Page 2

I haul my bags into the bedroom. The mattress is basic, the curtains are cheap, and I’ve never been more proud of anything in my life.
I sit down, breathless. This is what standing on your own two feet feels like. This is what it means to start at the bottom and work your way up. It’s terrifying, but baby steps…
I close my eyes for a second. Just a second. Let the silence wrap around me. My heart finally starts to slow. But then—my brows pinch. Something’s wrong. Notwrongwrong. But… off.
The air feels disturbed. Like it was just stirred up and hasn’t settled yet. Like someone exhaled right before I opened the door. I stand still, listening. The empty room stares back at me with innocent silence. But the hairs on the back of my neck won’t lie flat.
I walk back through the living room, slow and deliberate. Glance over the bookshelf. The kitchen. The narrow hallway that leads to my bedroom.
Nothing’s out of place. And yet…
I press my palm to the wall, fingertips splayed. Just grounding myself. Just breathing.
There’s a whisper in my bones, low and certain: You’re not alone. I shake it off. Because I am. I have to be. I locked the door. The building's secure. Brando double-checked everything before I moved in—before I made him swear to give me space.
I strip out of my clothes, drop them in the hamper, and head for the bathroom.
The water scalds. I let it. I want it to. Steam curls around my skin like a second layer—like armor. I scrub harder than necessary. My nails scrape over old scars. Places he touched. Placesthey touched. Places I’ve since reclaimed, but that still hum with memory.
I tilt my head under the spray and whisper his name without meaning to.Saxon.Like a curse. Like a confession. Like the first sin I ever wanted to repeat.
The steam can’t fog the truth: I hate him. I want him. I don’t know what that makes me.
When I finally shut off the water, my skin is raw and pink. I dry off with slow hands, avoiding the mirror. I slip into a tank top and sleep shorts, grab my old hoodie, and throw it on like armor.
The bedroom is cool. Quiet. Safe. But the silence scratches. I double-check the windows. The door. The closet. Again. Still nothing. But I feel it. That hum beneath the surface. That buzz behind the walls.
I climb into bed. Lie still. Let the darkness press in. And then… I dream. It starts the way it always does. Hands. Calloused and reverent. Sliding up my thighs, tracing my ribs, worshipping me like he regrets every breath he’s ever stolen. He doesn’t speak in my dreams, but his mouth says everything. Kisses that bruise. A tongue that punishes. He takes me like I’m the last beautiful thing left in a burning world. And I let him. I beg him.
I wake with a soft gasp, tangled in sweat-damp sheets and shame.
The ceiling fan spins overhead like an accusation.
My chest heaves. My thighs ache. And for one terrifying, traitorous second—I hope the dream wasn’t just a dream.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Trying to scrub away the filth. The heat. The want. But it clings. Just like him. I don’t know what’s worse. That I still feel him in my dreams. Or that some part of me wants him to be real.
2
SAXON
In some circles, they call me the Vagabond.
A man untethered. A drifter. A ghost with a pulse.
I walk roads without names, sleep in beds that never remember me, and wear the kind of smile that’s learned how to lie.
They call me a wanderer. A rogue. A man with no home. But the truth? Ichoosethe hunger. Ichoosethe ache. Because standing still feels like death, and belonging? Belonging feels like a noose tightening around my neck.
There’s a scar carved along my jaw, half-hidden beneath rough stubble, and eyes that carry too many ghosts, too many memories no man should be forced to hold. Eyes that have seen more than what should ever be humanly bearable.
I’m the kind of man who knows how to disappear. Into the night. Into her memory and myself.
They say a vagabond carries no chains. But that’s a lie. My chains are invisible, knotted around my ribs where no one can see. Regret. Loss. Mistakes I can never undo.
I drift from city to city — not because I’m running from something, but because I’m searching. For a moment, a breath, atouch that makes the world stop hurting. I keep moving, even when my heart is in ruins, even when the world has long forgotten my name.
I am the man who belongs nowhere — and everywhere. A wound that never quite stops bleeding. And maybe, just maybe, I prefer it that way. But the thing about drifting? Eventually, the road spits you somewhere you didn’t mean to land. And for me, that place was her doorstep.