Page 9 of Gap Control

It was the kind of space that belonged to someone who came home tired but managed to stay alive. There was life in it: noise and motion.

My place didn't look like TJ's. My place looked like nobody lived in it on purpose.

I surprised myself again. "Okay, we do it. Temporarily."

TJ's whole face lit up. "Wait, seriously?"

"Just until things die down."

"Sure, yeah, of course. Right." He nodded too quickly. "We should probably set some ground rules. Like what we say ininterviews. And maybe I shouldn't post any gym thirst traps for a while—"

"Please never say thirst trap to me again."

He laughed—loud, like he wasn't used to censoring himself and didn't plan to start. His openness found a gap in my defense I didn't know existed.

He walked over to the kitchen and grabbed two cans of something from the fridge. Protein water, probably. He tossed one to me without warning, and I caught it on reflex.

I cracked the can too fast and got sprayed for it—cold fizz on my fingers, sharp with citrus. TJ sat down next to me, cross-legged, like we did this all the time.

He wiped condensation off his can. "So, you sure you're okay with this?"

I sipped and looked at him, my new fake boyfriend.

His hair was sticking up in three directions. There was a smudge of something on his cheek—soy sauce, maybe.

His hoodie hung off one shoulder, collar stretched, revealing the curve of his collarbone and a flash of ink I hadn't noticed before—just the edge of it. The T-shirt underneath had a cartoon hockey puck on it with the wordsGet Pucked.

TJ looked like a train wreck wrapped in unexpected charm.

And for reasons I didn't want to examine, I didn't want to leave.

"No, I'm not okay, but I'm saying yes anyway."

He blinked. "What?"

I tried to lay it out more gently. "I said for now, which means we need to be careful. Keep it light. No slip-ups. We control the story."

He offered a toast with his can. "To wildly irresponsible decisions and confusing fan edits."

I tapped mine against his. "God help us both."

We drank.

It didn't fix anything, but didn't make it worse either.

Considering everything, that was a win.

For a minute, we just sat there, the fizz going flat in our cans. His leg bumped mine, and neither of us moved.

I could've stayed longer.

Maybe I should've, but I didn't.

Instead, I stood. He didn't ask me to stay, and I didn't ask whether he wanted me to.

Perhaps that was a part of the deal we hadn't said out loud.

The door shut behind me with a mechanical clunk.

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