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He cut his eyes at me. “Heavy handed.”

“Hmm.” It was bad enough that I’d been sulking because he’d asked her out. It was worse how much relief I felt when I realized he’d just done it so the three of us could go together.

“Is it fucked up that I kinda don’t want her to get over this writer’s block?”

“Yea, nigga,” I laughed. “It’s fucked up.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean I don’t want her to leave before we…” He trailed, adjusting his glasses again and shook his head. “Never mind. I’m going to bed.”

There were a million different ways his thought could have ended and I would spend too much time thinking about it before I fell asleep tonight.

Before we what?

Who was we?

Was it him and True?

Was it me, him and True?

Wait.

Why would it be me, him and True? Did he feel the same hope tugging at him as I did whenever I was around our neighbor?

I chewed the inside of my cheek and shook my head as he turned to walk out.

When he got to my door, he hesitated before walking out and gave me a soft smile. “You feel better?”

Sticky caramel coated my teeth and the heaviness sitting on my chest had dissipated. Thanks to him.

Yea, I felt better.

“Night, Greyson,” I said as my answer.

“Later, Noah.”

part two

I had a propensity for obsession.

A need for control.

A knack for watching things from the sideline until I knew without doubt how things would unfold.

I studied people’s patterns until they were ingrained in my brain. Observed people’s tics until I knew every trigger that produced the same minuscule result. Over and over again.

This had always been who I was. Silent and observant. Distant but never truly detached. I spent so much time in my head that people complained they never felt like they truly knew me. And honestly, I was okay with that because it had never been my goal to be known by everybody anyway.

Outside of my family, only one person got a different version of me. And he slept down the hall from me every night.

But recently, five weeks ago to be exact, a new obsession—I mean,exceptionhad wormed her way into my psyche.

True St. John invaded my thoughts from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. And sometimes, she was waiting for me in my dreams.

I thought about tangling my hands in her thick hair more than I should have.

I thought about kissing her until her lipstick was ruined and her mouth was swollen from my possession.

I thought about laying her at the center of my bed and treating her body like the altar it was.