The hotel room exists outside of time. White sheets, anonymous walls, a window that could look out on any city in the world. I don't ask his name. He doesn't ask mine.
His mouth finds my neck, and the room spins—from alcohol, from grief, from the desperate need to feel anything other than the hollow ache where my brother used to be.
His hands are everywhere, and I close my eyes and let sensation replace thought. The scratch of his jaw against my collarbone. The weight of him pressing me into sheets that smell like expensive detergent and nothing like home. Heat and pressure and the blur of bodies moving together in the dark.
I'm drunk. Still drunk. The edges of everything are soft and smeared, and I chase that softness like it might save me.
His fingers dig into my hips, and I arch into the contact, wanting more, wanting less. Wanting to disappear entirely into this moment where I am no one. He's controlled even now—deliberate, precise, every movement calculated.
I wonder dimly if he ever does anything without thinking three moves ahead.
It doesn't matter. I'm not here for tenderness. I'm here to use my body for something—anything—because I'm not sure I want to live in it anymore.
The world tilts and blurs. His voice in my ear, low and commanding. The sharp intake of breath that might be his or mine. Sensation building like a wave I can't outrun, and when it finally crests, I shatter into pieces and let the darkness swallow me whole.
At least this is a choice. At least this is mine.
I wake to gray light and a headache that feels like punishment.
My mouth tastes like trash and expensive vodka. The sheets are tangled around my legs, and for a moment I don't know where I am—white ceiling, unfamiliar walls, the distant sound of traffic.
Then I remember.
The club. The stranger. The blur of heat and hands and desperate oblivion.
I sit up too fast, and my skull throbs in protest. The room sways slightly before settling into something stable.
He's not in bed. I'm alone in sheets, wearing nothing but last night's mistakes.
Then the bathroom door opens.
He emerges fully dressed—charcoal trousers, white shirt rolled to the elbows, dark hair still damp from the shower.
He looks at me with the same clinical assessment from last night, cataloging my disheveled state without comment.
"You're awake," he finally says. "I wasn't sure you would be for another hour."
"What time is it?"
"Just past seven." He moves toward the phone on the nightstand. "Room service is already available. I'll order breakfast."
I blink at him, trying to reconcile this with the man who listed terms in a nightclub. "Breakfast?"
"Food. Coffee. The things people consume in the morning." He picks up the phone. "Do you have a preference, or should I order for both of us?"
"I… no. Whatever you're having."
He orders in a low voice—eggs, toast, fresh fruit, a pot of coffee—while I sit in his bed and try to make sense of this.
I expected a dismissal. A car called with cold indifference. Not room service and the quiet intimacy of shared morning routines.
When he hangs up, I'm still staring at him.
"You look surprised," he observes.
"I am surprised. This wasn't part of the terms you outlined."
"I'm capable of feeding a woman breakfast." Something flickers in his expression—not quite amusement, but close. "Consider it a gentleman's courtesy. You're hungover, and I'm not in the habit of sending women into the street before they've had coffee."
"How chivalrous."
"Practical," he corrects. "Hungry people make poor decisions. I'd rather you leave clearheaded."
I find his shirt on the floor and pull it on, buttoning it with fingers that still feel clumsy. The fabric smells like cedar and cold air—his scent, now clinging to my skin.
When the food arrives, we sit across from each other at a small table by the window.
He butters his toast while I wrap my hands around a coffee cup and let the warmth seep into my bones.
My head still pounds. The eggs help. The coffee helps more.
"I have rules you should know about," he says.
He doesn't look at me when he says it. His eyes stay fixed on the knife in his hand, spreading butter to the exact edges of the bread.
"Rules," I repeat flatly.
"Terms, if you prefer. This was one night. One night means exactly that. No follow-up calls, no accidental encounters, no pretending we have unfinished business."
"Do you rehearse this speech in the mirror, or does it come naturally?"
His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. I've surprised him. "Most women appreciate knowing where they stand."
"Most women." I take a long sip of coffee. "That's an interesting way to frame a warning speech designed to make you feel less guilty about your own emotional unavailability. Very generous of you, really. Protecting us delicate creatures from our own expectations."
"That's not—"
"How many women have you given this speech to?" I ask, my voice flat like I'm asking about the weather.
He pauses. Studies me. "Enough to know it's necessary."
"And how many of them cried?"
"Some."
"How many argued?"
"Most."
"How many got pregnant?"
The question seems to land like a slap and his hand stills on the knife as if I hit the nerve.
"None," he says, and there's an edge to his voice now. "I'm careful."
"Careful." I almost smile. "And if careful failed? If one of your one-night transactions ended up carrying your child—what then? Would you add her to your list of emotional complications to be ended and just give money for abortion?"
"That's not going to happen."
"But if it did."
He sets down the knife. Meets my eyes. "Then the decision would be hers. I don't control women's bodies. I control my own involvement."
"How progressive of you." I set down my cup. "What else? I'm assuming there's a full manifesto."
"I don't get married. Ever. I don't have children. I end things at the first sign of emotional complication. If feelings develop, those feelings are the problem of the person who developed them."
"Not yours."
"Not mine."
I reach for a piece of toast. "That's a lot of walls for one person. What are you keeping out?"
"Nothing worth discussing with a stranger."
"We're past strangers, don't you think? You've seen me naked."
"Naked bodies don't require intimacy. Naked histories do."
"Fair enough." I bite into the toast. "No marriage, no children, no feelings. Anything else? No favorite colors? No preferred side of the bed?"
"Left side,” he said with a slow nod and what looked like a micro smile before he hid it. “Usually I don't discuss preferences, it create patterns. And patterns create expectations."
"You must be exhausting at dinner parties."
"I don't attend dinner parties."
"Of course you don't."
I study him—strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, that thin scar across his left knuckles. He's handsome in a severe way, the kind of face that belongs on currency or courtroom sketches.
"Let me guess," I say. "You work constantly, you sleep rarely, and the only relationships you maintain are ones where both parties understand the terms upfront."
His eyes narrow slightly. "You're observant."
"I'm my mother's daughter. We're trained to read weakness." I finish the toast and stand, gathering my dress from the floor. "It's lonely, you know. Living inside all those rules."
"It's efficient."
"It's lonely," I correct him, stepping toward the bathroom. "But loneliness is a choice, and you've clearly made yours, pretty boy."
I dress without looking in the mirror and fifteen minutes later when I step into the pale winter sunshine, grief slides back into place, settling into my chest like it never left.
The stranger is already fading.
By tomorrow, I won't even remember the color of his eyes, or the little scar on his knuckle, or how big and warm his hands are, or how pleasantly his muscles have been rolled under my palm.
I won't remember any of it, even his smell of cedar and cold air.
I hope so.