He brought wings. The hot ones from that hole-in-the-wall dive two towns over I mentioned once while mid-rant about pepperoni snobbery.
This man listens. And then he weaponizes it. Shows up with exactly the food I didn’t know I needed and stands there like it’s no big deal, like he didn’t just make my uterus whisper, “take me.”
It’s disarming.
It’s also extremely attractive, which is inconvenient because I’m trying to maintain some semblance of emotional boundaries and he keeps showing up with my favorite foods and bad jokes and that crooked half-smile that makes my ovaries throw up the white flag and start redecorating for long-term occupancy.
By week two, he has a mug.
I didn’t plan it. It just happened.
He kept drinking coffee out of whatever cup I handed him, and one day I handed him the blue one with the chip on the handle, the one I never use because the chip bothers me, and he used it and put it back and the next day he reached for it automatically.
Now it’s his mug.
The and the little chip that always annoyed me until he touched it is somehow erotic. Like everything he touches gets consecrated into the Church of Things I Want In My Mouth.
The mug lives on the counter now, not the cabinet, like we’re in some slow-burn sitcom where the punchline is me begging him to fuck me on the kitchen floor between coffee refills.
His jacket lives on the chair by the door. The leather one he always wears. He takes it off when he comes in, drops it on the chair, and leaves it there until he goes.
I touch it when he’s not looking. Just to remind myself I haven’t dreamed him into existence like some kind of vigilante fuckboy mirage.
He has a spot on the couch. Left side, closest to the door. I don’t know if that’s intentional, some security thing, keeping the exit in sight, or if he just ended up there once and stayed. Either way, it’s his spot now. I sit on the other end, legs tucked under me, and we exist in our separate corners like we’re afraid of what happens if we get too close.
We’ve kissed once. Just once. But that kiss lives in my skull rent-free, pacing and smoking and occasionally slamming into the walls of my restraint like it wants out.
I swear my lips remember. They’re waiting for round two. Or seven. With hands pinned and all my dignity stripped down to a whimper.
He teaches me to throw a punch.
“Your form is terrible,” he says, adjusting my fist. His hands are warm. Calloused. Criminally competent. “You’re going to break your thumb.”
“Well, I’ve never punched anyone on purpose,” I say. “I’m more of a passive-aggressive emotional damage kind of girl.”
He stops. Blinks. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Middle school,” I say solemnly. “Was a battleground. Bitch stole my Lip Smacker and my body acted on instinct.”
We’re standing in my living room, furniture pushed to the sides, and he’s showing me how to make a fist, how to twist my hips, how to put my body weight behind a strike.
It’s absurd. I’m a data entry specialist in witness protection learning how to throw hands from a man whose résumé includescreative applications of violence.
Honestly, this might be the most useful professional development I’ve ever had.
He’s patient. Adjusts my stance without making me feel stupid. Shows me the same motion five times without frustration.
“Why do you know how to teach this?” I ask.
He steps back. Does a full-body scan, probably ranking my odds of survival in a bar fight.
“I trained the younger guys. When they joined up.”
“Like an orientation program?”
He snorts. “Most of them thought fighting was just rage plus fists.”
“That’s not it?”
