There’s a point after the rule breaks where you pretend you still have options.
You tell yourself you’re just delaying. Just not ready. Just giving it one more minute before you fix it, before you reset, before you make it clean again.
But time doesn’t pause for intentions.
It only records what you let happen.
And every minute after the breach is no longer an accident.
I hear him before I see him. Three sharp knocks, spaced like a pattern.
Patrick’s knock. Like he’s announcing not just himself, but his right to be here.
It’s 9:17.
Later than usual, but not by much. Not enough to call out.
Just enough to notice.
I wait a beat before opening the door. Just long enough to pretend I was doing something else, like I hadn’t been sitting on the couch, laptop untouched, waiting.
He’s in that same maroon hoodie. The one that’s too big in the sleeves but always falls perfectly across his chest. His curls are damp again. His duffel bag slung over one shoulder, phone in one hand, takeout bag in the other.
He lifts it slightly. “I brought Thai.”
I nod. Step aside. “You’re late.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep being late.”
Patrick shrugs, kicks his shoes off at the door. “You miss me or something?”
He says it like a joke. Like he didn’t stay in my bed seven days ago and wreck the whole foundation we built.
I don’t answer. Just close the door behind him and lock it.
He heads toward the kitchen like it’s muscle memory.
And it is.
That’s what scares me.
Patrick walks into the kitchen and stops short.
“Damn,” he says, lifting the lid on the pan like it’s illegal. “This smells… like effort.”
I smirk without looking up. “Don’t touch the lid.”
“Too late. Already did. Is this—wait.” He leans in, sniffs theatrically. “Chicken Marsala? Bro. What is this? An anniversary?”
“It’s dinner,” I say, stirring gently. “You still eat food, right?”
“Sure, but usually it comes in a greasy box and has ranch as a sidekick.”
He opens a cabinet he has no business opening, grabs two plates like he’s earned the right to be useful, and starts setting the tiny kitchen table without being asked.
“You even made rice,” he says, nodding toward the pot on the back burner. “Who are you right now?”
“It was just something I had the stuff for.”
“You had the stuff for Chicken Marsala just… laying around?”
I shrug, but it’s half-committed. “It’s not that fancy.”
Patrick grins and tilts his head. “Feels like a date.”
He says it with a smirk, but he’s watching me. Closely.
I roll my eyes, but something in my stomach flips.
“It’s not.”
He slides into the chair across from mine, eyes still on me. “Okay.”
One word. No fight. No teasing. Just… okay.
And it bugs me how relieved I am by that.
Because he’s not wrong. This isn’t pizza and wings. It’s not dumplings from that place by the train station. This is… cooked. Thought out. Slightly plated. There’s even a candle on the table, which I light out of habit when I’m home alone but now just feels like evidence.
I pour water into two glasses and sit down. He digs in like it’s nothing. Like I didn’t just cross some invisible line by giving a shit about the meal.
“Damn,” he says after the first bite. “Okay, chef. Look at you.”
I shrug again, but this time it’s defensive. “It’s just chicken.”
He points his fork at me. “Don’t diminish yourself like that. This is very date-coded.”
“Patrick.”
“What?”
I look down at my plate. “Just… eat.”
He does. Quietly. Happily. And I should be fine with that.
But all I can think is:
When did Sunday nights start feeling like this?
Dinner ends with full plates scraped clean and two glasses of water half-drunk. Patrick leans back with a dramatic sigh, rubbing his stomach like a cartoon character.
“If I fail my pharmacology quiz tomorrow, I’m blaming the food coma.”
“If you fail, it’ll be because you didn’t study,” I shoot back, collecting the plates. “Marsala doesn’t sabotage. You do that all on your own.”
He grins and follows me into the kitchen. “Okay, professor. Drag me while I help with the dishes.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” He grabs the sponge like it’s a challenge. “Let me be domestic.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t know where anything goes.”
“That’s never stopped me before.”
We settle into a rhythm without planning it. I rinse, he soaps. He stacks the bowls wrong, and I fix them without saying anything. His sleeve gets wet, and he mutters something under his breath I pretend not to hear.
It’s easy. Too easy.
Then, in the middle of drying a pan, he says it.
“I broke the rules last week.”
I pause, dish towel in hand.
He keeps his eyes on the pot. “Staying past seven. Touching you like that. I know we had… y’know. Guidelines. And I didn’t mean to mess things up. It just sort of… happened.”
I set the towel down. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Maybe not. But I wanted to.”
He finally looks at me, and his face isn’t teasing. It’s soft. Honest. His mouth tilts like he’s waiting for me to hit him with a snarky one-liner, but I don’t.
“I’m sorry if I threw things off,” he adds. “I know you like your routines.”
I nod. Slow. “You did.”
He blinks, caught. “Oh.”
“But…” I take a breath. “It wasn’t bad. Just… surprising.”
Patrick leans against the counter, arms folded loosely now. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And that’s the truth. I wasn’t mad.
I wasn’t even disappointed.
Just thrown.
Like someone shifted the furniture in a room I walk through every day.
“I don’t want to make this weird,” he says.
“It’s already weird,” I reply, but it comes out softer than I mean it to.
He smiles at that. Not cocky. Just… relieved.
“You want me to go?” he asks, not moving.
“No,” I say, without thinking.
Then: “Not yet.”
He nods. Picks the sponge back up. “Okay.”
And we go back to the dishes like nothing happened.
But it did.
The bathroom’s small, barely enough room for two people to brush their teeth without elbowing each other, but somehow Patrick makes it feel like a stage.
He’s bent over the sink, rinsing his mouth, hair messy from the steam of the dishwater. His t-shirt rides up just enough to expose a strip of skin above the waistband of his joggers.
I step in behind him. Close enough that our hips brush.
He glances up at me in the mirror. Smirks.
“You good?”
Instead of answering, I slide my hands over his waist. Let them settle there. Familiar terrain. Then lower. Palms curving around the shape of him. Firm. Warm.
He grins around his toothbrush. “You feeling me up now?”
I squeeze—not rough, but deliberate.
“I’ve been feeling you up. You’re just slow.”
He spits, rinses, but doesn’t move. Lets me hold him like that, thumbs grazing over the hem of his boxers.
“You like it,” I say.
Patrick shrugs, but it’s all show. “I’m not complaining.”
I hook a finger just under the waistband and tug slightly.
He leans back into me, hips shifting like a dare.
“Damn,” he murmurs. “You’re real hands-on tonight.”
I tilt my head to his ear. “Come with me.”
His smile twitches wider. He doesn’t ask where. He knows.
I guide him backward, out of the bathroom, down the short hall to my bedroom. He walks slow on purpose, keeping his back to me, swaying his hips like he knows exactly what I’m looking at.
And he’s right.
He stops at the edge of the bed and waits. Not a word. Just expectation in the way he holds himself.
I drop to my knees behind him.
Pull his joggers down—slow—and let them fall to the floor.
He glances back, breath hitching. “Oh.”
Yeah.
Oh.
Patrick doesn’t move.
Doesn’t turn around.
He just stands there, ass bared, back arched like he knows what I’m about to do and wants to make it easier for me.
And I don’t hesitate.
I press my hands to the backs of his thighs, then glide them up slowly—trailing the curve of muscle, the dip where his ass meets his lower back. He’s warm, all over. The kind of heat that feels alive. My fingers dig in, spreading him apart with a deliberate pull.
Patrick inhales—not sharp, but shallow. Controlled. Like he’s trying not to react too quickly. Like he wants to savor it.