*Chapter Three: Close Enough to Burn*
*POV: Aria*
I kept my distance for the next two days.
It wasn't easy—not when I could hear his voice through thin walls, or catch his shadow when he passed by the kitchen, shirtless and half-asleep like he owned the air. Jace moved through the house like it belonged to him, like I was just a guest overstaying her welcome.
But I wasn't going anywhere.
Neither was he.
And that tension? The quiet kind that thickens in the room when we're both in it?
It was growing. Tightening. Taking shape.
---
It snapped on a Wednesday night.
Mom and Michael were out—some charity dinner I wasn't invited to. I was curled on the couch in the living room, hoodie pulled over my knees, watching a show I wasn't even following.
I didn't hear him come in.
"Is this what you do?" Jace asked behind me, voice low and dry. "Take over the house while no one's here?"
I looked back, unbothered. "It's a couch, not a throne."
He smirked without humor. "Could've fooled me."
I didn't have the energy for whatever this was. "Do you always try this hard to be a jerk, or does it come naturally?"
He stepped closer. "Only when people pretend they belong here."
The words stung more than I let on. I stood, facing him.
"I didn't ask to be here, Jace. But I'm not leaving just because you don't like it."
We were too close. The room too quiet.
His eyes flicked down, just once, then back to mine.
"What do you think you are to me, Aria?"
The way he said my name—slow, like he was tasting it.
I swallowed hard. "Your… nothing. I'm nothing to you."
Something shifted in his expression.
"Exactly," he said, but it didn't sound convincing.
Not at all.
Then he turned and left—fast, like if he stayed one second longer, he'd do something we couldn't take back.
And I hated how much I wanted him to stay.