Chapter 35 Kristen
I didn’t plan to come here unannounced. I told myself over and over that it was just practical. That it made sense to show up at a place I now associated with safety, not confusion. But as I walked up the narrow path toward Leo’s safe house, the late afternoon sun slanted against my spine and made me question every step I had taken to get here. My nerves weren’t just tight, they were knotted, wrapped around themselves so thoroughly that it felt like each breath had to force its way in.
By the time I reached the porch, my pulse was loud in my ears. My hand hovered over the door, thumb ready to knock, when it swung inward before I even pressed. I blinked, startled and that was when I saw him.
He stood in the doorway, shirtless, chest glistening with residual sweat like he had just finished something intense or hard. The late light made his skin glow, the angle of it sharp enough to show every contour of muscle that I shouldn’t have been noticing. My breath caught, heat rushing up my neck and cheeks in a way that felt embarrassing and utterly involuntary.
I froze for a heartbeat, mind scrambling. You really need to stop thinking of him like that, I told myself, but my thoughts weren’t listening.
“Kristen,” he said, voice low and more cautious than I expected. “What are you doing here?”
Why didn’t I call? he asked without actually asking, and there was that slight crease in his brow that meant he was both curious and annoyed.
“You can’t just show up here unannounced,” he said, hands loose at his sides. “My number’s in your phone for a reason. What happens when you get here and I was–”
And before I could even decide whether it was dumb or adorable, the words just slipped out of my mouth: “Naked? It's nothing I haven't seen before."
There was an immediate, visceral regret the moment it left my lips. My brain slashed a big red warning sign across it. A moment of silence stretched between us thick enough to feel like fabric blocking sunlight.
Then he stepped closer, a teasing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is that why you came?,” he said, gaze locked on mine, “to see it again?”
My heart did something bizarre in my chest, skipping and fluttering all at once. “No,” I said quickly, too quickly, voice pitched a little too high. “I came to talk about training.”
He didn’t dispute it. Instead he closed the space between us again, and I could feel something in the air shift, like static before rain.
“I need to…” I started, but my foot caught on an uneven patch of ground and I stumbled forward, caught off balance.
He was there in an instant, arms absorbing my fall before I even registered loss of balance. My hands gripped his biceps, and they were solid. Strong. The kind of strength that had nothing to do with show and everything to do with foundation. I could smell the warmth of his skin, the faint tang of sweat still lingering from wherever he’d been before I showed up.
For a moment I just hung there, chest rising and falling in a rhythm I could feel against him, too close, too familiar, and then I pulled back quickly, mind flustered.
“I think I could fit in one of those training sessions before the party,” I said, voice steadier than I felt.
There was a beat of silence, a slow blink as he regarded me, expression unreadable. “You want training,” he said, testing my words.
“Yeah,” I responded, shrugging, trying to make it sound casual instead of loaded with everything my pulse was insisting on saying.
He turned his head slightly, eyes shifting toward the house behind him. “I already told you,” he said, tone dry, “I’m not helping with party planning.”
“Good,” I said, and meant it. “I’m not here for that.”
I watched as his gaze settled on me again, this time sharper, like he was weighing sincerity against deflection. “Then why are you really here?” he asked.
I took a breath. I tried to present something reasonable ...something that wasn’t tangled up in my own uncertainty and whatever heat I felt every time I saw him unexpectedly. “I want to be ready,” I said, “for whatever happens. Especially now that Caleb has a surprise planned–”
His expression shifted then, not dramatically, just subtly. The lines around his eyes tightened a fraction. There was a moment where I thought he was going to push me for more, then he asked a question that threw me entirely off guard.
“Who’s Caleb?”
I blinked. My calm cracked a little. “It’s not a big deal,” I said quickly. And I meant it. At least I thought I did.
He didn’t look convinced. His eyes narrowed, just the barest fraction, like he was trying to assess whether I was being honest or fumbling for cover. He didn’t say anything immediately, just watched me standing there with the late sun striking my face and coloring my cheeks a faint warmth.
“Relax, Dad.” I tried, but it sounded flimsy even to me.
“I’m not your dad,” he snapped back, low and dry, but the edge wasn’t sharp. It was more… factual, like he was reminding me of boundaries without needing to sneer about it.
“You don’t say,” I replied, and for a moment there was a brief silence between us that wasn’t hostile. It was just quiet, like someone turning a page and waiting to see what came next.
Then his voice shifted, gentler. “Be careful,” he said. It wasn’t an order. It was a warning. One carried by experience rather than authority.
I nodded, meaning it. “I will,” I said.
We stood there on the porch, the air a little too warm, sun sliding down behind the trees and painting the horizon in shades that should have felt romantic and soothing, but didn’t because my pulse had other plans.
After a moment that felt like both too long and barely long enough, he gave in. Just a little, but enough that it felt significant.
“If you’re serious about training,” he said, “come by tomorrow evening."
A smile crossed my face. "Really?"
He crossed his hands over his chest, involuntarily making the tattoo around his chest move. "I won’t go easy on you.”
I smirked, the tension in my chest loosening just a notch. “That’s the last thing I expect.”
My footsteps felt light as I turned and headed toward my car. My chest tightened again, not with panic, but with that strange mix of anticipation and awareness that refused to quiet itself. I didn’t look back, not once, but I felt his eyes on me like a shadow I could sense even with my own mind tangled up in thoughts I didn’t want to name out loud.
It took everything in me not to turn around.
Not to steal one more look at that body standing in the sunlight, warm and watchful, not quite part of the world I was trying to build for myself but dangerously close to the center of it all.
Training.
Tomorrow.
That should be easy to get through, right?
right?