<
I didn't mean for it to happen.
That was the thing I kept circling back to later how unplanned it was. How normal the evening had started.
normal day, usual morning, he's going to work, I'm doing my work
Ziven came home around the same time as the night before. No rush. No tension I could name outright. He asked if I'd eaten. I said I wasn't hungry. He nodded, like he believed me, like he wasn't already cataloguing the way my voice dipped when I lied.
We ended up in the living room again, both of us pretending that space didn't matter.
I sat on the floor with my back against the couch, laptop abandoned beside me. Ziven stood near the window at first, phone in his hand, attention divided. When he finally sat down, it was on the far end of the couch deliberate, measured.
That distance felt louder than silence.
"You're quiet," I said.
"So are you," he replied.
I shrugged. "Long day."
He hummed softly. Not agreement. Not dismissal. Just acknowledgment.
I shifted, pulling my knees closer to my chest. The movement brought me closer to the couch, closer to him. I felt it immediately the change in air, the subtle awareness that came with proximity.
Ziven noticed too. I could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened, just slightly.
I shouldn't have leaned back.
But I did.
My head brushed the edge of the cushion near his thigh, close enough that I could feel warmth through fabric. It wasn't intentional. At least, that's what I told myself.
He didn't move away.
That felt worse.
We stayed like that for a few seconds too long. I could hear his breathing now, steady but not relaxed. The awareness settled heavy in my chest.
"Ziven," I said quietly.
"Yes?"
"You're… tense."
His answer came after a pause. "You're observant."
"That's not an answer."
"No," he agreed.
I tilted my head slightly, enough to look up at him. His jaw was tight, gaze fixed forward, not on me. Like if he looked down, something would give.
Something already was.
"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.
The question slipped out before I could stop it.
His head turned sharply then. "No."
Too fast.
"You don't look fine," I said.
He exhaled through his nose. "Asher."
That tone. Controlled. Careful.
It stung more than I expected.
I pushed myself upright, turning to face him properly. My knee brushed his. A small thing. Not nothing.
"I know you are getting bothered by… what happened the other day," I said. "With Marcus. And the interview. And everything I can see it in your face."
His eyes flicked to mine, then away again.
"I'm trying," I added. "To not make things uncomfortable."
The word landed wrong.
"I didn't say you were," he replied.
"But you're acting like I did."
Silence stretched.
I hugged my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how exposed I felt sitting there. "I don't want to make things harder for you."
His gaze dropped then. Finally.
"That's not what you're doing," he said quietly.
"Then what am I doing?"
He didn't answer.
The quiet pressed in, thick and charged. I became acutely aware of how close we werehow easy it would be to close the distance completely.
That thought scared me.
I stood abruptly. "I should go to my room."
"Asher," he said.
I paused.
He looked up at me now, really looked. His expression wasn't cold. It wasn't angry.
It was strained.
"I don't dislike you," he said.
The words hit harder than I expected.
"I know," I replied, though my voice wasn't steady. "It just feels like you're… pulling away."
He stood too.
We were close now. Too close to pretend it didn't matter.
"I'm doing the opposite," he said.
I frowned. "It doesn't feel like it."
"That's because you don't see what I'm holding back."
The room felt smaller.
My heart thudded painfully in my chest. "Then why does it feel like I crossed a line?"
"Because you're standing near it," he replied.
I swallowed.
"And you don't like that," I said.
His gaze dropped to my mouth before he caught himself.
"That's not the problem."
Then what is?
I didn't ask. I couldn't.
I stepped back first.
The distance returned, thin and fragile.
"I'm tired," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
He nodded once. "Goodnight, Asher."
I walked away with my heart racing, convinced I'd misread everything.
Convinced that whatever had just happened
he didn't want it.
<
I stayed where I was long after Asher left the room.
My hands were clenched at my sides. I hadn't realised until my fingers started to ache.
Control wasn't a switch. It was a muscle.
And tonight, it burned.
He'd leaned back without thinking. Sat too close without meaning to. Looked up at me with that open, searching expression that made restraint feel like punishment.
He thought I was pulling away.
The irony would've been laughable if it didn't hurt.
When he stood in front of me, close enough that I could feel heat radiating off his skin, every instinct in me screamed to close the distance. To reach out. To tilt his chin up and silence the questions forming in his eyes.
I didn't.
Because if I did, I wouldn't stop.
And he didn't know that.
Asher thought my restraint was rejection.
He had no idea it was discipline.
No idea how much effort it took not to touch him when he looked at me like that confused, uncertain, still trusting.
I turned away, forcing myself to breathe evenly.
This wasn't about desire.
It was about timing.
He wasn't ready to understand what this was. And if I crossed that line first, I would be taking something from him he hadn't chosen to give.
That mattered.
Even if every part of me protested.
When I finally moved, it was to the kitchen. I poured a glass of water, drank it too quickly, and welcomed the sting in my throat. Pain was easier than temptation.
Asher didn't know how close he'd come to being kissed.
He didn't know how easily I could have justified it.
And he didn't know that walking away had been the hardest choice I'd made in years.
Control, I reminded myself again, wasn't about absence.
It was about refusal.
And tonight, with him standing that close, breathing the same air
Refusal had cost me more than I was ready to admit.