The room is too quiet.
Which would be fine.
If I were alone.

Lucas lounges on his bed like a prince banished from his throne. Shirt rumpled. Hair damp. Textbook flipped open but untouched, like he expects it to read itself out loud for his benefit.

He hasn’t stopped looking at me.

Not directly. Not long enough to be obvious.

But I feel it.

Like a low-level hum in the base of my spine.

“We’re supposed to choose a topic by tomorrow,” I say without looking up.

He doesn’t respond.

I glance at him.

He’s watching me now, full-on. Head tilted, arms behind his head, smile curling like smoke.

“You always talk like that?” he asks. “So… precision-surgery-meets-criminal-interrogation?”

“Do you always not listen?”

“Only when I’m distracted.”

I close my laptop a little harder than necessary. “Pick a topic.”

“Authoritarianism,” he says, without hesitation.

It catches me off guard.

“Why?”

“Because I’m the son of one.”

That earns him a glance. A short one. Still—he sees it.

“Relax,” he says, rolling onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. “I’m kidding. Mostly. It’s just easy. Relevant. I can fake it.”

“You fake a lot of things?”

He grins. “Constantly.”

I look back down. “I’ll draft the outline.”

“Of course you will,” he murmurs. “You love control.”

I pause. Just for a second.

It’s true. I do love control.

I need it.
Control is safety.
Control is survival.

But the fact that he noticed?

That cuts too close.

“I don’t need to love it,” I say, keeping my voice flat. “I just need it more than chaos.”

He laughs softly, a sound too warm for the hour.

“Well,” he says, “that’s unfortunate. Because I am chaos.”

I don’t answer.

I don’t look.

And that’s when he says it—soft, curious, completely disarming.

“You ever let anyone see you, Rae?”

My throat tightens.

“No.”

A beat of silence. I can feel his eyes on me. Feel the weight of something dangerous hovering in the air between us.

“I think you just did.”

I stand. Instinctive. Like I’ve touched a live wire.

“Don’t get too comfortable, Monroe. This is a partnership, not a friendship.”

He smiles like he knows something I don’t.

“Yet.”