Three days

Chapter 7 - KATE

I stood on the front step longer than I needed to, fingers curled tight around the strap of my bag.

The house sat quiet under a late-autumn sky, the kind that already felt like it was leaning toward evening even though it was only early afternoon. A few dry leaves skittered across the path when the wind caught them. Ordinary porch, a couple of potted plants that looked like someone actually cared for them through the colder months. It didn’t match the guarded, careful boy I’d been kissing in shadowed corners. I’d texted him when I left, and he’d replied with a simple door’s open, but the closer I got the more my stomach twisted. Meeting someone’s mother always felt like crossing a line you couldn’t uncross. Especially when the someone in question still flinched every time the word us got too close.

I knocked anyway.

The door opened almost immediately, but it wasn’t Alex.

A woman in her late forties stood there, dark hair pulled back loosely, soft smile already forming. She had the same eyes as him — or maybe he had hers — and the same quiet way of looking at a person like she was already deciding whether to like them.

“You must be Kate,” she said, and her voice was warm enough to ease some of the tightness in my chest. “I’m Rose. Come in, sweetheart. He’s in his room. Been in there all morning.”

“Hi,” I managed, stepping into the ground-floor hallway. It smelled faintly of coffee and something citrusy. “Thank you for… letting me come by.”

Rose waved a hand, still smiling. “Please. It’s nice to finally put a face to the name. He’s been quieter than usual the last couple of weeks, but in a different way. Less… closed-off. I was starting to wonder.” She tilted her head down the short hallway. “Second door on the left. And don’t let him pretend he’s fine if he’s not. He does that.”

There was something so gentle in the way she said it that I felt a sudden, unexpected rush of affection for her. I nodded, thanked her again, and walked the few steps with my heart beating a little too hard.

His door was half open. Low music leaked out into the hallway — something old, guitar-heavy, the kind of song that already sounded like it had been cried over. I pushed the door wider.

Alex was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. The playlist kept going in the background, a steady stream of sad, slow rock that filled the room like weather. He looked up when the floorboard creaked under my foot.

For a second his face did that thing it always did when he first saw me — a flicker of something soft, almost relieved — before the brooding settled back over it like a familiar coat.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was quieter than usual.

“Hey.” I closed the door gently behind me. “Your mum’s really lovely.”

A faint, almost reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. She is.”

I set my bag down and sat on the edge of the bed beside him, close but not touching yet. The room was simple. Dark sheets, a desk with a desktop computer and a couple of textbooks, posters that looked like they’d been there for years. Outside the window the late-autumn light was already thinning, turning everything a soft, muted gold. The music shifted into another track — same mood, different voice, still about someone leaving, still about the hollow space they left behind.

“You’ve been listening to this all morning?” I asked softly.

He nodded, eyes on the floor again. “Couldn’t really sleep. Figured if I was going to sit here feeling like s**t I might as well have the soundtrack to match.”

I reached out and rested my hand lightly on his knee. “Talk to me?”

He was quiet for a long moment. The song kept playing, lyrics about broken promises and empty beds drifting between us. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough around the edges.

“I keep waiting for the part where this starts to feel like a mistake I’m going to regret. Every time you leave I tell myself I should pull back. And then you show up again and I… can’t.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to do this without waiting for it to fall apart.”

I shifted closer, turning so I could see his face properly. “I’m not going anywhere, Alex. I know you’re still figuring things out. I know it’s only been a few weeks and everything still feels fragile. But I want to try. I want to make this work. With you.”

His eyes flicked up to meet mine. There was so much in them — fear, want, that old protective distance he kept trying to rebuild. I held his gaze and didn’t look away.

“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” I said. “I’m just asking you not to push me out before we even get the chance to see what this could be.”

Something in his expression cracked. He reached up, slow, and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, fingers lingering against my cheek like he was testing whether I was still real.

“You’re too good at this,” he murmured. “Making me believe it might not end the same way.”

I leaned into his touch. “Then believe it a little longer.”

He exhaled, a soft, shaky sound, and the next thing I knew he was guiding me back onto the bed. We stayed fully clothed, shoes kicked off somewhere near the edge, the playlist still murmuring its sad songs in the background. He lay on his side facing me, one arm tucked under my head, the other resting lightly across my waist. I curled closer, fitting myself against him the way I’d wanted to since the night of the concert.

For a while we just breathed. His forehead rested against mine. Every now and then he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth, or the bridge of my nose, or the place just below my ear, like he was reminding himself I was still there. I kissed him back the same way — unhurried, careful, letting him set the pace.

His hand slid up my back, fingers splaying between my shoulder blades, holding me closer. When he spoke again his voice was quieter than the music.

“I care about you more than I know what to do with,” he admitted, the words barely more than a breath against my lips. “That’s the part that keeps scaring me. How fast it happened. How much it already matters.”

I tilted my head and kissed him properly then — slow and deep enough that I felt the tension in his shoulders finally start to ease. When we broke apart I kept my forehead against his and whispered, “Then let it matter. I’m right here.”

He closed his eyes and pulled me in tighter, tucking my head under his chin. One of his hands found mine and laced our fingers together against his chest. The playlist shifted into another aching track, but it felt different now — less like a warning and more like background noise we were choosing to ignore.

We stayed like that, tangled together on top of the covers, trading soft kisses and quieter truths while the autumn light outside grew thinner and cooler. Every time he kissed me it felt like another small wall coming down. Every time he held me a little closer it felt like he was letting himself believe, even if only for the afternoon, that this time might be different.

Eventually the clock on his desk forced its way into the quiet. He groaned softly against my hair.

“I have to leave at three-thirty,” he murmured, not moving yet. “Shift starts at four.”

I nodded against his chest, reluctant to break the spell. “I know.”

He pressed one last lingering kiss to my temple, then another to my mouth, slower this time, like he was trying to store the feeling for later. When he finally sat up the brooding hadn’t completely returned, but the careful edge was starting to settle back in around the softness.

“Stay a few more minutes?” he asked, voice low.

I smiled and reached for his hand again. “As many as you can spare.”

And for the first time since the party, I didn’t feel like I was waiting for him to run.

I felt like he was choosing, carefully and deliberately, to stay — even if only until the clock said he had to go.