Seven days crawled by in a haze of deliberate restraint and accidental combustion. The apartment felt smaller every morning, the hallways narrower, the kitchen counters too close. Maria learned the rhythm of Alex’s presence the way a body learns heat: the creak of his bedroom door at 6:45 a.m., the low hum of the coffee maker he always started before she emerged, the faint scent of cedar and clean sweat that trailed him after his runs. Every brush of shoulders in the corridor sent a jolt straight between her legs. Once, reaching past him for a mug, her breast grazed his forearm; he went still, breath catching audibly, and she pretended not to notice even as her n*****s tightened under her thin tank top.
Mornings became torture sessions disguised as routine. She’d pad out in sleep shorts a
