"Your sister threatened to throw her hearing aids at the television because a commercial jingle was too aggressive."
Kobe delivers this report from my kitchen doorway, and I nearly drop the pot I am scrubbing.
He stands there in joggers and a vintage band tee, looking nothing like the polished celebrity who graces magazine covers—and everything like someone who has been spending time in my apartment while I work double shifts.
"When did you get here?" I ask, drying my hands on a dish towel.
"Three hours ago. We watched The Princess Bride with captions, practiced distinguishing between door knocks and phone rings, and had a lengthy debate about whether birds sound annoying or magical."
He crosses to the refrigerator like he owns the place.
"She landed on annoying, by the way. Very firmly."
The recovery has been brutal in ways none of us anticipated. Elsie spends hours with her hands pressed over her ears, overwhelmed by the constant assault of sound that hearing people filter unconsciously.
Traffic noise makes her cry. The hum of the refrigerator keeps her awake.
My voice—the voice she waited fourteen years to hear—sometimes sends her retreating to her bedroom because the pitch grates against something raw in her newly-awakened auditory nerves.
"You've been coming here every day," I say, watching him pour orange juice with the casual familiarity of someone who knows exactly which cabinet holds the glasses. "Scarlett mentioned it, but I thought she was exaggerating."
"Scarlett underestimates my dedication to the Delacroix women."
He grins, but vulnerability flickers beneath the charm.
"Elsie needed someone who wasn't you. Someone she could complain to about how overwhelming everything is without feeling guilty for being ungrateful."
My throat tightens. "She told you she feels guilty?"
"She told me she loves hearing your voice more than anything in the world, and also that sometimes your voice makes her want to scream because it is too much, too real, too everything at once."
He sets the juice down and meets my eyes.
"She needed permission to feel both things simultaneously. I gave her that permission."
The kindness undoes me.
This man who deflects sincerity with humor, who hides behind charm like armor, has been building a relationship with my sister entirely separate from whatever exists between him and me.
"Thank you," I whisper, inadequate words for an immeasurable gift.
"Come to my place tonight." The invitation catches me off guard. "Just us. No shared arrangements, no complicated logistics. I want one evening where you're mine and only mine."
The possessiveness in his voice sends heat pooling low in my stomach.
"Elsie has auditory therapy tomorrow morning," I start.
"Scarlett already agreed to stay over. I asked her this afternoon." He steps closer, amber eyes darkening. "Say yes, Rae. Please."
I say yes.
His apartment defies every expectation I have built around the charming actor persona. Sleek lines and muted colors dominate the space—grays and blacks and the occasional splash of deep navy.
Floor-to-ceiling windows frame Manhattan's glittering skyline. No movie posters, no awards displayed, no evidence of the career that made him famous.
"This is nothing like I imagined," I admit, running my fingers along a minimalist leather couch.
"The playful mess is for interviews and public consumption." He moves toward the kitchen, shoulders tight with tension I rarely see from him. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll grab some wine."
Something about his nervousness makes my heart stutter. Kobe Spencer, who flirts with the ease of breathing, is nervous to have me in his home.
I drift toward his bedroom while he uncorks bottles, curiosity pulling me forward. The space is equally restrained—clean sheets, modern furniture, nothing personal except—
A leather notebook sits on his nightstand.
I should not open it. The thought registers clearly even as my fingers close around the worn cover. Privacy exists for reasons, and this is clearly private.
But curiosity has always been my fatal flaw.
The first page stops my breath.
Poetry. Handwritten verses in cramped, urgent script that speaks of drafts and revisions and words wrestled into submission. I flip another page, then another, and my name appears like a prayer repeated until it becomes sacred.
Her hands move like music I cannot hear but feel in my bones.
She bites her lip when she concentrates, and I forget how to form sentences.
Two years of watching. Two years of wanting. Two years of swallowing words that taste like desperation.
The entries span months. Years. Observations so specific they could only come from someone who paid attention when I thought no one was looking.
The way she tucks hair behind her ear when she's nervous.
The sound of her laugh—unexpected, unguarded, the only thing I want to make happen for the rest of my life.
One line near the end of the notebook destroys me completely.
I've loved you in silence so long, the words have become my bloodstream.
"That wasn't meant for anyone to read."
I spin to find Kobe in the doorway, wine glasses forgotten, face cycling through pale shock to burning crimson. His hands hang at his sides, fingers curling into fists like he is fighting the urge to snatch the notebook away.
"Two years?" My voice cracks on the question. "You've felt this way for two years and never said anything?"
"What was I supposed to say?" The words escape raw, stripped of performance. "Hey Rae, I know you think I'm a shallow celebrity who flirts with everyone, but actually I've been writing poetry about your hands like a lovesick teenager? That's not exactly smooth."
"It's honest." I close the distance between us, the notebook still clutched against my chest. "Honest matters more than smooth."
"I'm terrified of honest." He laughs, the sound broken. "Honest means you see the real me instead of the version I've curated for public consumption. Honest means you might decide the real me isn't worth keeping."
"Kobe." I reach up, framing his face with my palms. "The real you visits my deaf sister every day to help her adjust to hearing. The real you learned which cabinet holds my glasses. The real you wrote poetry that makes me feel more seen than anyone has ever made me feel in my entire life."
His forehead drops to mine, breath shaky.
"I want something that's just ours," he whispers. "Something I don't share with them. Not because I don't care about the arrangement, but because I need to know there's a part of you that belongs only to me."
"Then take it," I answer. "Whatever you want. It's yours."
He kisses me with none of his usual playfulness—just raw hunger and trembling reverence. His hands find my hips, guiding me backward until my knees hit the edge of his bed.
When we fall together onto the mattress, his weight settles over me like a promise.
"I want to try something," he breathes against my neck. "Something you've never done with anyone."
Understanding dawns slowly, and nerves flutter through my chest. "I've never—"
"I know." His thumb traces my jaw with devastating tenderness. "That's why I'm asking. We go slow. We stop the second you're uncomfortable. But I want to be the one who shows you how good it can feel when someone takes their time."
His patience unravels every fear I have carried about this particular act. He prepares me with fingers and whispered reassurances until the stretch transforms from foreign to familiar.
When he finally presses forward, inch by careful inch, the fullness overwhelms me in ways I never anticipated.
"Breathe," he murmurs, stilling to let me adjust. "I've got you, Rae. I've always got you."
And somehow, impossibly, what I expected to endure becomes something I embrace—pressure building into pleasure, vulnerability transforming into transcendence, his name falling from my lips like the poetry he has been writing about me for years.