marked me like a bloodstain
She watches as Kaisel turns, his back a safer shoreline than the sea of his eyes, and for a moment Flora can almost pretend that everything is fine. That her throat isn’t closing up. That her chest doesn’t feel too full of words she’ll never let herself speak. "Thanks," she murmurs, too lightly, wrapping the towel around herself not with sensuality but with speed. She dries off in quick, practical strokes, not bothering to change out of her damp underwear before slipping the silk dress back over her skin. The fabric clings in places she doesn’t care to notice, cool against the warmth still lingering from the bath. Kaisel wouldn’t be staying long. She could change later; could feel and fall apart later.
Once dressed, she clears her throat lightly, the signal subtle but unmistakable: he can turn around. While he does, Flora kneels at the side of the tub, fingers sifting through the basket with idle precision until she finds the salve she wants—cooling, mild, nearly scentless. Her expression stays level, carefully smoothed over like fresh foundation over a bruise. She will not crack again. She won't be that girl: the one who mistakes warmth for wanting, who convinces herself that gentle hands mean anything more than habit.
Her face settles into the mask she knows best—cool, unbothered, composed. Not brittle, not cruel, but whole enough to pass for untouched. Breezy. Bright. "How’d your date go with Caly?" she asks, the question carried on a current of practiced ease.
Flora doesn’t look at Kaisel as she speaks, because now that she understands the vastly different pages they're on, there's an ache that has settled like sediment with the realization that their night together meant more to her than it did to him. That for all her bravado, all her careless confidence, she was wrong in thinking she could handle things going back to the way they were. The truth is that once she’d had him like that—so close, so impossibly in sync, every breath between them measured like music—it had become impossible to imagine being satisfied with anything less.
And still, she won’t let him become another Koa. However much Kaisel might be inclined to follow in his cousin's footsteps, she refuses to let him thread himself between two women: She won’t let him be that boy, and she won’t let Caly be that girl. Besides, she had been the one to start it. The one to blur the lines. The one to let warmth and affection spiral into something sharp and irreversible. More fool was she to think a nineteen-year-old’s willingness to fall into her bed was anything more than just that—youth, convenience, desire. That him having imagined such scenerios was not born out of a what if, but just a means to an end late at night when he needed a little bit more than the heat of his hand.
So it was up to Flora to unblur what she’d invited; to redraw the lines she'd burned away and tuck her feelings away with her damp rings and tangled curls, and hand Kai the clean, curated version of her heart instead.
"You should bring her here sometime. The House adjusts to whatever its guests want, soo...like literally a perfect place for a date, and even better for sex."
Once dressed, she clears her throat lightly, the signal subtle but unmistakable: he can turn around. While he does, Flora kneels at the side of the tub, fingers sifting through the basket with idle precision until she finds the salve she wants—cooling, mild, nearly scentless. Her expression stays level, carefully smoothed over like fresh foundation over a bruise. She will not crack again. She won't be that girl: the one who mistakes warmth for wanting, who convinces herself that gentle hands mean anything more than habit.
Her face settles into the mask she knows best—cool, unbothered, composed. Not brittle, not cruel, but whole enough to pass for untouched. Breezy. Bright. "How’d your date go with Caly?" she asks, the question carried on a current of practiced ease.
Flora doesn’t look at Kaisel as she speaks, because now that she understands the vastly different pages they're on, there's an ache that has settled like sediment with the realization that their night together meant more to her than it did to him. That for all her bravado, all her careless confidence, she was wrong in thinking she could handle things going back to the way they were. The truth is that once she’d had him like that—so close, so impossibly in sync, every breath between them measured like music—it had become impossible to imagine being satisfied with anything less.
And still, she won’t let him become another Koa. However much Kaisel might be inclined to follow in his cousin's footsteps, she refuses to let him thread himself between two women: She won’t let him be that boy, and she won’t let Caly be that girl. Besides, she had been the one to start it. The one to blur the lines. The one to let warmth and affection spiral into something sharp and irreversible. More fool was she to think a nineteen-year-old’s willingness to fall into her bed was anything more than just that—youth, convenience, desire. That him having imagined such scenerios was not born out of a what if, but just a means to an end late at night when he needed a little bit more than the heat of his hand.
So it was up to Flora to unblur what she’d invited; to redraw the lines she'd burned away and tuck her feelings away with her damp rings and tangled curls, and hand Kai the clean, curated version of her heart instead.
"You should bring her here sometime. The House adjusts to whatever its guests want, soo...like literally a perfect place for a date, and even better for sex."
