Alex did not sleep properly.
Stolas’s messages sat in his phone like something with weight. Heavy. Warm. Dangerous.
_I want to be with you. As the person you choose._
He’d read them again after Troy left the doorway the night before. Read them until the words stopped looking like words and just looked like light on the screen.
Then he’d locked the phone and stared at the ceiling until the sky went from black to gray to that pale morning color that meant he’d missed sleep again.
When he came downstairs, the house was too quiet.
Troy was already in the kitchen. Coffee was made. Bridget had left early — her keys were gone from the hook, a note on the counter in her neat handwriting: _Out for fittings. Back by 3._
Troy looked up from his phone when Alex walked in. Dark circles u
