Six years since the war, and Ginny Weasley had truly believed she had earned a quiet life. Not a saintly, monastic life, just a normal one. A life where she could get up in the morning and make tea without wanting to hex someone. A life where she could sleep through the night without hearing things that would haunt her until age ninety. She wanted peace. The kind of peace that did not involve romance novels playing out in the bedroom next door.
Apparently she had asked for the moon.
She had lasted exactly two days after Hermione moved Draco Malfoy into their flat. Two days. Which was generous, frankly, because the situation became intolerable in the first twenty minutes.
The first morning she had walked into the kitchen to find Malfoy making espresso like he had invented Italy. Shirt unbuttoned halfway down, hair in that ruined, smug mess that suggested Hermione had been enthusiastic before breakfast. He had lifted his cup and nodded at her like she was staff. Hermione was leaning on the counter, all soft and dreamy and trying not to grin at nothing. Ginny had stared at the cereal box, questioning every life choice she had ever made.
That would have been manageable if it had stopped there.
But it did not stop.
On the second night, Ginny had been tucked up in bed, genuinely minding her own business, when the wall had begun banging. Not the discreet, tasteful sort of banging you could ignore. No. The kind of rhythmic, confident banging that suggested someone in the next room was about to be given a medal for outstanding contribution to physical stamina.
And then Hermione's voice.
Light. Breathless. Embarrassingly happy.
Ginny had buried her face under her pillow and prayed for instant death.
By the third morning, she had given up the pillow entirely. There was no use. Nothing on this earth could block out Hermione giggling like she had discovered the secrets of the universe, or Malfoy murmuring something low and appreciative in that ridiculous drawl of his. The walls carried everything. Every moan. Every creak. Every you're impossible and every smug reply.
Ginny lay there staring at the ceiling, considering how socially unacceptable it would be to throw herself out the window and simply hope for reincarnation.
She got up.
She did not brush her hair.
She marched into the kitchen in the aggressive way of someone looking for a target.
The smell of coffee hit her first, dark and rich and smug, the kind of coffee that belonged in a glossy magazine beside phrases like complex notes and imported beans. Far too indulgent for eight in the morning on a weekday. Then she saw him.
Draco Malfoy. In her kitchen. Shirt barely buttoned, hanging open in the front as if modesty were optional in this household now. Pale hair sticking up in every direction, looking freshly ruined by a pair of hands she recognised. He was standing barefoot at the counter like it was his birthright, one hip propped casually against the drawer Ginny kept her spoons in, the espresso machine humming like it had pledged its loyalty to him personally.
She stared.
He did not even have the decency to look startled.
Hermione was at the table wearing her dressing gown, hair a sleepy halo, giggling at absolutely nothing like someone who had slept well. Very well. Disgustingly well. Her toast sat untouched, going cold, butter softening into a lazy golden blur. Ginny's soul screamed.
Ginny froze in the doorway, caught between horror and violence. Hermione giggled again, softer this time, and smiled at him like the world had finally sorted itself out.
Malfoy leaned back a little more, studying his coffee with a sort of intimate attention that suggested the drink had personally confessed something meaningful to him. His torso moved with the slow stretch of someone who had not a single care. The shirt slipped further. Ginny wanted to hex it stiff and buttoned to his collarbone.
Hermione brushed her foot against his leg under the table. Ginny knew because he smirked in that lazy, pleased way that meant he had been adored recently and intended to be adored again soon.
That was the moment Ginny nearly lobbed the coffee pot straight at his arrogant, sleep-satisfied face.
"Right," she said, voice crisp as steel. "No. Cannot do this. Absolutely not."
Hermione blinked. "Ginny, just wait—"
"No," Ginny snapped, already grabbing her jacket from the chair. "I'm out. I am removing myself. You can bloody well find someone else to witness your domestic shag festival."
Malfoy, the menace, did not blink. Did not blush. Did not even pretend to be embarrassed. He raised his cup in a slow, lazy salute, took a sip, and said in the calm, conversational tone of someone discussing the weather, "You could stay at Blaise's."
Ginny stopped so hard her boots squeaked.
"What?" She turned her head like she was checking for hallucinations.
Malfoy repeated himself as if she were slow. "Blaise. The penthouse. Plenty of space. You could have your own floor if you wanted. It would be considerably quieter than here."
The smirk came then. The small one. The dangerous one. The one that said he had been waiting for this opening.
Ginny saw red. "You're suggesting I move in with Blaise Zabini. Your smug, silk-wearing, condescending, probably-owns-a-chair-made-of-guilt best mate."
Hermione stepped in quickly, hands raised as though dealing with a feral creature. "He is actually lovely once you know him. Very thoughtful. Very well organised. A little intense maybe but—"
Ginny barked a laugh. "Intense. You are calling him intense. Hermione, he has a face like he was carved specifically to ruin people. He once flirted with a mirror and the mirror blushed."
Malfoy shrugged, maddeningly unbothered. "He also has soundproof walls."
Hermione's cheeks went pink. Malfoy smirked wider. Ginny nearly grabbed her broom and launched herself through the window.
"Absolutely not," Ginny said again, already yanking her jacket on. "I refuse to live with a man who buys pocket squares for occasions. I refuse to live in a place where the bathroom tiles probably cost more than my entire Hogwarts education. I refuse—"
Malfoy interrupted, tone nearly kind if it weren't so unbearably smug. "Suit yourself. But I will not be rearranging my life for your comfort."
He even winked.
The bastasrd actually winked.
Hermione looked like she was trying not to dissolve into a puddle on the floor.
Ginny muttered something that was ninety percent profanity, shoved the door open, and stormed out into the hall so quickly that she nearly walked straight into the neighbour's cat.
But the worst part was this:
She walked three floors down, sat on the stairwell, head in her hands, and realised the bastard was right.
She needed out.
And Blaise Zabini's stupid, ridiculous, probably-too-shiny penthouse…
might actually be her best option.
She swore long and viciously into her palms.
And then, eventually, she stood and went to find her broom.
Because she would rather take her chances with Blaise Zabini than endure one more morning of soft giggling and shirtless Malfoy in her kitchen.
She was not built for that kind of hell.
A penthouse. In central London. She could almost hear the smugness radiating off the word. A penthouse sounded like marble countertops and pointless art pieces and men who had opinions about wine storage. A penthouse sounded like Malfoy's people. Which meant Zabini's people. Which meant everything she had spent her teenage years refusing to find attractive.
But also: no more thin walls.
No more hearing Hermione's love life like a live broadcast.
No more returning home to the sight of Draco bloody Malfoy shirtless and humming while making coffee.
She did not need luxury. She needed distance. Privacy. Silence. Anything that did not include Malfoy murmuring darling into Hermione's neck before breakfast.
So she had gathered her things. She had packed in a fury. Two jumpers, three shirts, her Harpies jacket, and absolutely none of the over-the-top dresses Hermione had tried to sneak into her bag. She had hauled her trunk down three flights of stairs rather than risk passing Malfoy in the hall again. She had sworn she would rather sleep under a bridge than ask Blaise Zabini for anything.
Three days later, here she was. Dragging her life through London drizzle, soaked to the bone, muttering to herself like a woman on the edge.
The city had not been kind about it.
Cold rain slipped down the collar of her coat and crept along her spine. Her hair had given up and was now staging a riot in every direction.
Every passing lorry took an almost personal pleasure in splashing her. Her trunk wheels jammed in every crack in the pavement, grinding and squeaking like an old man protesting his existence.
She glared up when she reached the building. It wasn't even pretending to be modest. A tall, sleek creature of white brick and glass, towering over the pavement like it had never heard of tenants who hung their knickers on radiators. The kind of place where the lift probably spoke. The kind of place where the windows were cleaned by enchanted ropes rather than human hands.
The doorman was a statue pretending to be a person. Immaculate uniform, face carved into polite neutrality, the sort of posture that came from knowing your job was to ignore everything except security protocols and the existence of God.
Ginny glared right back.
"Right," she muttered under her breath as she yanked her trunk up the step. The trunk groaned. Her back groaned. Her dignity groaned the loudest. "If this is not the stupidest decision I have made in my entire life, I will personally eat my broom."
The building lobby was brighter than Heaven and twice as expensive looking. She trailed muddy water over floors that must have been polished by angels. The lift whispered as it rose, far too intimate for public transportation, as though it knew her secrets already.
By the time the doors opened at the top floor, her nerves were so wound that her teeth buzzed. Her trainers squelched as she stepped into the hallway. A tasteful runner carpet muted her footsteps, insultingly soft, as if to say, here we do not slam doors or shout.
Ginny knocked.
Once. Twice. Hard enough to be considered a threat.
The door swung open like it had been waiting for just that moment.
And there he was.
Blaise Zabini. Looking like sin that had taken finishing school.
He leaned in the doorway with the sort of ease that took practice. Shirt undone at the collar, sleeves rolled to the elbow to show forearms so obnoxiously well-shaped that Ginny forgot her own name for a second. His hair was a dark tumble that suggested hands had been in it recently, although whether his own or someone else's she didn't want to consider.
His eyes, dark and sharp and amused, took her in from wet hair to dripping hem. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of look that undressed and assessed at the same time.
And then he smiled.
The bastard smiled.
"Well," he said, voice warm and velvet-smooth, "if it isn't the illustrious Ginny Weasley on my doorstep. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Pleasure.
He said pleasure like he was tasting it.
Ginny adjusted her grip on her trunk so she wouldn't brandish it like a battering ram.
"Do not," she warned, "start with me."
Blaise's grin widened, lazy and elegant like a lounge cat that knew exactly how attractive it was.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. "But do come in before you drown. The Thames would like its rain back."
She stomped past him, mostly so he could not see her blush. The penthouse hit her like a punch. High ceilings. Warm light. Windows tall enough to make the river look close enough to touch. A long couch. Shelves of books and not just for show. A kitchen that could host a cooking show. Plants everywhere, but alive plants, thriving ones, not like the collection of half-dead herbs she had been maintaining on Hermione's windowsill.
It was beautiful.
She hated how beautiful it was.
She hated how clean it smelled.
She hated how she wanted to drop her trunk and never leave.
And she hated most of all the soft satisfied look on Zabini's face as he watched her take it all in.
He crossed his arms loosely, body relaxed, like he had known this moment would come eventually.
"Tea?" he asked, far too innocent.
Ginny lifted her chin.
"I'm not here to be impressed."
"Oh, I know," he said with a smile that should have been illegal. "That part happens later."
Her eye twitched.
She considered hexing the sofa.
Instead she walked further in and pretended the warmth in her chest was anger and not relief.
Because truthfully:
She had nowhere else to go.
And he knew it.
And she knew he knew it.
And somehow, infuriatingly, that made her want to stay.
The smell of cologne hit her first, then the basil. The combination was infuriating. Sharp, expensive sandalwood curling up like it paid rent, and then that smug green hit of fresh leaves, damp from watering, sitting in a pot on the counter like it thought it ruled the room.
Ginny stopped just inside the doorway and glared at the plant. The plant, of all things. It perched there like a tiny, leafy aristocrat, thriving in conditions that should have killed anything less pretentious.
Of course Blaise Zabini owned a basil plant that looked like it had been raised by the Royal Horticultural Society and given etiquette lessons.
She hated how good it all looked. She hated the neat surfaces and the warm lighting and the way the floor did not squeak underfoot. She hated the view, the sight of London sprawled out below them, glittering as though it had been placed there to be admired.
She hated how easy it was to imagine where she would put her broom, where her jacket would hang, how she would sit in that enormous armchair by the windows with her legs tucked up and a cup of tea.
She hated the simple fact that this was a place meant to be lived in and not just shown off.
She hated that it made her chest ache in a way she did not have the words for.
And most of all, she hated how comfortable Blaise looked standing in the middle of it. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a wine glass, like the penthouse and the city and the quiet all belonged to him and he was simply allowing her to witness it. He looked exactly like himself, and that was the problem. Calm. Self-assured. Smug in the way of someone who had never once considered losing.
He watched her take it all in with a slow tilt of his head. Something between amusement and assessment. A man watching a fuse burn, waiting to see if it would reach the powder.
"Not bad, right?" he said at last.
Ginny dropped her trunk with a thud that sounded like she meant violence. The sound echoed too loudly against floors that had never known a boot scuff. "It'll do."
His mouth curved. A slow thing. A thing with teeth, even when it did not show any. "High praise from a Weasley."
"Do not get excited," she snapped. "I'm only here until I find somewhere actually decent."
He took a sip of wine, eyes glinting over the rim. "We will see."
Her jaw tightened. She could feel her arms already itching to fold across her chest. Living here was going to be a battle. The kind that required steady hands and a strong drink.
And yet.
Merlin help her.
She was already picturing her boots lined by the door.
He gestured with his glass like a man issuing royal decree. "House rules. Do not touch my basil. Do not drink my wine unless you replace it with something I would not be embarrassed to own. And do not move the sofa cushions. They are exactly how I like them."
Ginny stared. "You are joking."
"Dead serious," he said. "House rules are sacred. Break them at your own peril."
She dropped her trunk again, just to be petty. "Fine. My rules then. Leave me alone when I'm in the loo. Do not walk around half-naked. Do not hog the hot water. And if you breathe anywhere near my tea supply, I will hex your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth."
His grin deepened. "Adorable. You think you can boss me around in my own flat."
"Flat I am paying rent for," she shot back, crossing her arms.
"Barely," he said, with obscene casualness. "Malfoy told me what you could afford. You are practically here on scholarship."
Heat rushed up her neck. "I will pay my share. And I will leave the moment I find somewhere better that does not reek of your… scent."
"Perfume," he repeated. Then shook his head as though disappointed in her entire upbringing. "Cologne. But you are welcome to borrow some if you want."
She blinked up at him, fully prepared to commit murder. "The day I borrow your anything, I will swan dive off the balcony."
"Very dramatic," Blaise murmured, leaning back against the counter with the kind of ease that was clearly a lifestyle choice. "I will make a note. Weasley not to be left alone near balcony door."
She made a strangled noise, somewhere between a scream and a prayer.
"You are insufferable," she snapped.
"And yet," he said, swirling his wine in one lazy circle, "you are still standing in my kitchen."
She pointed at him, because words were failing her. "This is temporary."
He nodded agreeably. "Of course. Temporary."
She dragged her trunk across the floor, and the wheels squealed like she was summoning demons. They probably heard it three floors down. Good. Let the rich suffer.
He called after her, voice sweet as honey and twice as sticky. "Your room is the second on the right. Wardrobe is charmed for extra space. Try not to fill it with Cannons jerseys."
She froze. "How do you know I own those."
"Malfoy," he said simply. "He warned me."
Ginny kicked her trunk forward so hard it nearly toppled. "I hope both of you choke on a Quaffle."
"And yet," he repeated, amused, "you are here."
Her new room was beautiful. Annoyingly so. Large bed. Huge window. The river below like a secret kept between city and sky. Soft lighting that made the walls feel warm.
Too warm.
She shut the door behind her and leaned back against it, eyes closed, breath unsteady.
She hated him.
Absolutely hated him.
And yet, when her gaze drifted back to the bed, to the window, to the soft space carved out for her, there was a twisting in her chest she pretended not to understand.
She told herself it was exhaustion.
She told herself it was hunger.
She did not tell herself the truth.
✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦
Ginny had barely managed to shove her trunk into her new room before her stomach made a noise fit to wake the ancestors. It echoed in the quiet space, one long, dramatic wail of protest, as if her own body was personally offended by the poor life choices that had led to this moment. She glared down at her midriff like it had betrayed her in a time of war.
She replayed her day: one slice of toast, three cups of tea, two solid hours of resentment, and a good deal of swearing. None of that counted as sustenance. Annoyance might keep a person upright for a bit, but it did nothing to stop the bodily revolt that now had her clenching her jaw and breathing through her nose like she was in labour.
She trudged down the hall with the air of a martyr approaching the gallows, fully planning on slapping together the saddest sandwich known to wizardkind. Bread. Butter. Possibly a bit of cheese if she could locate anything edible in this posh freezer that probably stored nothing but ethically sourced ice cubes. She had the look of someone ready to chew the table if necessary.
But the kitchen stopped her dead.
Blaise was there.
Cooking. Actually cooking.
Like a scene from some glossy food magazine where the lighting was always perfect and the men always had forearms specifically designed to ruin lives. His sleeves were rolled, exposing smooth, lean muscle and a small scar at the crook of his elbow she had never noticed at Hogwarts. His hair was slightly mussed in that impossibly intentional way. The pan on the stove hissed gently, the smell rising like a spell aimed at her willpower.
Garlic. Pancetta. Pepper. A whisper of something creamy and sinful.
Her stomach responded with a sound that could have rattled crockery.
Blaise heard it, of course he did. He turned his head, dark eyes flicking to her face, then lower, just once, enough to make her feel seen and far too readable.
"Hungry, Weasley?"
His tone was maddening. Warm. Smug. Certain.
She squared her shoulders, attempting dignity. It came out more like sulking. "I was going to make a sandwich. Did not think you knew how to do anything that did not involve giving orders."
His mouth curved. Slow. Unhurried. A cat stretching into a sunbeam. "My mother insisted her son know how to cook. She said a man who cannot feed himself will cling to whoever will feed him. I prefer to be self-sufficient. Sit."
He nodded toward the stool like she was expected to obey as naturally as exhaling.
Ginny bristled immediately. "I did not ask you to feed me."
"You will insult me if you do not," he said, as if this were a universally accepted truth. He tossed the pasta with maddening elegance. "And I am very sensitive. Sit. I am not asking twice."
Her stomach chose that moment to wail again. Loud. Tragic. The sound of a woman betrayed by her own organs.
She sat, arms crossed, attempting to look like she was doing him a favour by staying alive. "This does not mean anything. You are not taking care of me. I do not take orders from you."
"Of course not," he said in that mild tone that suggested he controlled every outcome anyway. He plated the pasta, steam rising in delicate curls. He slid the bowl in front of her like he was presenting a masterpiece. Then, far too casually, "Eat, baby girl."
Her fork froze mid-air.
Her head snapped up so fast she nearly pulled a muscle. "What did you just call me?"
Blaise sat down opposite her with a grace that should have been illegal. He looked entirely relaxed, like he had been waiting specifically for this moment. "Baby girl. It suits you. You have that look. Like you might set something on fire if you do not get fed soon."
"I do not pout," she said, which would have landed better if she had not, in fact, visibly pouted while saying it.
He raised one eyebrow.
Ginny stabbed the pasta like she was avenging a fallen comrade. She fully meant to hate it on principle.
But the first bite ruined her life.
Creamy. Salty. Warm. The flavour blooming through every nerve like someone had written a love poem to her tongue.
She closed her eyes.
To mourn the death of her pride.
He saw.
"Good?" he asked, voice velvet-soft and unbearably knowing.
She chewed like a soldier refusing to admit injury. "It's fine."
He sat back, pleased in a way she wanted to throw something at. "Fine. I should frame that."
"Do not be smug."
"Impossible. Have you met me?"
They ate in silence.
She tried not to watch him. Tried not to notice the way he twirled his fork, the way his wrist moved, the attention he gave to each bite as though food deserved reverence. She tried not to notice how the kitchen light warmed his skin, how it made the gold in his eyes more obvious than it had ever been at school.
She had never realised how quiet he actually was when he was not performing for an audience. How his stillness did not feel cold. How it made space.
"So," she said finally, shovelling pasta with unnecessary force, "are you like this with all your flatmates, or am I a special case?"
Blaise did not even blink. "Special."
Her heart went sideways. She ignored it.
He nodded toward the basil plant, thriving in a little pot beside the window. "Most people never understand its needs. You already look like you might be responsible enough not to kill it."
She blinked. "The basil."
"My pride and joy," he said with a sincerity so smug she nearly snorted. "If you harm it, I will hold a funeral and blame you publicly."
"You're absurd."
"And yet," he said quietly, without triumph, "you are sitting in my kitchen. Eating my food. Looking as though you have always sat there."
It slotted into her chest like a key turning.
She stood too quickly. The stool scraped. "Thank you for lunch. I'll wash up."
"I have it," he said, reaching for her bowl.
Their fingers brushed.
Barely a touch.
And yet her breath stalled like someone had pressed a palm flat to her ribs.
She snatched her hand back. "I'll be in my room. Do not get used to feeding me."
Blaise rinsed the bowls. As if he had expected exactly this.
His voice followed her down the hall, warm and infuriating and far too close to gentle.
"Too late for that, baby girl."
Ginny shut her bedroom door and leaned her spine against it, palms flat, trying to catch her breath.
Her heart was pounding. Her stomach was full of pasta.
And something else entirely had settled under her skin.
Something that felt like the start of trouble.
Real trouble.
The good kind.
✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦
The pasta had made her soft for a while, a pleasant heaviness in her limbs that made even the enormous bed look like a plausible destination. She had unpacked exactly four things before the restlessness set in.
The city shifted outside the window, that slow turn from afternoon to evening that always made her feel like she was missing something important.
She lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She turned onto her side and stared at the wall. She gave up, pushed off the duvet, and stood, already annoyed at herself for needing to move when all her body wanted was to sink.
Barefoot, she slipped into the hallway. The floor was warmer than she had expected, the wood polished smooth enough that her toes made no sound at all. The penthouse revealed itself in strips and glimpses, corners designed to look casual and definitely not casual at all.
A low table with a bowl that looked like it had never held fruit. A painting whose frame alone could have paid two months of her rent. A rug that would have eaten a lesser person whole.
She pushed open a door and found the library. It belonged in a magazine. Floor to ceiling shelves. Leather spines that did not have dust on them. That annoyed her. Either he read them or he paid someone to caress them with a cloth. Neither option made her feel less prickly.
There was a ladder on rails, blatantly there to be glided along by someone tall and smug. She ran a finger along the spines anyway and told herself she did not care that the books were arranged by a system that had taste.
The next room was a lounge that had no business in an ordinary life. A pool table with a felt so pristine she felt rude breathing near it. A bar that would have embarrassed several reputable establishments. Cut glass. Decanters with amber catching the light. Bottles with labels in French that looked like they might charge her for looking.
She muttered under her breath on principle. Of course. Why not. Why not have a miniature empire in the sky where even the billiard balls looked expensive and the glasses looked like they had been hand carved by patient ghosts.
She opened guest rooms. All perfect. Beds smoothed within an inch. Towels folded like swans. No one had ever slept in them. The thought made her chest go tight for a second in a way she could not name. There was a balcony with a view so clean and wide that her knees nearly went. The river wore a strip of pewter, the bridges strung like charms on a chain. A bathroom with marble counters and gold taps that made her roll her eyes so hard it actually hurt.
She was just about to go back for her book and decide to stay allergic to all this grandeur when she heard it. A faint thud. A steady rhythm. The sound of a machine and a body keeping time. Curiosity pricked at the base of her neck. She followed it through the gloom of the corridor, hand on the wall to keep from stubbing a toe. The sound grew clearer, that clean mechanical beat underlaid with breath.
She eased the next door open with the caution of a thief.
It was a gym.
Her mouth went dry in one clean movement. She knew those shoulders. She knew that back. She had known them in a vague way at Hogwarts and apparently that knowledge had been waiting for a moment like this to wake and bite.
Blaise ran on the treadmill with a focus that cut the room in half.
Shirt gone. Skin damp with sweat. The electric lights caught on him and turned the shape of him into something she could not pretend to ignore.
His legs ate the belt, long and exact in their rhythm. His chest rose and fell, steady, a metronome set to a tempo that did not forgive weakness. A line of sweat rolled from his throat to the centre of his chest and kept going, and Ginny's life flashed in front of her eyes with a gesture so simple that she had to put her hand to the doorframe to feel something solid.
She ducked back behind the frame as if she had been shot at. Heart pounding. Lungs behaving like she had run a mile. She could leave. She could back away with dignity. She could return to her room and never speak of this to anyone.
She did not move.
She stayed tucked against the edge of the doorway with one eye on the mirror that ran along the far wall. The angle was cruel and perfect.
She could see him in reflection as clearly as if she stood at the foot of the machine. The belt kept its steady hum. His body kept its own slow flood.
Every movement did something to her. Every bead of sweat made her thighs press just that little bit closer together. Every shift under skin was an argument that made sense to parts of her that did not care about sense.
She swallowed. The sound felt loud in her own ears. Her breath came shallow and unhelpful. Heat unscrolled under her skin like a banner that read well then.
Hate him, she told herself. Hate him. Remember that you hate him.
Her body disagreed with a force that was frankly rude.
Blaise adjusted the speed with a quick jab of a finger. The belt ticked up and he lengthened out into it as if it were nothing. The movement changed the line of his shoulders and the pull of his abdomen.
The overhead light threaded along the long plane of his back. The sound of his breath deepened but did not break. He ran like a man who enjoyed the work. That was galling somehow. The idea that he knew this feeling, the burn and the push and the way a body sings quietly when it is used properly.
She felt something low and insistent answer to that from inside her. A tug. A pulse. An awareness that made her legs shift. She licked her lips and wished she had not. Her mouth felt too present.
She should leave.
She did not leave.
He reached for a water bottle without breaking stride. Tilted his head. Drank. Water slid from the corner of his mouth and tracked along his jaw. He wiped it away with the back of his wrist. Her attention followed the movement like it had been leashed.
Her face was hot now. Heat at her cheeks and heat lower, and the lower heat was the kind that did not care about shame. Her body felt like a live wire in a quiet room. Mortification flared and did not help. She had become someone who hid in doorways to watch a man she claimed to despise run.
He slowed the belt.
Her breath seized because the timing felt personal, though it could not possibly have been. He stepped off with the balance of someone who knows the language of his own body.
He reached for a towel. Rubbed it over his chest with careless thoroughness. The towel dragged across skin and her hands tightened at her sides as if they had an opinion about who should have been doing that. He wiped the back of his neck. He set the towel aside. He turned his head toward the glass to check a detail on the control screen.
His eyes met hers in the mirror.
Heat slammed into her cheeks in a great brave flood. Her instinct was to flee. Her body did not obey. She kept very still, as if movement would translate to guilt, as if he would not already know.
He pressed a button and the machine went dead. The hum stopped. The silence roared in its place.
He did not look away from the mirror. The corner of his mouth moved, slow as a private joke. He reached for the towel again and dragged it once across his sternum as if there were choreography to be completed.
"Enjoying the show?"
The sound of it went straight through her spine like a spell. Calm. Teasing. A little cruel. A little warm. He asked the question like he already knew the answer and did not care if she lied.
She considered pretending she had only been looking for the loo. That she had got lost. That she had been investigating the source of an alarming noise and had accidentally seen a sight no one should be forced to see without warning.
None of it would have worked. Not with the colour in her face and the way her breath still came short and the way her body throbbed as if he had put his hands on her when he had not.
She stepped properly into the doorway, chin up because dying bravely had a certain appeal. "It is a gym. You run. I am not exactly filing a report."
He smiled in the glass, and the mirror made it look slant and private. "You are blushing."
"It is warm," she lied, and knew how it sounded.
He turned then. Slowly, as if granting an audience. He did not bother with the towel yet. He stood there barefoot on the mat, sweat shining along the cut of him, hair damp and darker at the temples. Everything inside her went too loud.
His gaze took her in with lazy attention. Bare feet. Bare calves. The hem of her shorts. The old Harpies shirt that hung off one shoulder. He did not drag his eyes. He placed them. Here. Then there. Then back to her face. He made her feel catalogued and seen in an order that made no sense outside of a body.
"Care for a tour?" he asked. "You seem to like exploring."
She tried to scoff. It came out thin. "I was bored."
"And thirsty," he said, reaching for the bottle. He walked toward her with the slow prowl of someone who knew exactly what his body did to other people's attention. He stopped an easy arm's length away and offered the water.
She took it because her mouth was dry and because refusing would have been a performance she did not have the strength for.
The bottle was cold. Her fingers brushed his in the handover. The zap that ran up her wrist was not theatrical. She tilted her head and drank. The plastic clicked under her grip. Water hit her tongue and made her realise how parched she had been.
When she lowered the bottle he was still there. He looked at her mouth like it was a sentence he planned to finish later.
"Better," he said.
His voice had changed.
She made herself hand the bottle back as if it were a civilised exchange and not an admission. "I did not realise you had a gym in your house. What else is hidden in here. A swimming pool. A dragon. A small opera company you feed truffles."
He laughed. It lived low, in the place you feel through your own ribs when you stand too close. "No dragon. Yet. Opera companies are very loud. But the house does have talents. The steam room is tolerable. The weights are not entirely ornamental. The treadmill is a loyal friend."
"I see that," she said, and then wished she had picked any other line.
He lifted the towel and finally dragged it down the length of his front in a way that should have been illegal. She felt heat bite the back of her knees. He ran it over his shoulders, then threw it lightly onto a bench. He took a step closer. Not enough to crowd. Enough to smell the clean salt of his skin under the soap and the faint, unfair cologne.
"Do you run," he asked. Not the polite version. The interested one.
"Not unless something is chasing me," she said, fighting to keep her voice even. "Or unless I am chasing a Quaffle. Brooms were invented so we do not have to behave like Muggles on little moving strips."
He made a soft noise in his throat. "You would fly in here if you could."
"I would fly in the shower if I could," she said, and then wanted to bite her tongue. "That is not the point."
"What is the point."
"That this is ridiculous," she said, which was not an answer. "You are ridiculous. This place is ridiculous. And you should wear a shirt if you insist on running like that. It is distracting."
"Distracting for whom," he asked, lazily bright.
She refused to look away. "For your ego. Obviously."
"Of course," he said, and the agreement did nothing to dim the satisfaction in his eyes. He took another small step that brought him within touching distance.
He reached past her shoulder to the wall and flicked a switch. Soft lights along the baseboards woke in a narrow line and filled the room with a lower, warmer glow. It turned sweat to gold and made the air feel like something that belonged to evening rather than the harsh glare of a gym.
The movement had brushed his chest close enough to the fabric of her shirt that the heat of him crossed the small gap without permission. Every inch of her skin stood at attention.
"Better," he said again, and there was something wrong with how the word sat in her.
She needed to leave. She needed to save what tatters of her dignity still clung to her.
He leaned one shoulder against the wall with the casual authority of a man who could lean anywhere and make it a throne. "I will not tell if you will not," he said, very mild. "About the show."
She narrowed her eyes. "I was not watching."
"Of course not," he said gravely. "You were inspecting the treadmill belt for loose threads. I respect a woman who cares about safety."
Her lips twitched. It was terrible that he could make that happen in this room with his skin still damp and her senses still lit.
He reached again, slower, to the shelf beside the door. He took down a clean towel and held it out. Not to himself. To her.
"For your hands," he said. "They look cold."
They did not. They looked fine. She took the towel anyway because rejecting comfort had never, in practice, made anyone stronger. The towel was warm from the cupboard. She pressed it between her fingers as if that had been her plan all along.
"Thank you," she said, which shocked them both.
"You are welcome," he said gently, which was somehow worse than when he was cruel.
He stood up from the wall and walked past her to the control panel. The scent of him travelled with him, salt and soap and a tired sweetness that belonged to effort rather than sugar. He tapped something on the screen, then stopped the belt entirely. Silence fell heavy and immediate.
He turned back. The smirk was gone. The smile was not yet there. For a beat his face looked unguarded in the way of his mornings. No, not unguarded. Decided. He had decided something and she would not yet be allowed to know what.
"You can stay," he said, as if they were discussing the weather. "I am going to stretch."
The words should have been innocent. They were not. They conjured a list of images she did not have the bandwidth to survive. She opened her mouth to make a cutting remark and nothing came out.
He lowered himself to the mat with a grace that should have been criminalised. He folded one foot in and reached for the other with an ease that spoke of discipline and practice and a body that knew its own angles.
The stretch pulled a long line along his side that made her mouth flood. He breathed slowly through it, eyes closing for a second as his palm slid along his calf. When he switched legs she had to look away and count numbers in her head to remember how to move in a straight line.
She stood there with the towel clenched in both fists, stubbornly present, as if leaving would be an admission carved into law. He bent forward, forearms flat on the floor, and the muscles across his shoulders shifted like a school of fish under the surface. He turned his head suddenly and met her eyes from the mat like that had been the point all along.
"Your face is still red," he observed, calm as a physician.
"It is this lighting," she said, and then, because she could not help herself, "and your complete absence of shame."
"My favourite qualities," he said.
He pushed up to standing in one smooth rise and moved close enough that her breath had to make room for his. He reached out and for one wild second she thought he was going to touch her. He did not. He reached past her to the door and flicked the switch again. The lights went softer still. The room held them like a pocket.
He looked down at her. Not a warning. Not a plea. Something more patient and more dangerous than either.
"I am going to shower," he said. "You will be starving again in an hour. I am making dinner."
"I am fully capable of feeding myself," she said, gripping the towel so hard it left a pattern in her palms.
"I know," he said. "You will still let me."
She had nothing for that. Not a joke. Not a threat. Not disbelief. Her body answered yes in its own treacherous language.
He smiled, finally. The soft one. The one that refused to be smug even when it was made of it. He stepped back and turned, collected the towel with casual efficiency, and walked toward the door on the opposite side of the room that must have led to the shower. He did not look back. He did not need to. He knew she would.
She did.
Water started in the next room with a hiss that felt like a secret let out of a bag. She stood under the quiet hum of the gym lights and tried to remember what she had been like before she had walked into this room. The towel smelled of clean linen and him. She pressed it to her mouth for one breath and then lowered it as if she had not.
She left before the water could change from noise to invitation. She walked quickly down the corridor with the smile still sitting at the back of her ribs where she could not shake it. Her bare feet carried her past the library and the bar and the plants that looked like they knew she had been misbehaving.
In her room she shut the door more gently than she had meant to. The river made its old, patient hush against the glass. She leaned back against the wood the way she had earlier and found that her pulse had not yet slowed.
She dropped the towel on the bed and stared at it as if it might confess something. She went to the window and pressed her forehead to the cool pane. The city flashed and breathed and carried on. Buses sighed on the bridge. A late siren tore itself short and died away. Somewhere, people were eating dinner and not having crises.
She touched her throat where she thought his eyes had rested. She touched her mouth where the bottle had met it after his. The places felt ordinary and charged at once. Her thighs had not forgiven her for everything she had asked them to hold steady through.
She peeled off her shirt, stood in the half light with the window making her skin a pale suggestion, and told herself very firmly that she would not go looking for him again tonight. She would sleep. She would keep her hands to herself. She would wake up in the morning and remember that she had come here for quiet.
Under her breath she said it aloud. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.
From somewhere down the hall she heard the shower stop. Then the sound of a door. Then his low voice carried a single note through the long room, only the rhythm of a hum, not a word at all, and her body answered as if it had been called.
She closed her eyes and cursed him, and herself, and the basil, and the whole glittering city that had no idea she was already drowning and had liked the first mouthful of salt.