Page 16 of Until You

I roll my eyes. I mean, he’s not wrong, but still, I’m not admitting to that now.

“I’m busy trying to understand why my one-night stand just stormed into my kitchen, acting feral.”

“Your kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“This is my grandparents’ house.”

The words hit me square in the chest. Not like a punch, more like a trapdoor opening beneath my feet. My stomach drops. The room tilts, just slightly, just enough that I have to press my toes into the hardwood to stay steady.

I blink.

Once.

Twice.

Then I point at him. My hand is not entirely steady.

I shake my head. “No.”

His arms cross over his stupid broad chest. “Yes.”

I shake my head. The damp ends of my hair stick to my bare shoulders. “The sweet older couple on a cruise? Mimz and Pops?”

His expression turns suspiciously darker. Something moves behind his eyes—a dozen calculations happening at once behind that line between his brows. He takes a step closer to me.

“You know my grandparents?”

I let out a strangled laugh. It scrapes against my throat. The universe is not real. This is a simulation, and whoever’s running it has a sick sense of humor.

“I live here.”

“You what?”

“I’m their live-in aide.”

He stares at me.

I stare at him.

“A live-in aide for what exactly?”

I swallow. “Health care. I have my license, and they hired me.”

The air between us is thick with something. It’s the same crackling charge that had been there in the bar, the same electric current that had run between us across a crowded room under green neon light. Except now it’s not laced with possibility. Now it’s tangled up in oh God, oh no, oh this changes everything.

Somewhere in the silence, the baby chooses violence, and nausea rolls low in my stomach—slow and deliberate, like the lime-sized human inside me knows exactly what’s happening and has opinions about it.

Great timing.

I press my lips together and breathe through my nose. Not now. Please not now.

His eyes drop to my middle for half a second—quick, involuntary, like his gaze was pulled there by something he couldn’t control—before returning to my face. And I feel that glance like a brand. Like he knows. He can’t know. There’s nothing to see, not yet. But the way his gaze lingers a beat too long on my face afterward, searching, cataloging, trying to solve me the way he did that first night. It makes my blood go cold and hot at the same time.

And because the universe enjoys me specifically, he says, “You look guilty.”

“I look damp, actually.” I start moving towards the hallway that leads to my bedroom. “I should get dressed.”