Page 20 of Emylia

Worse still, I hated how good he looked while doing it. Hated the way my stomach twisted like it didn’t know that we were friends, nothing more.

He was my best friend.

My chaos.

And yet—Gods did he have to smirk like that?

I should’ve said something sarcastic. But my brain—traitorous thing—was too busy admiring the way his lips curved when he smirked.

How many times had that smirk unraveled me without permission?

“I missed watching you make a fool of yourself,” I muttered. “So yeah. A little.”

He straightened slowly, dragging a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, the brown strands clinging to his temples. His chest raising and falling like he was affected by far more than the physical activity—and the look in his eyes only confirmed it.

There was something between us.

Something unspoken.

A charged silence descended, beating with a silent pulse of a heart-beat. Neither of us moved. His liquid amber eyes didn’t waver—and for once, neither did mine.

He dragged his teeth across his full bottom lip–slow, controlled, like the movement alone might imprison the words we both knew he could never take back. And yet I wished he would finally speak them. But I knew he wouldn’t.

And neither would I.

This wasn’t just tension. This wasn’t just years of teasing and chaos, this was…

Something else.

Say somethingmy mind begged.

Anything.

But the space between us wasn’t safe anymore. I knew if I moved even an inch, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

What would it mean if he rejected me?

What would it mean if he didn’t?

I was stuck in limbo, torn between what I so desperately wanted and afraid of ruining everything that was already so perfect between us.

He cleared his throat, the sound too sharp in the silence—like it alone could undo everything that had passed between us.

It didn’t.

The tension stayed. Intensified, even. Thick and pulsing, like a second heartbeat neither one of us would acknowledge.

“Maalikai,” Sebastian called, his voice rough with something untamed, “you’re really nailing the whole brooding thing, but if you feel like doing somethinguseful, I wouldn’t mind some help.”

Who in Nexus was Maalikai?

The air shifted.

I didn’t see him at first.

Ifelthim.

The way you feel the weight of thunder before the sky cracks open. The way everything stills for just a heartbeat before it breaks.

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