Chapter 73: EARLY VACUUMS

Lisa’s POV

A thin skin of steam wrapped around me in slow, ethereal waves as I emerged from the bathroom, the mirror still melting with the heat of my shower. My skin quivered, wet and warm, water holding on to the curves of my shoulders and the tips of my hair. The towel wrapped tightly around me was the only thing standing between me and the world outside.

The house was silent — or at least I thought it was.

I made two sloppy steps into the bedroom toward the edge of the dresser where my clothes were when the door opened.

And Leo walked in.

We froze at the same instant, time growing taut like a drawn wire.

His eyes went up first, then they went wide. My heart was beating so hard against my ribs I thought he would be able to hear it. The air grew denser, bristled with disbelief and something that I dared not name.

“I thought… it’s empty I’m sorry" He quickly averted his gaze as if the floor had suddenly sloped upward.

The phrasing was respectfully, apologetical.

But the instant itself was not harmless. I tightened my grip on the towel, heat racing up my neck and into my cheeks. “It’s… fine. I should have locked the door.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said, and he didn’t even bother looking up. “This is supposed to be your home, too.”

He spoke in an intentionally monotone voice, but there was a slight quiver behind his voice that he couldn't hide.

A part of me wished he would look at me.

Another part was glad that he would not be.

He pivoted, his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll be down stairs. Take your time.”

The click of the door closing reverberated throughout the room as if sealing an even thicker layer of silence that was now felt between them. Heavy. Messy. Filled with so much of what was unsaid in those few, perilous moments.

I froze for a few seconds, looking at the place where he’d stood, panting slightly. I put my palm lightly on my chest and tried to will my heart to slow down.

Why do the little things feel so big between us right now?

I was putting on my clothes faster than I normally would, with my thoughts far ahead of my hands. The vision of his face flashed in my mind—not lustful, not intrusive, just… rattled. A kind of stunned awareness.

As though for the first time, reality had intruded on his realization that our marriage isn’t really just a formality on paper. That I was a woman. He was a man. And recently, the borders of those identities had started to shift.

As I stepped into the first floor, I was greeted by the faint smell of coffee and toast. I stopped at the last step, sensing that someone was coming. The light scratch of a chair. The distant drone of the kettle. The sound of life going on as usual while my thoughts were tied up in knots in the stairwell above.

When I got into the kitchen, he was at the counter, setting down two mugs as though we’d been talking about this all along.

“Good morning,” he said but did not look at me.

“Morning,” I said, my voice softer than I intended.

There was a gap of silence between us, like a newly hewn wound. We both looked away.

I went to the cabinet for a mug but paused when I felt his hand go for it as well, our fingers brushed over the porcelain.

Another tiny, electric moment.

“Sorry,” we both said.

Our eyes locked again, and something in his altered as a ghost of amusement played there, then passed.

"You go ahead," he said, backing away.

The sensation stayed with me even after I grabbed the handle, a faint echo that refused to disappear.

He turned his attention to the toaster, but just a couple of seconds later, a quiet, slightly burnt odor wafted up.

“Did you just… kill the bread?”

He looked down at the charred piece as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “It was fine a second ago.”

I huffed out a laugh before I could stop it. The sound rang out in the kitchen, unexpected and airy. His head turned slowly toward me.

“You laugh a lot more lately,”

I stopped still, the smile going away. “Do I?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “I like it.”

There it was again. That soft honesty that always could find its way through my walls.

I occupied myself with making the coffee. “Are we tallying charred toast as progress now?”

“I think it’s a sign,” he answered dryly. “The universe is telling me I should not be near any sort of appliance.”

“The universe is just trying to keep innocent bread safe,” I added.

He actually smiled then. A real one. Slow and genuine.

And my heart betrayed me by beating on its own accord.

We stood strewn closer than necessary as we cooked, as we made breakfast, the distance narrowing between us to the point where it was as if the house was leading us closer. As I took the sugar, my elbow touched his arm. As he reached over me for a plate, his breath came close to my temple.

Every touch, every exchanged glance, was a silent admission that neither of us could shout out loud.

This house had once seemed impossibly vast—full of doors we closed and distances we kept. But now it was as if the walls were pressing in and molding themselves around a burgeoning intimacy.

It didn’t feel like entrapment.

It felt like gravity.

We sat at the kitchen table across from one another, sipping quietly, but all through this silence, something was different. It wasn’t empty. It hummed with understanding. With tension. With a delicate tenderness seeming to rest in every breath, yet unstable.

He looked down at my wrist where the sleeve of my sweater had fallen back.

“You’re still wearing the bracelet,” he said.

I looked down. I hadn’t realized. “I like it.”

“I like that you like it,” he said.

I forgot where I was for a second. Forget Andre. Forget coalition meetings. Forget revenge and contracts and consequences.

It was just us, in a kitchen that was warm and oddly comforting. strange safe.

And then the clock ticked loudly from the wall, pulling me back to the moment.

“I should get ready,” I said hurriedly, getting up from my seat.

Slowly he nodded, regarding me as though he wished to commit to memory my very movements, the way I smiled unwittingly.

As I walked away, I could not deny the reality that was seizing my heart so tightly.

The distance we had worked so hard to hold…

was starting to go.

And what scared me the most?

Part of me didn’t even want it back.