Danger

A little later, they were sitting on the floor. There was no proper table, just an empty box turned upside-down between them.

Laura held her glass loosely in her hand and listened as Justin talked about the house—its quirks, the landlord’s habits, and which neighbors were nice and which ones she should better avoid. He answered her questions before she had even asked them.

“The shower takes a while to get hot in the morning. Let the water run before you get in,” he said casually.

Laura winced at this detail. She hated ice-cold water at the start of her day. She couldn’t remember having mentioned that.

He kept talking. They had the kind of conversation that filled time and space without demanding anything deeper. She found herself responding to the ease he projected.

At first, carefully. Short answers. Neutral tone.

Then… more.

A comment here. A small joke there.

At some point, she laughed. Relaxed. Liberated.

The sound caught her off guard.

It had been a while.

Justin noticed—but didn’t make a big deal out of it. Just a brief glance, a knowing smile, and then he continued, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And somehow that made it easier to ignore the nagging feeling that Justin wasn’t telling her all this just because he was a nice neighbor and wanted to make small talk.

Laura took another sip of the wine, letting the warmth settle. She had drunk more than she was used to and more than she could handle without having had a proper meal that day.

Her body relaxed incrementally. Shoulders lowering. Movements softening.

Stop, she told herself. This was what she had tried to avoid. The slipping. The quiet dissolving of boundaries.

“I don’t usually do this.”

Justin tilted his head. “Drink wine?”

“Getting drunk with strangers.”

He looked at her directly.

“Fair enough. But am I really a stranger?”

Laura frowned. There were half-forgotten memories, blurry images, that she was trying to recall. But her thoughts couldn’t find a clear thread in her foggy mind and lost their way.

“Dunno,” she giggled.

He glanced at her, half relieved, half disappointed, as if he had been hoping for a different answer.

The conversation resumed.

The space between them felt different now. Charged. Shrinking. She became aware of small details. The way he looked at her. The pauses before he responded to something she said. The pulsing vein in his neck. His scent became hard to ignore.

The heat rising to her face.

Laura swallowed, her gaze dropping briefly to the empty bottle between them.

“We're out of wine.”

Justin nodded. “Yeah.”

But neither of them moved to stand up.

Instead, a pause fell.

Laura looked up. Their eyes met.

His eyes looked so knowing and were strangely familiar.

Her breath caught slightly.

He was too close. Although he hadn’t moved.

If anything, she had leaned in.

Laura stilled.

This was the moment.

The edge.