He’s not for me, either. He couldn’t be clearer that he only sees me as a friend, and I value that friendship too much to ruin it by confessing that I regularly masturbate to the fantasy of him. My skin flushes hot, and I have to put that thought away. It serves no purpose here.

I clear my throat. “Do you know where he’s sleeping these days?”

“Oh. That.” Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Third floor, south hall. One of the rooms that Abel decided we didn’t need to worry about yet. He cleaned it up, and he’s been camping up there like Rochester’s wife in the attic.”

“Nice literary reference,” I murmur.

Gabriel blushes harder. “I read.”

“I know.” I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve found him reading on watch over the years when we were occupying hostile territory in one city or another. I clasp his shoulder. “Be careful, okay?”

“You, too.”

I head back to the stairs and climb up to the third floor. As tempting as it is to take a shower and gather my wits about me, the truth is that I don’t trust my courage to hold if I don’t keep up this momentum.

It doesn’t take me long to find Broderick’s room. As Gabriel said, Abel decided early on to confine people’s rooms to the second floor. The better to keep track of all the Brides. Now that he has Harlow, one of his Brides, wrangling the others, it’s made everyone’s job a bit easier. Still, with the barracks in the compound to house the rest of our people, there just hasn’t been a huge need to mess with the third floor.

At least Broderick’s room isn’t covered in dust like the one Cohen dragged me to. I resist the urge to poke around and simply perch on the edge of the bed and wait for him. Now that my anger isn’t driving me, I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing. I want to tell him off, but… Why? Yes, he was a jerk for trying to tell me who I can and cannot sleep with, especially since he’s not dating me. Friends don’t dictate who their friends sleep with. I might have grown up alone and not know what a healthy relationship looked like if it hit me in the face, but after nearly a decade with the Paine brothers, I’m 100 percent sure of that.

What am I doing?