VOLUME I ACT I CHAPTER TWO The New Girl in His House (Part Two)
VOLUME I
ACT I
CHAPTER TWO
The New Girl in His House
(Part Two)
They say love can’t be planned.
But they’re wrong.
You can plant it. Water it. Shape it.
You can build a whole life around someone… long before they ever realize they’re standing in it.
And when they finally do, it feels like fate.
But it’s not fate.
It’s design.
A few weeks after the hoodie incident with Emily, something shifted.
He started texting me.
Not often. Not romantic.
Just little things.
"Hey, do you know if Mom needs milk?"
"Did my brother finish that project?"
"What’s that song you were humming the other day?"
Small. Insignificant. But they meant everything.
I never let the texts sit unanswered.
I replied quickly, with just the right mix of casual and charming.
I never double-texted. Never got too excited.
But each one felt like a new thread tying us together.
Then, one Friday evening, his mom asked me a question that made my heart stop.
“Honey, do you want to stay over this weekend? Since both boys are home, I thought it’d be nice.”
I froze.
“Like… stay here?”
She nodded. “I already asked your mom. She said yes. You’re practically family anyway.”
Family.
I smiled like I hadn’t already rehearsed this exact fantasy.
“Sure. That sounds fun.”
That night, I lay on the guest bed upstairs, barely able to breathe.
I was under his roof.
Sleeping less than twenty feet from his room.
Breathing the same air. Hearing the creaks of the floorboards when he walked to the bathroom.
At 11:42 PM, I heard his door open.
I lay still.
Footsteps padded past my door.
Then down the stairs.
Curiosity, no, obsession, took hold.
I waited five minutes. Then got up.
I found him in the kitchen, bent over a bowl of cereal, shirtless, phone in hand, sleepy-eyed.
He looked up and smiled. “Can’t sleep?”
I shook my head. “Too much hot chocolate.”
He pointed at the cereal. “This always helps.”
I opened the fridge and poured myself a glass of water just to have something to hold.
He leaned against the counter, watching me.
“You’re really close with my family,” he said after a beat.
I shrugged. “They’re good people.”
He tilted his head. “They love you.”
I smiled down at my water. “I love them too.”
He stared at me for a long second. Then said softly:
“I’m glad you’re here this weekend.”
We stood there in silence for a while.
The air was thick. Not awkward.
Just… dense.
Loaded.
I glanced at him, at the way the soft kitchen light hit his collarbone.
The sleepy squint in his eyes.
The faint scar on his left shoulder I hadn’t noticed before.
He caught me staring and smiled, slow, teasing.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You were looking at me like I said something profound.”
“You’re shirtless,” I said.
He laughed. “You’re not wrong.”
Then he did something I didn’t expect.
He stepped closer.
Not close-close.
But closer.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
“You’ve grown up.”
My pulse jumped.
“Well… that tends to happen.”
He laughed again, quiet, warm.
Then reached forward,
and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear.
It wasn’t flirtatious.
Not fully.
But it wasn’t nothing.
I couldn’t sleep after that.
I lay on the guest bed, replaying the moment again and again.
The closeness. The look. The touch.
That tiny gesture, the hair behind the ear, felt like a neon sign.
Like the first real crack in the wall between us.
I whispered into my pillow:
He’s starting to see me.
The next morning, I woke up early to help make breakfast.
He came downstairs last, hoodie on, yawning, scratching his neck.
“Morning,” he mumbled to no one in particular.
But then he looked at me.
And smiled.
“Morning.”
Just for me.
Later that day, we all watched a movie together.
Emily showed up halfway through.
Uninvited.
She sat next to him and draped her legs over his lap like she’d done it a thousand times.
He didn’t push her away.
But he didn’t look comfortable, either.
I sat on the arm of the couch, pretending not to watch.
Pretending not to care.
But inside, I was building walls. Reinforcing strategy. Re-centering the game.
This wasn’t about getting jealous.
This was about winning.
And Emily didn’t have a plan.
I did.
That evening, after Emily left and his brother went upstairs, I stayed back to help clean.
He came into the kitchen, carrying two mugs.
“I think we’re out of hot chocolate,” he said.
I checked the cabinet. “There’s one left.”
He handed me a mug.
“You take it.”
I stared at him.
“You sure?”
He smiled. “Yeah. You deserve it more.”
We sat at the kitchen table in silence.
Steam curled from my cup.
He sipped water instead.
Then he spoke.
“Aria and I were together for three years.”
I blinked.
He’d never talked about her before. Not to me.
“She broke up with me after graduation. Said I was ‘too comfortable.’ That I stopped trying. That I made love feel predictable.”
His eyes stared into nothing.
“She was the first girl I ever imagined marrying.”
My chest tightened.
“But the weirdest part?” he added.
“What?”
“I don’t miss her anymore.”
He looked at me. Really looked at me.
“I don’t think I ever really knew her.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I didn’t say anything.
I just reached forward and touched his wrist.
His eyes dropped to my hand.
He didn’t move away.
That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about his words.
About Aria. About Emily.
About the version of me that he was finally starting to see.
And I realized something:
He had been in love before.
But he had never been hunted before.
Not like this.
Not by someone who had already memorized the map to his heart,
and was still patient enough to walk it barefoot.
End of Chapter 2