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It makes me feel sick in a way I can’t even properly name, because the jealousy hits too fast and too ugly to dress up as anything else. My mind starts doing what it always does, filling in gaps I never asked it to fill, and I hate that I can’t stop it. I hate that Jake knows exactly what he’s doing by saying it like that. I hate that he looked at me when he said bedroom. I hate that it worked.

“Go get your stuff and leave,” Tristan says, his voice cold enough to frost the room, but I barely register it because my head is stuck on one thing and one thing only:

He was here.

Jake mutters something under his breath, then storms off towards Tristan’s bedroom. The second he’s gone, Tristan turns to me.

And I’m not fast enough.

The hurt is already in my eyes when they meet his, open, ugly, and impossible to pull back in time. I see the exact moment he catches it. His expression shifts, just barely, just enough to tell me he sees every cracked, humiliating piece of it.

“You fucked me on Monday,” I say before I can stop myself, the words ripping out harsher than I mean them to. “So what? later that night you decided I wasn’t a good fuck? That’s why he was here with you?”

“For fuck’s sake, Maksim,” Tristan curses, dragging a hand down his face, exhausted. “Why would you even think that?”

“Then give me one good reason!” I hiss, stepping closer. “Give me one damn reason he spent the night here. Why you’re still letting him come and go as if he owns you.”

Before Tristan can answer, Jake reappears from the bedroom, a black denim jacket slung over his arm. That smug, satisfied look on his face makes me want to lunge at him. He knows exactly what he’s doing—twisting the knife as deep as it’ll go.

“I’ll let your mother know you’re doing alright,” he tells Tristan, his voice softening into that fake, intimate warmth. “You should call her, though.”

Then he looks at me one last time.

Not a glance.

A look.

The kind meant to linger.

The kind meant to win.

Then he turns and walks out of the apartment.

The second the door shuts behind him, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My fist unclenches a little, but not much. Because if Jake had stayed another ten seconds, I might’ve done something I couldn’t take back.

“Look at me,” Tristan says.

He’s closer now. I can feel him without touching him. His heat, his cologne, his sheer physical presence. It’s unbearable how much my body still responds to him, even now, even when I’m angry, even when I’m humiliated. Sometimes I think wanting him this much must be some kind of terminal condition. It feels too painful to be survivable. And worse, I already know he will never want me with the same wrecked, helpless intensity that I want him.

“Maksim—”

“So there’s still something going on between you two, then?” I ask, finally looking at him.

He doesn’t answer right away.

And that silence? That fucking silence sends something cold sliding under my skin. His face doesn’t change. If anything, he looks too calm, too composed, too unreadable. Like none of this is hitting him in the heart the way it’s hitting me. As if he can stand there perfectly controlled while I’m practically splitting open in front of him.

“I already told you not to ask me personal questions,” he says, one brow lifting.

I blink.

“Personal questions?” I repeat, because I genuinely can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I am not doing this with you, Maksim.” His eyes harden now, the first real crack in that calm. “I’m tired of going back and forth.”

“Oh, fuck you, Tristan,” I spit, the words hot and immediate. “Did you sleep with him? Did you fuck him and tell him how much you missed him? Did you tell him you wanted him back?”

That lands.