping briefly to his plate. “Didn’t realize I was under an obligation to feed you.”

“I think, legally, you are now,” you counter, recovering.

He studies you over the rim of his glass as he takes a sip of water, eyes narrowing slowly. “Are you always this demanding?”

“When properly motivated.”

He nods once, like he’s filing that away somewhere. 

“You like to cook?” you ask then, watching him.

“I do.”

Frustrated, you drop your fork and knife down with a little more force than intended, the sound of it clattering, ringing out in the small kitchen. His head snaps up at you.

“That’s so vague,” you whine almost indignantly. “Why are you always so vague?”

John sits back slowly now, arms crossing over his chest, fingers tucking beneath his beefy biceps, pushing them out to strain against the sleeves of his shirt. His head tilts, forehead creasing with many lines. “I’ve answered every question you’ve asked me,” he says, tongue licking over his canine behind closed lips. 

“You’ve responded to every question,” you correct. “It’s not the same thing.”

Something twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“Men and their refusal to elaborate,” you mutter, rolling your eyes before landing back on your dinner.

“I’d argue it’s more like ‘women and their refusal to be satisfied’,” he returns mildly.

“How can I possibly be satisfied, you give me nothing to work with!” You can feel yourself getting animated now, leaning forward again, and beneath the table your knee presses into his without you even noticing.

He notices, though. And he makes no move to change it. 

“Every time I ask you something real you just— you do this thing where you answer juuust enough to qualify and then you stop. And I can see you stopping, John, I can physically see it!”

That gets you a real laugh, fuller than you’ve heard from hin before, it’s gravel-deep and a little raspy, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening as his teeth show just long enough to catch. It dissolves the tension so suddenly you almost feel cheated out of it.

“Alright, alright,” he placates, reining himself back in, still smiling faintly. “What d’you want to know?”

You blink at him, recalibrating your attitude. “Oh, now you want to cooperate.”

“Ask your question before I change my mind.”

You study him for a second, aware that this is a small window of opportunity that may not open again given his track record.

“Okay,” you say carefully. “What do you actually do? Not ‘I work,’ not ‘I travel’.  What do you do?”

He exhales slowly through his nose, his smile fading into something more straight lined. His thumb traces an idle line across the back of his knuckle, back and forth across those healing scrapes.

“Special forces,” he admits. “That’s— that’s about as much as I can give you.”

The answer gives your pause. You’re not particularly surprised by it, somewhere in your gut you already knew. So you absorb the information quietly. It reframes him in a way, things you’ve already half-noticed about him like his posture and his stillness, the way he speaks, the way he gives these subtle orders that you never know how to read.

“Okay,” you settle on simply, his answer still swimming around in your head like disconnected puzzle pieces slowly attaching to one another. 

He looks at you like he expected more. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you repeat, shoulders shrugging smally. “Thank you for telling me.”

Something in him settles before he picks up his fork again, and for a moment you eat in a comfortable quiet, only the soft scrape of cutlery filling the room.

“Does that bother you?” he asks eventually, without looking up.

“No,” you answer honestly. “Should it?”

“Some people find it… complicated.”

“I imagine the right people don’t.”

He looks at you then, eyes shifting from his plate cautiously, something unreadable flickering across his face before he glances away again.

Outside the window beside you, the sky has gone fully dark, the glass reflecting an image of the kitchen, the two of you small and warm inside of it.

“How old are you?” he asks suddenly, like he’s been holding the question back for a while. Your eyes snap over to him again.

“Twenty-six,” you tell him. “How old are you?”

A puff of air exhales slowly from between his lips. “Old enough to know better,” he murmurs to himself, which, again, is not an answer.

“Know better than what?”

He doesn’t reply to that either, just looks at you with that steady expression he has, the one that makes the back of your throat go dry and the tops of your thighs squeeze.

And it’s now, in the quiet of his kitchen, under the gaze of blue eyes, that you realize he is perfectly aware of  what he’s doing to you. And probably has been for longer than he’d even admit.

“You’re insufferable,” you inform him pleasantly.

“You’re not the first to think so,” he agrees, unbothered.

Afterwards, you insist on helping with the dishes despite his objections.

“You’re stubborn,” he says.

“You like it,” you push. 

John sighs like it pains him as he hands you a dish towel. 

There’s something about the domesticity of it that feels intimate. Standing hip to hip in the narrow galley, light above the sink draping you both in a golden curtain, him washing and you drying, neither of you talking very much but not minding the quiet either.

He passes you a glass and his shoulder brushes yours as he reaches past you to set a fork in the drying rack, neither of you move away afterward. The inch that used to be between your arms stays closed now, pressed to each other.

“D’you do this often?” he asks.

“Dry dishes in strange men’s kitchens?”

His mouth twitches. “Yes.”

“No,” you hum through a smile. “You’re the first.”

“First strange man or first time drying his dishes?” He reaches past you again.

“First time drying his dishes,” you chuckle. “Jury’s still out on the other one.”

He makes a sound that might be a laugh, low, suppressed, eyes crinkling as he keeps his gaze on the sink. 

When the last dish is done and the towel is damp in your fingers and the tap has gone off, the kitchen settles into a silence that buzzes with something unspent. John dries his hands and leans back against the counter, looking at you in an unhurried sort of way.

“C’mon,” he says, tilting his head toward the living room.

——————

He moves to the sideboard where the whiskey is waiting and you drift naturally toward his bookcase, drawn there by the same restless energy that’s been humming under your skin all evening. It’s something to do with your racing thoughts while he’s occupied with the bottle.

“Am I allowed to snoop,” you ask, fingers already trailing over the spines of his books, “or are there rules?” squinting at a title, tipping the text out of line to have a brief look at the cover. You look back at him. 

“There are always rules,” he replies, glancing up from the glasses in front of him.

“Naturally,” you murmur, and return to it.

It’s mostly as you remember from that first night in his flat — books arranged by size, spines perfectly even — but you look more carefully this time, now that you know more about the hands that arranged them. History, mostly. A few novels with cracked spines that suggest they’ve actually been read rather than kept for show. A dog-eared paperback in a language you don’t recognize, the cover worn soft at the corners.

There’s a small brass compass that sits at the end of one shelf. A scattering of foreign coins too, silver and copper that don’t match anything in your wallet, currencies from places you probably couldn’t even find on a map.

You lift one, turning it over in your palm. It’s smooth from handling, warm from the ambient heat of the room.

“You’ve got coins from everywhere,” you observe.

“Habit,” he says from behind you. You can hear the quiet glug of whiskey meeting glass.

“Of picking them up?”

“Of keeping them.”

You set it back carefully, exactly where it was. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, and then he pauses, thinks about it. “Reminds you where you’ve been,” he says. “When everywhere starts to look the same.”

You turn that over for a moment, looking at the small scattered collection with different eyes now.

“That’s either very philosophical or very sad,” you decide.

“I think it’s a bit of both, no?”

You glance over your shoulder at him. He’s watching you with an almost smile. He holds out a glass toward you and you cross the room to take it, your fingers closing around the cool curve of it, pressing over his fingers in the exchange.

“The books,” you say, nodding back toward the shelf. “Have you read all of them?”

“Most of them.”

“Which ones haven’t you?”

“The ones that were gifts,” he says, after a thoughtful pause.

You don’t push that one. Just let it sit between you as you both settle onto the sofa — you first, then him, and the distance he leaves is careful and deliberate and already smaller than it probably should be, honestly. 

“You’re very minimal,” you say, cradling the glass in both hands.

“You’ve mentioned,” he says before taking a tight-lipped sip. 

“I’m saying it again.” You tilt your head. “Does it ever feel lonely?”

Something moves across his face — not offense. More like the question landed somewhere real and he wasn’t quite expecting it to. “Sometimes,” he says, which is more than you expected him to give you.

“But you keep it this way anyway.”

“Easier when you’re never sure how long you’ll be back for.”

You look at him for a moment, this big, careful, frustratingly guarded man, and you feel the particular ache of understanding someone just enough to know how much you don’t.

“That’s a very lonely way to live, John,” you say not unkindly, just honestly.

His jaw shifts. “Maybe,” he concedes, and the word is low and a little rough at the edges.

You take your first cautious sip of whiskey. The burn blooms along your tongue and spreads slow and deep into your chest, and your eyes sting just slightly at the corners. A small cough escapes despite your best efforts to hold it back. 

He watches you over the edge of his own glass, amusement soft in the lines around his eyes. “It’ll settle,” he assures you gently. 

“That’s what everyone says right before it doesn’t,” you answer, though you take another sip anyway, slower this time, letting the heat spread rather than fighting it.

A low chuckle leaves him at that, and something about the sound in the dim room makes the space feel smaller, the careful distance between you on the sofa somehow already less than it was a moment ago. You’re not entirely sure which of you is responsible for that. 

Outside the window the city carries on in its distant, indifferent way — the low hum of traffic, the occasional sweep of headlights across the ceiling — and in here the lamp burns warm and the whiskey is settling into your chest exactly like he said it would and the space between your knee and his thigh has quietly, incrementally ceased to exist without either of you making a conscious decision about it.

You look at him to find he’s already looking at you. His eyes are very blue even in the dim light of the room. Ocean deep and sparkling with amber flecks from the lamp, carrying something unguarded for the first time, simmering on the surface. 

“You’re staring,” you say softly.

“Am I.”

It isn’t a question though, not the way he says it. His glass rests loose in his hand, and he makes no effort whatsoever to look away.

“You are,” you nod, the edge of your mouth quirking as you look back into your glass.

His thigh is solid and warm against your knee. And you can smell him this close. Dish soap and whiskey, something musky and spicey, something you’ve decided must belong distinctly to him.

Your pulse is conducting itself with an embarrassing lack of composure that you hope, without much conviction, isn’t visible.

He reaches up toward your face and, regrettably, you flinch gently. Certainly not because you want him to stop, you just weren’t expecting it. And John seems to register that, he pauses instantly when you do. His hand flexes slowly in the air beside you, palm opening unhurried and safe, like an apology before he continues his gingerly movement forward and tucks a strand of hair back from your face. His knuckles just barely graze the line of your jaw as his hand drops.

It was such a small thing, barely anything at all, and yet your whole body responds to it like a held breath finally releasing, like something that has been wound tight behind your ribs all evening just gave way.

“Still think I’ve got nothin’ to say for myself?” he murmurs.

All you can manage in a small shake of your head, your fingers twisting into the wrinkled fabric of your skirt. 

The corner of his mouth lifts. And then his eyes drop to your mouth and stay there. He doesn’t pretend otherwise, and you feel the intention of it like a change in pressure, like what the air does in those calm minutes before a storm. 

John moves slow enough that you see it coming and still aren’t ready. He leans inward just a fraction, almost imperceptible. It’s the kind of movement that could mean nothing, that could be dismissed totally if you were inclined to do so.

But there is nothing incidental about the way he’s looking at you, and nothing accidental about the way the distance between you continues to melt. He stops short, just close enough that all either of you would need is the smallest shift and there would be nothing left between you at all.

There he waits, close enough you can feel his breath, close enough to admire the freckle on his nose. He’s infuriatingly patient and unbearably still, like a man who has made his intentions very clear and is now perfectly content to let you decide what happens next. In the span of a single held breath, you learn he isn’t going to close the gap.

So you do.

Your mouth meets his and he kisses you carefully. Like he’s learning the shape of you. One large hand comes up to cradle the side of your face, his thumb resting at the curve of your jaw, and the touch is so steady that something in your chest just — gives. It comes loose like a knot that’s been tied tight all evening finally being pulled free, its tension unraveling all at once, its ribbon fluttering to floor with an exhale that he swallows. 

The whiskey is warm on his lips, a faint sweetness beneath the heat of him, and it mingles with the warmth already blossoming in your chest. 

You feel him reach, it’s followed by a soft clunk of his glass setting on the table. Then you feel his hand on yours, prying your cemented fingers from your own cup so that he can place it beside his. All the while his lips continue to capture yours, his beard scratching at your chin when he tilts to deepen it.

Your newly freed hand finds the front of his shirt. Fingers curling into the soft of it like you need something solid to hold onto while the world around you tilts ever so slightly off its axis.

He pulls back, and for one terrifying second you think it’s over, your eyes open, but he’s only paused, his thumb tracing a slow arc along your jaw. His eyes open to find yours and they are blown dark, grey and navy, pupils fighting for space with his irises.

“Alright?” he murmurs lowly, the word barely more than a vibration between you.

“Yes,” you breathe embarrassingly quick, which makes the corner of his mouth curve, and then he comes back to you and this time he’s a little less careful.

His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers curling at the nape of your heated neck, the kiss deepens by degrees, his tongue pushing through to sweep along yours like a tide coming in high.

Your fingers tighten more in his shirt, closing into a fist that twists the cotton tight across him. You can feel the heat of him through it, and it’s so much better than the memory from that night in your kitchen, so much realer, and something akin to lava in your belly responds to the realness of it in a way you feel all the way down to your thighs.

When his other hand finds your neck, the pad of his thumb traces the line of your jaw until he finds your pulse just below it, pressing into it until a soft squeak escapes your throat and he’s grinning against you. 

You push into him without thinking about it, closing whatever distance is left between your bodies, your free hand finding his jaw, scratching through the short coarse hair of his beard. He makes a low sound against your mouth that you feel at the back of your teeth, in the base of your throat, in places further south than either of those.

The hand at your neck slides slowly, tracing down over your collarbone, your shoulder, coming to rest at your waist, fingers pressing in through the fabric of your blouse with a firmness that makes your thighs press together. He pulls at you just enough to 

communicate something without saying it, and you follow.

Swinging one leg over him, your pencil skirt rides up over your thighs as you stretch across his wide lap, it bunches just under your hips, leaving a salacious bit of fabric between his zipper and the thin lace covering your center. 

You pull back just far enough to look at him, to catch your breath, lips swollen, chin chapped. His hair is slightly displaced, your doing. His mouth is bitten-red, also your doing. 

His hands are warm and heavy on your hips, fingers pressing into the fat of them.

“Hi,” you say softly, which is an absurd thing to say and you know it the moment it leaves your mouth.

Something like amusement crosses his features and he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair back from your face for the second time tonight.

“Hi,” he says back, voice rough with restraint.

But not too much because then his hands are sliding from your hips to the backs of your thighs, calloused palms grazing across your skin.

“Okay?” he asks, thumb tracing that slow arc against the inside of your knee.

“Very,” you manage.

The corner of his mouth pulls up and his hands begin, with absolutely no hurry whatsoever, to move.

He kisses you again, slower this time, deeper, no longer learning. His hands move from your thighs to your waist, sliding under your blouse, palms meeting hot skin.

You press into him greedily, hips shifting forward, chasing something instinctive, a feeling so insistent it makes you rock again, and then again, and you feel him — solid and unmistakable — beneath you, the heat of him coming through the denim. The breath that attempts to leave you hitches in your chest and sticks there. 

His hands tighten at your waist and you roll into it again, his jaw tightens and he exhales a groan into your mouth. 

The kissing gets away from both of you quicker than you can even keep up with it. His hand climbs your back, fingers spreading wide between your shoulder blades, pressing, pulling you closer until your chest is firmly to his and your back is arched like a bow.

Your fingers fist his hair and then his beard and the warm column of his neck, touching everything you can reach.

You pull back from his mouth, breathing unsteadily, your forehead tipping toward his.

“John,” you breathe, and it comes out lower than you intend.

“Mm,” he answers, his lips finding the hinge of your jaw, the soft patch just beneath your ear, and your eyes close.

“I want—” you start.

“I know what you want,” he whispers against your neck, and you can feel the curve of his mouth against your flesh as he says it.

Your fingers tighten in his hair. Your hips shift again, more pointed this time, and his breath comes out slow and controlled through his nose in a way that tells you it’s costing him his currency of composure.

“John.” More insistent now, your hand fitting between your bodies, fingers crawling to his belt, making yourself clear.

He pulls back to look at you, eyes steady, his hand catching your wrist gently before you get any further.

“Easy,” he says, low. His thumb strokes across your pulse point once before he pulls your hand aside.

“I want—”

“I know what you want,” he says again. “But, not tonight,” he finishes, tone on the edge of pleading.

You make a sound of frustration that dissolves as his hands slip to the backs of your thighs and up, kneading the flesh of your exposed backside.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he starts, very quietly, like he’s telling you a secret, his eyes holding yours with a steadiness that makes your stomach drop toward the floor. “You’re gonna stay right where you are.” His fingers trace the hemline of your underwear, just enough to make you very aware of where they are and where they are not. “And I’m gonna take care of you.” He takes a pause, eyes searching around your face. “Properly.”

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth and you nod. 

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoes softly. “Lean back, duck.”

He helps shift you back to give himself enough space to get a look at you, to soon fit his hand between your already spread thighs.

He doesn’t look anywhere else, only your face, as he gingerly slides his big hands the length of your thighs, his thumbs pressing into the meat inside on their way up until they hit the hot crease that meets your core. 

You look down at his hands, your own finding purchase on his wrists — he doesn’t seem to mind. He moves one to your hip, the other descends, the heel of his palm pressing against your lace. He takes his time, moving in excruciating circles, like he’s learning the shape of you through fabric first. You try very hard not to come apart immediately but it's a losing battle from the start given how long it’s been since anyone has touched you like this.

Your head falls back with a soft, helpless sound and your hips push into the pressure, chasing it, making your own friction. 

“There she is,” he murmurs, and you can hear the smile in it.

“John,” you whimper, hips rocking, asking for more without words.

He answers by hooking a finger into the hem of your underwear and pulling them aside. He traces through your folds at a pace that makes your thighs tremble. You can hear your slick separating around his digits, you try not to think about how embarrassing it is to be this wet.

“Look at me.”

And it’s hard. It’s hard to lift your head back up, to meet his wrecked gaze, but you do. You can feel the blood rushing around your cheeks, the whiskey bubbling under your skin. 

When he finally — finally — plunges one thick finger into the well of you, your whole body folds, your forehead dropping to his. Your hands move to his shoulders, finger nails digging half-moons through his shirt and into his skin. 

“Good?” he asks, low.

“Yes,” you manage, “yes, please—”

He works you open slowly, one finger and then, after he’s made you wait, two. And the stretch of it, the fullness of it slipping in beside his index, pulls a moan from you that bounces off every surface in the room.

He finds a rhythm that unravels you. He pushes deep, until each knuckle is nestled into your heat. He moves them, curls them, pumps them achingly slow until you are completely and utterly lost, rocking into his hand, face buried in his neck, panting. 

The tension builds inside of you like a spring, coiling tight and hot. Your breathing goes ragged and your grip tightens.

And then, when you’re already spinning, when there’s nothing left in you capable of forming a coherent thought about anything, he turns his head, his lips at your temple. 

“This is why you came ’round, yeah?” The words drop like molten silver into the shell of your ear. “This is what you wanted?”

You can’t answer him, and he knows that, so you just press closer, and let the last of it break over you in a long, consuming wave that starts somewhere deep and radiates outward until you feel it in your fingertips, your jaw, the backs of your knees, and up the length of your spine. Your walls pulse around him, and you can feel how damp it’s all left you in his hand. 

You stay where you are, forehead against his shoulder, your breathing coming back to you. His free hand moves in a slow idle path up and down your back.

You lift your head eventually and look at him.

There’s a warmth in his expression that’s more unguarded than anything you’ve seen from him all night, his careful composure worn down, and it does something to your chest that has nothing to do with what just happened and everything to do with who he is.

“That was—” you start.

“Yeah,” he agrees, before you’ve finished.

You laugh softly at that, and he almost does too, that almost-smile making an appearance.

Outside a car passes, headlights sweeping briefly across the ceiling before disappearing.

“I should go,” you say, which is true, but it’s also a little bit of a shame.

He doesn’t argue with you. He nods once, and the arm around your back loosens.

You clamber off of his lap with less grace than you’d like, your skirt fighting with you before it sits correctly again. You feel him watching you fix yourself with a composure that you find deeply unfair given that he’s largely responsible for the state you’re in.

“Not a word,” you warn, without looking at him

“I wasn’t gonna say anything,” he croons in a tone that suggests he absolutely was. He reaches for his long forgotten whiskey and takes the last of it down in one gulp. 

You smooth yourself out, retrieve your shoes from where they’ve ended up beside the coffee table, and carry them with you to the door. He stands, straightening his shirt, and you notice with some indignation that he looks entirely unruffled. Like the last hour happened to you very specifically and left him more or less untouched.

“Ready?” he asks.

You huff a small laugh, and find you’re unable to look him in the eye, your face turning to your bare feet on his rug.

“You don’t have to walk me,” you say. “It’s literally a hallway.”

“But I’m going to,” he says, and moves to the door anyway.

The corridor is dim, the floral runner threadbare underfoot. You count the paces between your doors. It’s nine. 

At your door you turn back to face him.

He’s standing just behind you, hands tucked into his front pockets. 

“Thanks for dinner,” you say.

“Thanks for the whiskey,” he returns.

“Yeah, that— It was good.”

“It was,” he agrees, and you both know neither of you are talking solely about the whiskey.

“Night, John,” you say softly.

“Night, duck.”

You turn and let yourself in, the door swings shut behind you, and you stand in the dim of your own flat for a moment just… breathing. Just letting this electric air calm around you.

Your coat is still on his hook. You’ll get it tomorrow.

On the other side of your door, John doesn’t move immediately. He stands where he is and waits. Waiting for the click of your deadbolt to slide home.

But it doesn’t come.

He even waits another moment, just in case, gives you the benefit of the doubt, which he notes is more than past events warrant.

He exhales slowly through his nose, tips his head back briefly toward the ceiling, and turns back around.

Three steps, his hand finds your door handle, turns it, and the door swings open without resistance, which is exactly what he was afraid of.

You’re in the entryway still, back against the wall in thought. You turn your head to the side when the door opens, eyes going wide, lips parting with confusion.

He leans against the door frame, arms crossing slowly over his chest, looking at you with the hard expression of a man who is being very patient. His chin is tucked and his forehead creased three times over. 

“I—”

“Second time,” he says over you. “Second time I’ve found that door unlocked.”

“I was literally ten seconds behind you—”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Nothing was going to—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says again, the same way.

You look at him for a moment, shoes still in your hand, and he looks back, and you let out a breath through your nose that is not quite a sigh and not quite a laugh and is mostly a concession.

“Fine,” you say.

“Lock it,” he says. “Tonight and every night. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” you mutter.

He holds your gaze a beat longer like he’s making sure the message has actually taken root this time, and then he nods once and pushes off the door frame.

“Good night,” he says, pulling your door closed from the outside.

You stand there in your entryway listening. You can hear him waiting, the impatient shift of his weight against old floorboards.

You reach out and turn the deadbolt.

Then all that’s left to hear are his retreating footfalls heading back down the hall to his own door.