“Have you really not had sex in a year?”

The words startled Blake, who’d been lingering in the euphoria that followed a great orgasm. Once they’d come, they both went to their respective rooms to clean up and change. Or in Blake’s case, get dressed. But by some sort of unspoken agreement, they’d come right back out onto the couch and flipped channels until they found a movie they could agree on. It was some comedy that Blake couldn’t remember the name of, but it was entertaining enough that she relaxed next to Gavin and let herself get wrapped up in it. Until his words crashed in on her moment. “Yeah. Maybe a little longer actually.” She turned her head and smiled at him. “I don’t exactly keep a calendar of my sexcapades.”

He looked at her thoughtfully before releasing a “Hmm” and then turned back to the TV.

Blake sat up straighter. “You sound surprised.”

“I am,” Gavin said simply as he continued watching the movie.

“Why?”

Gavin looked at her like she’d lost her mind. It was a look she was actually fairly used to, but she didn’t necessarily like it coming from him, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because he’d seen her naked. “Are you serious? You offered to show me your boobs the first day I moved in. And then you do your”—Gavin flailed his hand toward the kitchen—“towel routine. Not to mention the fact that you’ve been coming on to me since the day we met.”

Blake tilted her head and thought about what he’d said. She could definitely see where he was coming from. Blake did tend to blurt out whatever she was thinking. It just so happened that whenever she was around Gavin, she thought about sex. “Okay, I get where I may have given off a bit of a ho-ish vibe.”

Gavin whipped toward her. “Hey, I didn’t mean it as an insult. You just seem very…open-minded. It wasn’t a diss, I swear.”

“Well, I didn’t take it as an insult until you started defending yourself.”

Gavin opened and closed his mouth a few times before sighing. “I can’t tell whether you’re fucking with me or not.”

Blake turned back to the movie. “I’m not sure either,” she said. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and even Blake could tell it was awkward. But she didn’t want that between them, so she did what she rarely ever did with anyone. She decided to talk about something personal to her. “I am pretty open-minded, but not in the way you probably meant it. My brain is open in the sense that everything in there comes spilling out at one point or another. So when I’m attracted to someone, I can’t process it all internally. It just sort of…seeps out. But the truth is, I’m not attracted to people all that much. I mean, I can objectively see that someone is attractive, but I don’t feel it often. So when it happens, I tend to come on a little strong.”

Studying her, Gavin was silent for a beat before he nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Really?” she asked dryly. She wasn’t told she made sense all that often.

Gavin shrugged. “Sure.” His attention drifted back to the TV, but Blake’s eyes stayed on him a bit longer. His ability to roll with her quirks was…kind of endearing. Though it also made her wonder if he was even crazier than she was.

Eventually, she became absorbed in the movie again. “This movie is hilarious.”

Gavin side-eyed her. “This is a horror movie.”

“No way,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” Gavin said slowly as if that would help it sink in or something. “There have been, like, five gory deaths since we turned it on. And a whole bunch of people died in the very beginning because their plane exploded.”

“But they die in such funny ways.”

“How is people dying funny?”

“It’s not funny when real people die.” She gestured at the screen. “Only when these people die.”

Gavin laughed. “Why?”

“Take the decapitated guy, for example. The way his head just rolled along the ground afterward, it’s funny. And everyone’s overacting like it’s a spoof or something.”

“I don’t think the director’s intention was for the audience to find someone getting their head sliced off humorous.”

“Well, that was his mistake.”

Gavin laughed again, louder this time.

“See,” Blake said. “You find it funny too.”

“No, I find you funny.” He tapped her leg with his hand. “I’d love to see what you’d actually consider a horror movie.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been scared by a movie,” she replied. “The fact that it’s not real always keeps me from getting freaked out by anything.”

“Oh man, I may have to test that theory. I love scary movies.”

Blake shrugged. “Do your worst.”

“I will. I’m already running through my mental catalog of horror flicks to scare you with. I bet I can find some that will make you want to run and hide in your closet,” he said with a chuckle.

At that moment, Blake was glad Gavin was still staring at the screen. It meant he didn’t see the way her entire body tensed, the sweat that seemed to pop up out of nowhere, the shaking of her hands. She didn’t want to do this here, with him sitting mere inches away. Jumping up, Blake started toward her room. “This was fun, but I’m exhausted. Night, Gavin.” She hated the wobble in her voice, the rigidity of her gait as she walked as slowly as she dared toward her room.

“Oh, um, night,” she heard Gavin call after her. He probably thought she was a total whackjob, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about that at the moment.

She slammed her bedroom door a little harder than she’d meant to and sagged against it. Closing her eyes, she tried to slow her breathing. The panic felt like it was trying to claw its way out of her skin even though she was desperately trying to beat it back. Her eyes flew open, and she looked to the large window in her bedroom that opened onto the fire escape. Blake ran over to it, threw it open, and climbed outside.

Rolling up into a tiny ball, Blake rocked back and forth on the fire escape, the movement settling her nerves as fresh, open air flowed around her. The street below her was bustling and well-lit. She wasn’t alone. It wasn’t dark. She was okay. Everything would be okay.

Blake had no idea how long it took her to calm down enough to come back inside the apartment. She was too exhausted to care about the time or anything else besides making sure all her lights were on. Her entire body felt leaden when she climbed into bed, and she fell asleep almost immediately.

Which was a mistake, because really, after all these years, she should’ve known what would happen next.

* * *

Gavin bolted up in bed, unsure at first of what had woken him. There were a few silent seconds before he heard a noise again. No, not a noise. A scream. He sprang out of bed and ran to Blake’s room. He was surprised but thankful that her door was unlocked as he barged through it.

The sight before him paralyzed him for a moment. Blake was writhing around in her bed, muttering words that were unintelligible but in a tone easy to identify. Fear. Gavin forced himself to move, letting one knee rest on the bed as he gripped her shoulders with his hands, firmly but not painfully. “Blake, wake up.”

She thrashed against his hold, so he gave her a gentle shake. “Blake. You’re having a nightmare. Wake up.”

The shake caused her to jolt as if she’d literally just come back into herself. Her eyes flew open, and she scurried up toward the headboard, pulling out of his reach. She stared at him with wild, terrified eyes as she hugged her knees to her chest.

Gavin held out a placating hand. “Hey, it’s okay. I was just trying to wake you up. You were having some kind of nightmare.”

She looked at him for a few moments longer. She was scaring the ever-loving fuck out of him, and he needed her to talk to him before he started to panic.

“Get out.”

Okay, so maybe he should’ve been more specific when he wished for her to speak to him. Because those words weren’t exactly comforting. “Blake—”

“I need you to get out of my room. Right now.” Her voice was steady despite the fact that her body was shaking. But it had an eerie calmness that gave him the impression she had a very loose grip on her emotions.

It made the thought of leaving her alone completely unappealing. “I can stay. I don’t mind. Do you want to talk ab—”

She leaped out of bed and marched over to the door, holding it open for him in a clear invitation for him to see himself out.

Gavin looked at her for a few seconds before moving. She looked raw in a way that made his chest ache for her, but she seemed to know what she wanted, and that was for him to make tracks out of her room. The only thing he could do was respect her privacy. But before he could leave, he needed to try again. “If you need anything.”

“I won’t.”

Nodding, Gavin walked out of her room, but her voice stopped him before he got more than four feet away.

“Gavin,” she said. He turned to face her, and she continued, “I’m not going to want to talk about this tomorrow either.”

“Gotcha,” he replied before making his way back to his bedroom. He looked at the clock as he climbed into bed. Two a.m. He felt wired, which made it unlikely that he’d fall back asleep—especially when he could hear the MacGyver theme playing through the wall—but there wasn’t anything else to do but try. His mind wandered as he thought about Blake and all the things he didn’t know about her. Logically, he knew that tons of people had nightmares. But Gavin had never seen anyone have one, much less one like that. And he knew that if watching it had been that scary, whatever she’d actually been dreaming about must have been terrifying.

Gavin did eventually doze off again, but it was the type of unfulfilling sleep that made his head feel heavy and his body slow. He had a long day in front of him, and the last thing he needed to deal with was feeling like a zombie, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. After taking a quick shower and dressing in a pair of gray slacks and a red polo, Gavin went into the kitchen to find a pot of coffee freshly brewed, but no Blake. He took his time doctoring up his coffee the way he liked it, hoping she’d make an appearance, but she never did. Eventually he had to leave or else he’d be late for work. He spared a look toward her room—and at her closed door—before grabbing his keys and leaving the apartment. His mind continued to wander to unpleasant things on his drive to work.

When Gavin had told his parents he wanted to major in photography when he was a freshman, they’d laughed off the suggestion and told him to get real and grow up. So he’d gone into prelaw like they’d decided for him—and nearly flunked out of school his first semester. It was then that they’d gotten “real” and agreed to let him change his major. But when he’d brought up photography again, he’d received stern glares and was told he could pick something in business. He’d chosen marketing because it sounded the least brutal, and while his grades had improved, his mood nosedived. He hated everything about school for the first two years. Then something happened between his sophomore and junior years.

Gavin grew a backbone.

Well, a small one anyway. He went into school on the first day and changed his major to photography. He hadn’t told his parents about the switch, but what was the worst they could do once the semester was already underway?

He found out the answer to that midway through the semester when his parents had received his interim grades. Instead of calling to yell at him, his father had shown up in his three-piece suit to confront him outside of his residence hall. But Gavin had stood his ground. He wanted to major in photography, and if his parents didn’t like it, that was too damn bad.

His father had agreed that it was too damn bad…for Gavin. Because no way in hell was he going to pay for his son to get some “pansy-ass degree” that would leave him “panhandling to earn a living.”

So it was there, in front of a crowd of Gavin’s peers, that his father had taken Gavin’s chance at finishing his education away from him. The semester had been paid, but that was it. Gavin would receive nothing else from his parents until he “came to his senses.”

That had been four years ago, and while Gavin still talked to his parents from time to time, their stance hadn’t changed. When he was ready to become a productive member of society, they would be there to help him. But they got to decide what “productive” meant, and evidently, Gavin still didn’t qualify. So Gavin had been busting his ass to prove that he could make something of himself without their help. But so far, all that had gotten him was work at a portrait studio that specialized in school pictures, which required him to have another job so he could make ends meet.

Gavin parked as close as he could get to the small studio and then hurried inside. They needed to load the equipment and get to a middle school that was about thirty minutes away as quickly as possible. He was mostly quiet through the entire process, including the unloading and setup once they arrived.

“You okay, man?” Anton, a fellow photographer, asked.

“Yeah. Just a long night.”

“I hear ya. I was out last night, buying this sexy-as-hell woman drinks, only for her to tell me she doesn’t have one-night stands. Can you believe that? I told her she didn’t need to stand, and she threw a drink on me. Women.” Anton shook his head like he couldn’t believe someone had turned him down.

Gavin wasn’t sure how anyone ever didn’t turn him down. Thankfully, he was saved from replying by a herd of preteens plodding toward him. They all gripped their picture forms as teachers organized them into lines. The first kid to sit in the chair in front of Gavin’s camera was a boy in a short-sleeved flannel shirt, and his hair was shellacked down in a way that made Gavin wonder if the kid’s parents had sprayed it with a whole can of Aquanet.

“Look up here,” Gavin instructed as he held up his finger over his camera. “Smile.”

The boy smiled widely, revealing a mouth full of hardware. Gavin definitely didn’t miss those days.

The next few kids moved through the process without any fuss. Then a girl walked up, whipped off the shirt she’d been wearing to reveal a neon-pink crop top that said Sexy Bitch, and plopped down on the stool.

Gavin’s eyes widened as he glanced around in hopes that a teacher had caught this girl’s outfit. If it could even be called that. But no one seemed to notice, which put Gavin in a position that was awkward as fuck. “Uh, are you supposed to be wearing that?”

The girl sneered at him and gave him an attitude that she shouldn’t have been old enough to accomplish. “Who are you? The fashion police?”

“No, I’m someone with eyes.” The words were out of his mouth before his brain even gave him permission to speak. He blamed it on the sleepless night.

The girl put her hand on her hip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not taking your picture while you’re wearing that.” The last thing Gavin needed was an irate parent or a ticked-off principal calling his studio because he’d snapped a picture of a girl wearing an obscene shirt. No way was he risking his job for this underage rebel without a cause.

The girl scoffed at him. “You’re not my dad. You’re just some loser who takes pictures. You can’t tell me what to do.”

He wanted to correct her that he wasn’t telling her what to do, but was rather saying what he wasn’t going to do. “Well, this loser isn’t taking your picture. Next,” he said, a little louder than necessary.

The girl stood and grabbed her other shirt off the floor, pulled it over her head, and sat back down. “Fine. You’re lucky I don’t want Mrs. Jansen to see my shirt or else I’d be losing it on you.”

“Yeah, lucky is exactly what I feel,” he said as he snapped a picture of her while she was blinking. Part of him had wanted to refuse to take her picture at all, but he didn’t need the headache. This was the best his revenge was going to get.

The rest of the day passed similarly, with the majority of kids sitting pleasantly and getting their pictures taken, while a few punks seemed to need to prove they were badass by giving him a hard time. It was enough to make him jaded with life.

By the time he got home later that afternoon, he just wanted to sit on the couch and unwind. But that plan was cut short when he walked into the kitchen to get a drink and saw Blake sitting on the kitchen counter.

Her eyes lifted to meet his, and she gripped the glass in her hands a bit tighter. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied. Gavin had no idea what to say and no mental energy to figure it out, so he went to the refrigerator and pulled it open. He grabbed a can of soda and turned to head back out into the living room, but was stopped when she said his name. Letting out a breath, he looked over at her.

“Can we…talk?” she asked.

There wasn’t a part of him that wanted to do this now. Truthfully, despite how harsh her dismissal of him had been the previous night, she didn’t owe him an explanation. He also had a strong feeling he might not want to know what it was all about anyway. But she was looking at him expectantly, and he found himself unable to refuse her, so he leaned against the counter a little ways from where she sat.

“Sure.”

She released a shuddering breath before beginning. “I want to start by saying thank you. I know I was…kind of nasty last night, but my reaction wasn’t personal. I don’t like anyone to…see me…like that, and I reacted badly. So I apologize, and I appreciate you trying to help me.” She took a sip of what Gavin guessed was water before continuing. “That said, please don’t ever do it again.”

Gavin leaned in, unsure if he’d heard her correctly. “I’m sorry, what?”

Blake looked mildly frustrated at having to explain herself. “Look, I’ve had nightmares for most of my life. I haven’t had one in a long time, but I’m used to them. Well, as much as anyone can be used to them. You coming in isn’t going to help anything, so I’d like you to not bother.”

Setting his drink down, he clasped his hands in front of himself. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“What?” Her tone was indignant.

“There’s no way I can hear you screaming and not check on you. I’ll always be worried someone is killing you or something. I’m sorry, but I can’t ignore it.”

“I’m not asking you, Gavin. I’m telling you. Leave it alone.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“God, you’re irritating,” she said as she leaned toward him. “I have no idea what I see in you.”

Her mood seemed to be lifting a little, which surprised him. He hadn’t expected his refusal to make her less tense, but that was exactly what it seemed to have done.

“What can I say? It’s all part of my charm.”

She snorted in response, and Gavin knew he could get up and things would be fine between them. But now that she’d brought it up, he was no longer so eager to let it go.

“Wanna tell me what you were dreaming about?”

“No.”

The word was immediate and emphatic, so he didn’t push it. “Well, I have to say, I’m glad you forgot to lock your door. I was worried I’d have to bust it down.” He chuckled softly in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

“I didn’t forget.”

Her reply made the smile slide off his face.

“You didn’t?”

She sighed. “No. I never lock my door.”

“Can I ask why?”

“It’s nothing you need to know about. It won’t affect you for as long as you live here.”

Gavin sat there silently and examined her face.

As if pressured by his silence, she rolled her eyes and started talking again. “I don’t like to feel trapped in small places, okay? So I don’t lock my bedroom door, or the bathroom door for that matter, so you may want to knock before going in. And I removed the doors from all the closets in the apartment.”

Gavin had wondered about the curtains that enclosed the closets in the hall and his room but figured something had gone wrong with the doors and Blake just hadn’t replaced them. “Why?” he asked.

“Tons of people are claustrophobic. This is, like, one of the least weird things about me.”

Gavin’s voice was soft when he replied. “You looked like you were being tortured last night, Blake. It didn’t seem like a typical nightmare to me.”

She gave him a challenging look. “An expert on nightmares now, are we?”

He simply shrugged, because the truth was, he didn’t know shit about it. But he did know that what he saw the previous night came from a darker place than she was admitting.

Blake pushed her glass away and slipped off the counter. “Either way, it’s not a story for today. I have some…quirks. But you won’t ever have to explain yourself to me. I’m only asking for the same courtesy.”

The curious part of Gavin wanted to push, but the rational part knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. It wasn’t the jovial Blake he’d come to know standing in front of him. No, the person in front of him presented as more of an emotional Fort Knox. If she didn’t want to confide in him, he knew she wouldn’t, and nothing he said would change that. “You got it.”

“Good. Thanks,” she said before leaving the kitchen and heading for her room.

Trying to ease the tension between them, he called her name and got her attention before she disappeared down the hallway. “About you not locking the bathroom… If I hear the shower running and assume you’re naked, do I still have to knock?” He smirked at her and was happy to see her return it.

“Only if you’re an idiot,” she replied with a saucy grin before continuing on her way.

Gavin remained at the table for a few minutes, thinking about his confusing yet adorable roommate.