The first time I hear him swear, it’s not in one of my fantasies.
It’s through the paper-thin wall we share, a low, vicious mutter that rips through the steady metronome of his routine.
“Don’t you walk this block, princess,” he growls—except he isn’t talking to me. He can’t be. I haven’t even left for work yet.
I freeze halfway through tying my shoe, my fingers tangled in the laces. The cheap blinds rattle in a faint breeze from the cracked window. The hallway fluorescent outside my door buzzes like something dying.
For two years, he has been footsteps and keys and doors closing. The clink of bottles sometimes. A television turned low. A presence. A shape I’ve filled with whatever I needed that day—chef, artist, assassin with a conscience.
He has never been a voice.
My pulse spikes, sharp and sudden. I stare at the door across the hall through the peephole, even though I know I can’t see through wood.
Maybe he’s on the phone, I tell myself. People talk to other people. Normal people do that.
The voice comes again, closer this time, threaded with something dangerous. “Yeah, I see you.”
The intercom crackles overhead, a burst of static from the lobby. I flinch. For a moment the sounds blur together—his growl, the building’s death rattle, my heart trying to punch its way through my ribs.
I blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, check my reflection in the front door’s painted-over glass. Pale cheeks, dark circles, brown hair scraped into a bun because it’s easier that way. Mira Dalton: queen of quietly existing.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “You’re going to work. Same as always.”
I sling my bag over my shoulder, open my door, and step into the dim hallway.
His door is closed. It always is. Apartment 4B. One metal peephole, a deadbolt scarred from years of use, and no name on the mailbox downstairs. Just RIVERS in block letters someone else wrote years ago.
I double-lock my door, habit ingrained deep enough to do half-asleep, and start toward the stairs.
The air smells like fried onions from Mrs. Alvarez’s place and something sour from the overflowing trash chute. The building’s bones creak around me. This should be comforting. Familiar.
Today, though, the hair on the back of my neck is standing up.
Halfway down the stairs, I hear it—the heavy, measured tread I’ve cataloged a hundred times without ever admitting it to anyone.
4B.
His door opens behind me with a soft, decisive click. I don’t have to turn around to know. The air shifts, weighted.
“Dalton.”
He says my name like he owns it.
My foot misses the next step. I catch myself on the rail, grip so tight my knuckles blanch. For a heartbeat, I consider pretending I didn’t hear him.
But that would make me insane, not just mildly socially incompetent.
I turn.
Jaxon Rivers stands at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other on the knob of his door. He’s bigger than I imagined, broader, the kind of broad that makes the corridor feel suddenly smaller. Dark T-shirt, faded jeans, boots that look like they’ve seen actual war zones, not our cracked sidewalks.
His eyes are the worst part. Not because they’re cold. I’ve seen cold; I commute past it every day on the subway. His are sharp. Clear. Cataloguing.
