Page 29 of Riot’s Revenge

My eyes found him again despite my best efforts. Looking at him, stretched out beneath my sink while arguing with faulty plumbing, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time my apartment hadn’t felt slightly empty after he’d left. Somewhere along the way, his presence had become part of the rhythm of my week.

Eventually, the dripping stopped. Riot slid out from beneath the sink, climbed to his feet, and turned on the tap. Water ran smoothly into the basin without a leak, drip or any of the irritating noises that had been driving me crazy for weeks.

“There.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

Instead of answering, Riot narrowed his eyes at the tap and turned it on again before shutting it off a second later. Then he repeated the process, watching the water run into the basin with a level of concentration that seemed entirely unnecessary.

I folded my arms. “What are you doing?”

“Testing.”

“You’ve tested it three times already.”

Riot responded by testing it a fourth time. Apparently satisfied, he finally stepped away from the sink and immediately started opening cupboards. One cupboard became two, then three, and within seconds, he appeared to be conducting some kind of kitchen-wide search operation.

I watched him for several moments before curiosity got the better of me. “What are you looking for?”

“Coffee.”

“Why?”

He finally located the jar, holding it up like he’d discovered buried treasure. “Because you look exhausted.”

I rolled my eyes, but the truth was that he wasn’t wrong. Between work, revision, and my increasingly questionable sleep schedule, exhaustion had become my default state.

“Sit down,” he said.

Before I could argue, he nudged me away from the kitchen with a hand against my shoulder.

I stumbled forward. By the time I reached the sofa, Riot was already filling the kettle. A few minutes later, he emerged from the kitchen carrying two mugs and dropped onto the cushion beside me as though he’d been doing it for years.

He handed me one of the mugs before reaching for a flashcard abandoned on the coffee table. His frown deepened almost immediately. “What does this even mean?”

I laughed and took it from him. “You don’t want the answer to that.”

“Probably not.” He smirked and took a sip of his coffee.

For a while, neither of us spoke. The apartment settled into a comfortable quiet filled with the distant sounds of traffic outside and the rustle of revision notes as I half-heartedly attempted to study.

Riot didn’t seem remotely interested in leaving. Every other time he’d been there, there had been a clear reason for it. We’d end up tangled together for a few hours before he left.

That night was different. He’d fixed my sink, made coffee and settled himself on my sofa as though spending an evening with me was the most normal thing in the world.

Eventually I glanced over. “You know you don’t actually have to stay.”

Riot looked up from another flashcard he’d been unsuccessfully trying to decipher. “I know.”

“Then why are you still here?” The question came out softer than I’d intended.

For a moment he simply looked at me before one shoulder lifted in a small shrug. “Unless you want me gone.”

The answer was so simple and matter-of-fact that it caught me off guard. There was no pressure behind it, no expectation. Riot was giving me the choice, and the uncomfortable truth was that I already knew what my answer would be. I didn’t want him to leave.

As though sensing the conversation had drifted somewhere dangerous, Riot reached for the remote and switched on the television. The volume stayed low, filling the room with little more than background noise, and within minutes, the two of us had settled into an easy silence.

I curled up at one end of the sofa with my revision notes while Riot stretched out beside me, occasionally stealing flashcards and pretending to understand them.