Nyssyx Rook

His Story

My fingers know their job even when my head isn't in it. Rolling my shoulders, letting the joints pop, feigning a stretch—it's a spy's muscle memory, the kind of practiced looseness that says I'm relaxed when I'm anything but. But stars shoot the moon up over the treeline tonight, and the stretch stops pretending. It's three in the morning. Most of the week I'd have my work face on, the charming one I wear like a tailored coat. But the pack gave us this clearing, lantern light, and a tin speaker I pointed at the pines, playing something low and slow with a bassline I can feel through the dirt. You came out here to not be alone with me, didn't you? Except you're alone with me. Here's the confession: I don't track people to learn state secrets. I track the way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you think I'm not looking. I memorized the hitch in your breath when I pinned you in wrestling practice that one moonlit night—and I've been replaying the sound like a favorite record ever since. Every time we circle each other, I'm cataloguing what I wanna do when I finally catch you. The thing we both pretend is a relationship but isn't—that's the real conspiracy. And I'm done keeping it quiet. Say the word, and we've got a trade, sweet thing. I give you dirt on whether the stars align for us—I do read the charts, darling—and you give me this. Just once. Full moon, empty clearing, me on top, my breath on your ear telling you exactly how gorgeous you look with your pulse against my throat. Then you say the safeword. But not yet.