Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Ozzy stops at my bedroom door and turns like he’s about to head back to the living room. Like he’ll take the couch again, like he’ll give me space, like he’ll do the honorable thing. The first night we were here he slept in bed with me. But since then, he’s been on the couch.
However, my chest tightens at the thought of being alone in that room tonight. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts. Alone with the creaks and wind and branches and memories.
The words come out before I can stop them. “Ozzy.”
He pauses, back still to me. “Yeah?”
My hands twist together. My voice is small. “Can you… sleep in here?”
He turns slowly. His face is unreadable for a second. Then his brows knit, not with annoyance. It’s more like he’s thinking through a decision with consequences. All the things he carries in his head that I don’t even know about.
I rush to explain, cheeks burning. “I’m not—I’m not trying to be weird. I just… I don’t want to be alone tonight. We’re adults. It’s just… I feel safer with you.”
Ozzy’s throat works. He takes a step closer. “You’re not being weird.”
I blink. “I’m not?”
“No,” he says, voice lower. “You’re being honest.”
My chest aches at that.
Ozzy’s gaze holds mine. Then he nods. “Okay.”
Relief hits me so hard my knees almost go soft.
He steps past me into the room, calm and purposeful, like he’s done this before too—like he knows how to be someone’s safety without making it about himself. I hover by the door while he checks the window latch, the closet, the corners. Not because he thinks something’s inside. Because he knows my brain might. Then he looks at me. “You want the lights off or low?”
“Low,” I whisper.
Ozzy leaves the bedside lamp on and the rest dark, a gentle glow pooling over the quilt.
I change into a long t-shirt and shorts, hands shaking a little as I pull the fabric down. I’m nervous. I don’t know why. I’ve technically already slept in the bed with him. However, that was different. I’d had a nightmare and he held me until I fell back asleep. This is different.
When I turn, Ozzy is already in sweatpants, shirtless, and my brain short-circuits.
Because he’s… Ozzy. Tall. Built. Tattoos along his forearm I haven’t traced yet but I want to. His mohawk is down now, messy from the day, and he looks less like a weapon and more like a man.
A man in my bedroom. My throat goes dry.
His eyes catch mine, and then slide away fast, like he’s forcing himself not to linger. “Get in,” he says, voice lower now, scraped raw at the edges. “I’ll—” He jerks his chin toward the far side of the bed. “I’ll stay over there. Promise.”
My heart stumbles, then kicks hard against my ribs. I nod once, mouth too dry to answer, and crawl onto the mattress. The sheets are cool against my skin, but I barely feel them. I slide under the covers and fix my stare on the ceiling fan, willing my breathing to even out, willing my body to stop noticing every inch of space between us.
Ozzy doesn’t move right away. He stands at the edge of the bed for a long beat—long enough that I start counting his breaths—then the mattress dips under his weight. He settles on his side, careful, deliberate, leaving a strip of empty sheet between us like a line drawn in the sand. It might as well not exist.
Heat rolls off him anyway. Thick, living heat that finds me across the gap, seeping under the blanket, brushing my bare arm, my hip, the small of my back. I can feel the shape of him without looking. I feel the long line of his body, the way his shoulder rises a little higher than mine, the faint rhythm of his chest moving slower than mine.
The house gives one low creak. It’s nothing but the old wood settling, or wind, or something else.
My whole body flinches, a sharp, involuntary jerk that yanks the sheet tight across my chest.
Ozzy turns instantly. Not just his head, but his whole upper body shifts toward me, fast and instinctive, like he’s been waiting for the excuse. “Hey,” he says, voice quiet but rough, close enough now that I feel the word more than hear it.
I swallow against the sudden knot in my throat. “Sorry,” I manage, barely above a whisper. My pulse is loud in my ears, drowning everything else.
He doesn’t move back. Doesn’t say anything for a second. Just watches me in the dim light, eyes dark and steady, the careful distance between us feeling thinner by the heartbeat.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he murmurs finally. “Not to me.”
The air between us thickens, charged and warm, like the moment before a storm breaks. I don’t dare move. Neither does he.