Chapter 6: The Weekend at His Place
It was late when we climbed down from the rooftop.
The sunset had bled gold and peach into the sky, stretching shadows across the courtyard below. Neither of us said anything. The world around us had shrunk to the sound of our footsteps on concrete and the soft, easy quiet between breaths.
Jace didn't fill silences with words. And for the first time in my life, I didn't feel the need to either.
We reached the bottom of the old stairwell, that cool, echoing space where most people would part ways.
But he stopped.
"Come over this weekend," he said.
I blinked. "What?"
"My place. Just you."
A nervous laugh rose in my throat. "Why?"
He paused, gaze on the wall behind me. "Because… maybe I don't want to go back to silence yet."
Something fluttered in my chest.
"My mom probably won't go for it," I murmured.
"I'll talk to her."
And he did.
That evening, Jace Anderson stood in our cramped kitchen—barefoot, polite, confident without being smug. He asked my mom if I could spend the weekend at his place. No party. No trouble. Just time.
Just space.
To my complete disbelief, she said yes.
"He's not what I expected," she said after he left. "It might be good for you. Let the world open a little."
The next afternoon, a black car with tinted windows pulled up outside our apartment building. A man in a suit stepped out and opened the door like I was royalty.
I looked back once.
My mom gave me a single nod—part worried mother, part woman who remembered what it was like to be sixteen and swept away.
His House
It wasn't a house.
It was a masterpiece of glass and silence, high on the hill, wrapped in sharp edges and steel. A modern fortress with too many windows and not enough warmth.
"You live here alone?" I asked as we stepped inside.
"Yeah," Jace said, tossing his bag on a leather chair. "They travel. A lot."
I followed him through a hallway lined with abstract art I couldn't name. "So what, you just live here… by yourself?"
"They send money. Cards sometimes. I used to read them." His voice wasn't bitter. Just empty.
He gave me a tour—rooms that looked like museum wings, a home theater bigger than my apartment, a pool that shimmered like no one had ever touched it.
Everything was perfect.
Everything was cold.
"It's weird," I said. "You're always surrounded by people. But this…"
He looked around. "I got used to the quiet."
Day One: Popcorn and Real Things
The movie room was supposed to impress me. I could tell.
But instead of marveling at the surround sound or picking something cinematic, we ended up watching the dumbest action movie we could find—and pausing it every ten minutes to talk about something unrelated.
"I used to stutter," he said during a car chase scene.
I blinked. "Seriously?"
"Every sentence. Until I was nine."
"What happened?"
"Speech therapy. Switzerland."
"Of course." I grinned. "All I got was a school nurse who gave out ice packs like candy."
He laughed. I told him about the time I tried to fly with grocery bags taped to my arms. The memory was stupid, but it made him laugh so hard he dropped his popcorn.
We talked until the screen dimmed from inactivity.
He didn't ask about my dad. I didn't ask about the ghosts in his hallways.
But we sat a little closer than before.
And when I went to sleep that night, I didn't feel alone.
Day Two: The Piano
I found him in the living room the next morning, his fingers ghosting over piano keys. No sheet music. Just muscle memory.
"You play?"
He looked up, sheepish. "Barely."
"Liar."
He scooted over on the bench. "Try."
I sat beside him, my knee brushing his. "I can't."
"Everyone can. Just… don't think."
He started something soft—four notes repeated like a lullaby. He played it again, guiding my hand. His fingers touched mine lightly, and I froze—not because I was scared, but because I wasn't.
"See?" he said. "You're not bad."
"Or maybe you're just good enough to make me sound okay."
He smiled, and for a moment, his face looked completely at peace.
I didn't want to move.
Didn't want to ruin the stillness.
So we stayed there, side by side, playing not-music in a house too big for one heart.
Day Three: The Pool
It started with sunlight.
Hot, sharp beams flooding the back patio as I stood by the edge of the pool, watching the water glint like glass. I wore a black one-piece from his guest closet—sleek and modest, but still… something else.
"You're just gonna stare at it?" he teased, emerging shirtless from the house with a towel slung over one shoulder.
"Not everyone's born a fish."
"Consider this your baptism."
Before I could reply, he cannonballed in.
The splash soaked me.
"You're evil!" I shrieked.
"You needed it."
I dove in after him. Cool water rushed around me. I surfaced laughing, my hair slicked back, my pulse alive.
The game began.
We raced laps, made up rules, broke them, splashed until my sides hurt. At one point, I pushed him under and he came up grinning like a boy who hadn't laughed in years.
But it was when I pulled myself out of the water—soaked, panting, flushed—that something changed.
I looked over my shoulder.
He was still in the pool.
Still watching me.
And he didn't look away.
His gaze followed the curve of my arms, the fall of my wet hair, the drip of water sliding down my collarbone.
He didn't speak. Didn't joke.
Just watched me like I was the most unexpected thing that had ever walked into his world.
And I felt it.
Not in my head—in my chest.
The quiet ache of something neither of us knew how to name yet.