Page 56 of The Bet
I shake my head. “Just mugs.”
He glances at the label, reads it, then taps the top of the box twice. “Handled with care.”
I smile, can’t help it.
Stella waves us over. “Dad, can you help me with the fridge? It’s stuck and the wheels are weird.”
He heads to her side without hesitation, both hands out, ready to move mountains.
I stand there, watching him—watching them—and for a second, it’s like I’m seeing a life that could have been, if I was someone else. If everyone knew that I was in love with this man.
He hefts the fridge, tilts it with one hand, and rolls it across the tile like it weighs nothing. Stella laughs at something he says, tosses her hair, then leans in to show him how to angle it through the door.
I look away, suddenly shy, and start stacking empty bins by the wall.
A few minutes later, he’s back at my side, a bead of sweat on his brow, his T-shirt damp at the collar.
He doesn’t say anything, but the way he stands—shoulder to shoulder with me, closer than he needs to be—says everything.
We work in silence for a while, carrying boxes, loading bins, taping flaps. Each time our hands get close, there’s a current, a charge. At one point, we’re both reaching for the same roll of tape, and our fingers meet. He lets his linger, just for a heartbeat.
Stella is always nearby, always talking, always moving. She narrates the whole process: which boxes go first, which ones are light enough for her to carry, which ones she’s afraid to drop. She never once suspects anything, never once looks at us and sees what’s really there.
We fill the back of our moving trucks in record time. By the last trip, my arms are trembling, not from the weight, but from the anticipation of being alone with him, even for a minute.
We pass on the landing. His hand brushes my arm—deliberate, this time—and he leans in, voice pitched for only me. “You’re doing great,” he murmurs.
I look up at him, all the ache and want from last night flaring to the surface.
“Thanks,” I say, but the word is loaded, sticky with meaning.
We finish packing in silence, but the silence is anything but empty.
It’s full, heavy, charged.
We’re about to get behind the wheel of the moving vans when suddenly, Stella says she forgot one thing, and dashes up the stairs, hair streaming behind her like a flag of truce. The stairwell is empty but for the faint, chemical tang of cleaning fluid and the electric buzz of the fluorescent light overhead. I pause on the landing, catching my breath. My arms are sore, and my shirt clings with a thin film of sweat. Thomas is a step behind, his shadow huge and doubled on the bare walls.
The second the echo of Stella’s sneakers fades, he’s on me.
He doesn’t lunge, doesn’t grab—he just closes the distance in a single, smooth step, setting his hands on either side of my face. The box in my hand slips from my grip, thumping to the concrete. He kisses me, not the quick, covert kind, but a long, molten press that fuses my back to the cinder block, his mouth claiming every last shred of air from my lungs. His fingers spread into my hair, tilting my head until I have no choice but to open to him.
For a second, it’s so intense I forget where we are. It’s just his hands, his mouth, the brutal pulse of want pounding between my legs. But then I remember the echo, the way sound bounces in this stairwell, and I gasp, pushing him gently away.
“Thomas—”
He rests his forehead on mine, breath coming hard. “I need you, baby,” he says, low and rough.
I laugh, lips brushing his. “You had me last night. You wrecked me too, with your huge tool. I’m still sore, thanks.”
His eyes flash, a pale blue that looks almost unhinged in the stairwell’s ugly light. “Not sore enough,” he growls. His handsslide under the hem of my shirt, skating up my ribs. I squirm, biting my lip, feeling his palms burn over my skin.
“We can’t—” I start, but the words die when his thumbs find the edge of my bra, sliding under. He’s already hard, the shape of it impossible to miss, pressing urgent against my thigh.
He kisses me again, slower this time, tongue tracing the seam of my mouth before sinking in. I moan before I can stop myself, and the sound bounces off the walls, twice as loud as it should be. I twist my hands in his shirt, then lower, finding the hem and tugging it up. The muscle underneath is hot, bronzed and alive, flexing under my fingers.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, a naughty gleam in his eyes. “You want this as much as I do.”
I want to deny it, to say something clever, but all I can do is nod.
