I clicked out of his profile and went onto Instagram to see if he had one, though somehow I knew he didn’t. I typed his name in and searched, but nothing came up. I went to Elodie’s page like I had on Facebook, and still nothing. So he wasn’t an Instagram kind of guy; I liked that. I closed the app and threw my phone to the empty side of the bed and sat up. It was so hot in my room that I was starting to think Elodie might have accidently turned on the heat instead of the air again. My throat was dry. I could feel sweat on the back of my neck when I tied up my thick, curly hair.

Kael and Elodie would both be sleeping in the living room, so I made sure I was quiet when I walked down the hallway and into the kitchen. I knew the floor plan of my house so well I could easily navigate every inch in the darkness with only a little guidance from the night-light plugged into the kitchen outlet.

I grabbed the jug of water out of the fridge and chugged it until I couldn’t anymore and my throat burned from the cold. Every night when I was a kid, my mom had brought me a cup of ice water to help me sleep. I stopped craving it a few months ago but still kept a jug in the fridge, just in case the need for that comfort returned. I closed the fridge and almost screamed when I saw Kael sitting at the kitchen table.

“Shit, you scared me.” I wiped my wet lips with the back of my hand. “Sorry if I woke you up. It’s so hot in here.”

“I was up.”

I took a step closer to him and it took his eyes raking down my body, down my rolled T-shirt to my stomach and my exposed thighs, to realize I was barely dressed. It was dark in the room, but he could definitely see at least the outline of my body. I pulled my shirt down, attempting to undo the knot I had tied at the hem.

“Why are you up? Were you just sitting here in the dark?”

Kael’s head tilted just a bit, like he was confused by what I was saying, and he looked down at my legs. I immediately felt a wave of insecurity, thinking about the dips of cellulite peppered across my thighs. He looked back up at my face.

“Can I have some of that water?” he asked.

I flushed, wondering how the hell I hadn’t noticed him sitting there as I made my way to my fridge and chugged water out of a plastic gallon jug.