Page 46 of His To Erase

Ani

Icould blame it on the fact that I’m tired. Or half-dressed. Or that he’s terrifyingly hot and just caught me elbow-deep in the graveyard of his past. But none of those excuses fix the fact that I crossed a line. And I didn’t even find what I was looking for.

I swing my legs out from under the blanket, pad over to the door, and lock it.

Knowing full well that it wouldn’t stop him, but it makes me feel like I have some kind of choice left.

I crawl back into bed, dragging the blanket around my shoulders like it can shield me from myself, and curl onto my side.

It’s pathetic, I know. But the guilt hits harder than I expected. I wasn’t looking for connection, I was supposed to find proof. Red flags. A knife. Anything to confirm that I’m still the girl who can’t trust anyone.

But instead… I found her.

The girl with the scraped knee and the sweatshirt too big for her body. The soft smile, and the kind of happiness that doesn’t last.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling like it owes me answers. Why this—of all things—hurts.

It feels like I touched something fragile, and now it’s bleeding in my hands. And maybe for the first time since I ran… I don’t feel like a problem to be fixed. I just feel wrong.

That note—scrawled on the back of one of the photos. “First smile in months.” Wrecked me because it made him real. Not just the monster in my head, but someone who held on to her smile like it meant something. Like it still does. And I hate that I care.

I press my fingers to my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut until they burn. One tear, that’s it. That’s all I’m allowing. I wipe it away before it even dares to slide down my cheek.

“God, I’m such a mess,” I whisper to the dark. “I’m gonna need a whole new trauma just to cancel this one out.”

From the other side of the door, I hear a sigh.

Bernadette.

I drag myself up and unlock the door before I can talk myself out of it and she trots in like she’s been waiting all night for the cue.

“Hey, menace,” I mumble.

She doesn’t hesitate—just leaps onto the bed with the grace of a linebacker and drops her head across the bed like she’s claiming me.

“I didn’t say you could,” I mutter. But I don’t move her, because the truth is, it’s exactly what I needed. I crawl back under the blanket, her body warm and heavy against mine, and I fall asleep.

The light streaming through the window is blinding. Which is great, considering I’m pretty sure I’ve just woken up from a coma.

I blink, once. Twice. My head feels like it’s filled with packing peanuts, and my body aches in a way that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with overfeeling.

I shove the blanket off and swing my legs over the side of the bed, squinting around the room like it personally wronged me. Bernadette is still sprawled across the floor like a bodyguard with zero ambition.

I grab my bag from where I dropped it last night, and start rummaging like a raccoon who just found a locked trash can. Wallet. Keys. Lip balm. A crumpled receipt from a gas station chicken nugget crime I never should’ve committed. Where the fuck is—ah. My phone.

Dead, of course.

I plug it in at the wall and sit there cross-legged, blinking against the harsh light while it boots up like it’s doing me a favor. The screen finally flickers to life.

3:13 p.m.

I stare at it like it’s lying to me.

“Nope,” I mutter. “Absolutely not. That can’t be right.”

Bernadette yawns like she agrees, and I scrub my hands over my face.

I’ve never slept this long in my life. Not even during the lowest points.

Not even after… everything. Though back then, it was mostly fear that kept me from sleeping too long.

Dragging a hand through my hair, I groan, of course the one time I emotionally break down and accidentally form a trauma bond with a dog, I crash for fourteen hours straight like it’s a personality trait.

At least I have the next few days off. Which was supposed to mean apartment hunting.

Maybe even checking out that bookshop space I still haven’t admitted I probably can’t afford.

But instead, I’m here, in Steven’s house, with his tattooed abs burned into the back of my skull like a crime I didn’t mean to witness.

I finally open my phone. Four missed calls—one from Sloane, three from Sarah, and a handful of texts from Frank.

The most recent one is from this morning.

Frank: You okay? Haven’t heard from you. Wish you came with, but if you need anything, you know I’ll take care of it.

I stare at the screen, and my stomach curls like it knows something I don’t.

Frank’s always good at saying the right thing.

Charming. Polished. Perfectly timed concern that reads like affection until you look a little closer.

Or at least until the words start to feel like velvet ropes—soft, but wrapped around your throat before you even realize you’re being tied up.

I don’t answer. Instead, I scroll through the missed calls from Sarah—no voicemail, but she did leave a text.

Sarah: Hey—where the hell did you go? Can you call me when you come back from the dead!

I almost smile. Instead, I toss the phone on the bed and scrub a hand through my hair like that’ll fix anything.

I should text Frank back, but I’m not going to right now.

I definitely shouldn’t be in this house with a man who terrifies me and makes my thighs ache every time I think about what happened in the woods. But here I am.

Barefoot. Hungover on trauma. And fighting off a feral crush like it’s not actively ruining me.

I pick the phone back up, thumbs already moving before I can second-guess it.

Me: Not dead. Just emotionally bankrupt. Will explain over coffee if I don’t set myself on fire first.

Her typing bubbles pop up instantly.

Sarah: Oh thank GOD. I thought maybe Frank locked you in a basement or Steven turned out to be a cult leader with a thing for knives. Wait. Is that still on the table?

Me: Honestly? If he is, I’m ready to drink the Kool-Aid and let him carve his name into me. This man had me moaning and crying on his floor in the same 12-hour window. I’m not okay.

Sarah: OH MY GOD. WHAT. Who are you? Where are you? Are you safe or just dickmatized? Because one of those is fixable and one is how cults start.

Me: I think I’m both. Also there’s a dog now. Bernadette. I think she imprinted on me. So I’m emotionally adopted and slightly possessed.

Sarah: You’re clearly not okay. But like in a way that’s really on brand for you. Call me before he tattoos his initials on your soul.

I laugh, putting my phone back on the bed and drag myself out of the room, wearing nothing but a T-shirt I found in the closet and the same leggings I left my apartment in. I need food more than I need a reality check.

The hallway opens into the kitchen, and I brace myself to see him there—towering, shirtless, and brooding over a cup of coffee like a warning carved out of stone. That whole tattooed menace with a morning voice that ruins lives energy.

But he’s not there. The kitchen is empty.

Relief floods me, followed immediately by the kind of gnawing, unholy hunger that makes me want to bite the damn countertop.

So, I start rifling through cabinets, expecting to find something unhealthy.

A cookie, chips, a singular sad granola bar, anything.

Only I find nothing. Just organized jars and alphabetized spices like this man is one spreadsheet away from villainy.

“What the hell is this?” I mutter, yanking open the fridge and stop.

There are... meals. Like actual, perfectly prepped, macro-balanced, muscle-god meals.

“Who is this guy?”

I’m not going to complain. It explains the abs and the brutal cut of his body.

My thighs clench without permission, just thinking about it.

Heat blooms low and deep like my body’s staging a mutiny.

Everything inside me tingles, traitorous and insatiable.

I’ve never in my life met a man who brings out this type of reaction in my body, and I’m not sure if I should be excited or scared.

“Nope,” I mutter, closing the fridge so hard it thuds. “We are not doing this.”

I pause, and reopen it. I should make toast, or eggs, maybe something low-effort and morally neutral. Something that doesn’t taste like I’ve taken a bite out of his perfect, secretive, probably-murdery life. But then again—he’s not here. And I’m starving.

“Where the hell is he anyway?” I mutter, glancing over my shoulder. No Bernadette either, but there’s just enough silence to choke on.

Before I can think better of it, I yank a container from the fridge and pop it in the microwave, stabbing the buttons like it’s personal. “I’m eating this. And I’m not sorry.”

Still no sign of Steven.

I glance around the kitchen, then back at the couch like it might judge me.

It feels wrong, making myself at home in a place that isn’t mine—in a house that belongs to a man who definitely knows how to make someone disappear without leaving a trace—but then again…

I’m not going home right now, at least not until my landlord changes the locks.

Because home doesn’t feel safe anymore. It feels like questions I’m not ready to ask. So, I might as well get comfortable, or fake it until I do.

It takes me three tries to figure out the remote—because obviously nothing in this house is user-friendly unless it’s shirtless and brooding—and I finally land on Netflix. Once I find Harry Potter, it’s game over.

Comfort food. Comfort movie. Emotional band-aid applied with duct tape and denial. Check.