Page 66 of Well That Happened

Not to the couch.

Up the stairs to my room.

He opens the door like he’s done it a hundred times. Like this isn’t brand new and terrifying and completely out of bounds.

The lamp’s still on. My bed looks like heaven.

“I can—”

But he’s already pulling back the blanket. Quiet. Careful. Like I’m glass and not completely unraveled inside.

I sit. Peel off my sweatshirt. He watches me—eyes careful, butwarmnow. Not detached. Not unreadable.

Present.

I crawl under the covers and lean back against the pillows, blinking up at him.

“Thanks for the tea,” I murmur. “And… for being up.”

He nods. “Anytime.”

He turns like he’s going to go.

And I don’t want him to.

“Grayson?”

He pauses.

I sit up slightly. “I don’t get you.”

He looks over his shoulder. “No?”

“You’re quiet and calm and steady and then… sometimes I catch you looking at me like I’m the thing you’ve been trying not to want.”

That might be the whiskey talking.

Or the exhaustion.

Or the grief spiral.

He turns fully, walking back toward the bed.

He doesn’t answer right away.

Then he says, voice low, “I’m not calm around you, Rilee.”

My breath stutters.

“You think I am, because I don’t explode like Hunter or flirt like Caleb. But every time you walk into a room, I feel it. All of it. And it tests every inch of restraint I’ve got left.”

I swallow.

He leans down, hands on either side of the bed, close now.

“You don’t need to be scared of me,” he says softly. “But I need you to know—I’m not some safe, quiet choice.”

He’s so close.

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