Page 13 of Tempted By the Safety

“Spencer,” I say, and it comes out breathy.

He doesn’t answer. His thumb moves again, barely, tracing the same half inch of skin, and his eyes come up to mine, dark now.

A stack of hangers goes over behind the register, plastic clattering against the floor.

Spencer’s hand drops, and he steps back, putting a full arm’s length between us that wasn’t there ten seconds ago. He clears his throat, reaching for his phone.

“Find trousers to match,” he says, voice level again, nothing left in it of a moment ago. “Get whatever you liked. The knit too. We should go.”

“Right,” I say, in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine. I don’t even fully register what he’s telling me.

I change back into my own clothes and gather up the things I liked, including the knit, and carry them to the register. Spencer’s already there with his card out, handing it over before I can get a look at the total.

Then he’s holding the door, phone in hand, and neither of us looks at the other the whole way to the car.

5

Spencer

The first week goes by fast, and Milo gets the hang of it, rearranging my life one calendar block at a time. Tuesday, he moves the co-packer call to an email exchange instead of a meeting, and it takes eleven minutes instead of forty-five. Wednesday, I come downstairs and there’s dry cleaning already hung on the hooks by the garage door, pressed and bagged, and I don’t remember telling him where the cleaners was, which means he found it himself. Thursday, my phone doesn’t ring once with a call I don’t want to take, because Milo’s screening them all, texting me one-line summaries instead:consultant wants Monday, told him no, brand call moved to Thursday bc Andy has a thing,and not one of them needs a reply.

Neither of us has mentioned the dressing room. It sits between us, showing up in small places: in the extra half-second before he hands me my coffee in the morning, like he’s trying to avoid our fingers touching, in the gap he leaves now when he leans over my shoulder to show me his phone. I’ve started leaving doors open instead of pulling them shut behind me, some instinct telling me a closed door with the two of us on one side of it is a bad idea right now.

By the second Friday, I’ve mostly convinced myself it never happened at all, that I imagined my thumb on his throat and that starved look in his eyes.

I’m sitting at the kitchen island Friday morning, going through emails on my phone, when I catch a reminder I never passed on to Milo.

“I forgot to tell you I’ve got a photoshoot today.”

Milo looks up from the stovetop, where he’s plating an omelet. Because apparently the four-minute breakfast guy lost that argument somewhere around day three, and neither of us has revisited it since.

“Photoshoot?” He slides a plate in front of me, unbothered that I never asked for it. “Like sponsor stuff?”

“Something like that.” I don’t look up from my phone when I say it.

“Cool. What time?”

“Eleven. You’re coming.”

“Okay.” He’s already reaching for his own phone, thumbing the appointment into the calendar.

I could tell him what kind of shoot it is, but I don’t. I tell myself it’s because it doesn’t matter, because a shoot’s a shoot and he doesn’t need the specifics to do his job, holding my schedule and my coffee and standing off to one side looking useful. That’s the story I hold onto the whole drive over while Milo is scrolling something on his phone in the passenger seat, humming along under his breath to whatever’s coming through his earbuds.

The studio’s in a converted warehouse space downtown with exposed pipe running along the ceiling. We’re barely inside when a door down the hall swings open and my teammate,Kane Dalton, comes out of it wearing a silk robe that’s doing absolutely nothing to conceal what’s underneath.

“Sup, Rhodes.” Kane spots us, grinning. “I’m done for today. You should’ve seen it. Very artistic, if you know what I mean.” His eyes cut past me to Milo, and his eyebrows go up. “And who’s this?”

“My PA,” I say. “Milo. Milo, Kane Dalton.”

“Didn’t know you had a PA,” Kane says to me, but he’s still looking at Milo. “When’d this happen?”

“Two weeks ago,” Milo says, before I can answer for him, and he’s got that grin fully deployed now, the one I’ve learned means he’s decided to enjoy himself. “He stalked me by a dumpster and offered me a job. There were rats.”

“Thereweren’trats.”

“Therecould’vebeen rats. It was a dumpster, Spencer. I’m establishing atmosphere.” Milo’s still grinning at Kane. It’s the same grin he’s been running on me for two weeks straight, except watching it land on someone else doesn’t sit right.

Kane laughs. “I like him,” he tells me, then turns back to Milo. “Careful with this one. He’s got a face like he’s mad about something at all times, but he’s actually a teddy bear once you get past it.”