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Her hair is a mess.

Not the “sex hair” kind they photoshop on perfume ads. The real kind. Lopsided bun, strands stuck to her cheek, one curl trying to unionize against gravity. It should be funny.

It is, actually.

But also... something else.

She sits on the edge of the bed, mug in hand, legs bare. Barely awake. The kind of quiet you only get when someone forgets to be defensive.

And for some reason, I can’t look at her for too long without something in my chest doing a weird little ache-shift-ache loop.

So naturally, I say the dumbest thing possible.

“Do you always make that little noise when you stretch, or was that a performance exclusive?”

She blinks.

Sips her tea.

Then looks at me with the vague expression of someone deciding between murder and sarcasm.

“Did you seriously just talk to me like a man who owns a podcast mic?”

“Too soon?”

She narrows her eyes. “Too true.”

I smile. But not all the way.

She stays quiet .

And I hate that part of me—the one I trained out of existence years ago—that wants to fill that silence. Wants to understand what she’s thinking.

Which is terrifying.

Because I’ve spent a decade mastering the art of not needing to know that.

I get up. Find my pants. Fasten my belt slowly, like that will somehow make this feel more casual. Like I haven’t watched her fall apart under me and worshipped every second.

“This doesn’t have to be complicated,” I say.

Which is, in fact, the thing people only say right before it becomes complicated.

She doesn’t answer.

She just watches me. Quiet. Still half-dressed. Still barefoot.

And somehow that makes me feel more naked than she is.

I grab my shirt.

“Anyway. I should go.”

Still casual. Still cool.

Totally normal to flee after you’ve just had the most unsettlingly real sex of your adult life with the one woman who’s publicly called you a “charismatic algorithm in pants.”

Totally.

“Are you running from me,” she says finally, “or just from the part where you liked it?”

I turn, half-buttoned, halfway out the door of my own emotional bandwidth.

She’s smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I’m not running,” I say. “I’m just... emotionally jogging. ”

That gets a laugh.

A real one. Soft. A little cracked.

She pulls her legs up, hugs her knees, looks at me like she can already see the next three moves.

Which, fair. She probably can.

“Jog carefully,” she says.

“Always.”

And I leave before I say something honest.

Because coming over once was the game.

Staying would have meant I forgot the rules.