Four Of A Kind

Sabrina woke to the gray light of early morning filtering through her gothic windows, and for a moment she didn’t understand why her chest felt so full.

Then she remembered.

Isaiah’s arm was draped across her waist, heavy and warm, his breath slow and even against the back of her neck. He’d shifted sometime in the night, curling around her like she was something precious that needed protecting. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d spent months watching this boy, cataloguing his habits, memorizing the way he moved through the world with that careful exhaustion that made her want to burn down everything that had ever hurt him. And now here he was, wrapped around her in her own bed, sleeping like he actually felt safe.

She didn’t move. Didn’t want to risk waking him when he so clearly needed the rest.

The water stain on his ceiling. That’s what he’d mentioned when she’d asked about his apartment. A water stain that kept spreading because his landlord refused to fix it. Such a small detail, but it had lodged itself in her brain like a splinter. Isaiah Angelo, who worked double shifts and commuted four hours a day and raised his sister alone, couldn’t even get someone to fix a leak in his ceiling.

Meanwhile she lay in a bed that cost more than his annual rent, surrounded by antique furniture and original artwork, wearing sheets with a thread count higher than most people’s credit scores.

The wealth disparity shouldn’t bother her. She’d grown up with money, been raised to view it as simply another tool in an arsenal of tools. But something about Isaiah made her acutely aware of every privilege she’d taken for granted. The way he’d calculated the cost of their lunch yesterday, his eyes going distant for a split second as he converted menu prices into hours of labor. The careful way he’d touched everything in her room, like he was afraid of breaking something he couldn’t afford to replace.

She wanted to give him things. That impulse surprised her with its intensity. Not because she pitied him or wanted to flaunt her wealth, but because she wanted to see him comfortable. Wanted to watch the tension drain from his shoulders when he realized he didn’t have to worry about the electric bill or the train fare or whether there would be enough money for groceries at the end of the month.

Isaiah shifted behind her, his arm tightening briefly before relaxing again. Still asleep. She could feel the steady thump of his heart against her back, could track the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. The intimacy of it struck her as almost more profound than what they’d done last night. Sex was one thing. Anyone could have sex. But this quiet morning moment, this unguarded vulnerability of sleeping beside someone and trusting them not to hurt you while your defenses were down?

This was something else entirely.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She reached for it slowly, careful not to jostle Isaiah, and squinted at the screen.

Harlow. Of course.

The message was a wall of text punctuated by approximately forty-seven emojis, the gist of which seemed to be that Harlow had noticed Isaiah’s car was still in the driveway and wanted to know if everything was okay and also could she bring them breakfast because she’d made too many waffles again and Mrs. Tanaka said Isaiah likes his coffee black but she’d also made hot chocolate just in case and also also she hoped they’d had a nice time and she wasn’t jealous at all except maybe a little bit but mostly she was just happy that Sabrina seemed happy and was that weird to say?

Sabrina typed back a single word. Later.

Three dots appeared immediately. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Harlow’s response was a single heart emoji, which somehow managed to convey both understanding and barely restrained excitement.

Sabrina set the phone face-down and let herself sink back into the warmth of Isaiah’s body. The sun was climbing higher now, sending golden shafts of light across the burgundy walls, and she knew their borrowed time was running out. He’d said one night. One night, and then he’d leave to check on Iris and write his essay and go to his shift at the Velvet Room. One night, and then reality would come crashing back in all its complicated glory.

She wasn’t ready.

The thought caught her off guard. Sabrina Valentine, who prided herself on being ready for anything, who had contingency plans for her contingency plans, who had spent months preparing for this exact scenario. And now that it was here, now that she’d actually told Isaiah she loved him and he’d said he was falling too, she found herself wanting to freeze this moment in amber and live in it forever.

Ridiculous. Sentiment was a weakness she couldn’t afford, especially with her mother circling and her sisters’ feelings hanging in the balance and approximately seventeen different catastrophes waiting to unfold.

But for five more minutes, she could pretend.

Isaiah’s breathing changed. Subtle at first, the rhythm shifting from deep sleep to the shallow pattern of someone surfacing toward consciousness. His arm flexed around her waist, pulling her closer, and she felt him press his face into her hair and inhale.

"What time is it?"

His voice was rough with sleep, gravelly in a way that did things to her she refused to acknowledge before coffee.

"Early. You can go back to sleep."

"Can’t." He yawned against the back of her neck. "Iris will murder me if I’m not home by noon."

"Iris is fourteen. What’s she going to do, ground you?"

"You’ve met Iris. She’s scarier than you are."

Sabrina turned in his arms to face him, taking in the disheveled hair and the pillow creases on his cheek and the way his eyes were still half-closed against the morning light. He looked younger like this. Softer. The careful mask he wore for the rest of the world hadn’t fully reassembled itself yet, and she could see the boy underneath. The one who stayed up too late worrying about things he couldn’t control. The one who pretended not to care because caring had only ever gotten him hurt.

She loved him so much it felt like drowning.

"Stay for breakfast at least. Harlow made waffles."