ROMAN'S POV
It's 3 AM and I'm awake thinking about his fucking hands.
Not in a romantic way. Just—they're big. He has big hands. And he kept them on the table during coffee, right there in my sight line, and he didn't move them once. Not once. For two hours.
That's weird, right? That's a weird thing to notice.
I've been with guys who can't keep their hands to themselves for five minutes. Touch my arm, touch my back, find excuses to put their hand on my knee under the table like I won't notice. Like I'm public property because they bought me a drink.
Khalid sat across from me for two hours and kept his hands visible and still like he was proving something.
I don't know what he was proving but it worked and now I'm pissed about it.
---
I left the gallery after thirty minutes because I needed him to either follow me or give me space.
He gave me space.
Which made me want him to follow me.
Which is fucked up and I know it's fucked up but here we are.
I've been testing guys since I was sixteen and they always fail the same way—they either chase too hard or they don't chase at all. Khalid's doing this third thing where he's present but not pursuing and I don't have a playbook for that.
At Bettie's party last week some producer touched my lower back and I almost broke his hand. Not because he was gross (he was, but whatever) but because I kept comparing it to Khalid who's been alone with me multiple times and hasn't touched me at all.
That's a bad sign. When you start comparing every other man to one specific man, that's a very bad sign.
---
Here's what I know:
He bribed someone to get into that screening. Five thousand dollars. That's insane. That's the kind of money normal people spend on cars and he spent it to watch me cry on camera for ninety minutes.
I should be creeped out.
I'm not creeped out.
I'm—I don't know what I am. Flattered? Terrified? Turned on?
All of the above probably.
---
He watches my mouth when I talk.
Not in the sleazy way guys usually do when they're imagining me doing something to them. In this focused way like he's trying to memorize how I form words. Like my mouth is doing something interesting beyond the obvious.
It's the hottest thing anyone's ever done and he's not even trying.
That's what's breaking my brain. He's not trying. He's not performing. He's just existing in my space with this terrifying level of focus and I don't know how to handle it.
---
I invited him to my apartment.
I still don't know why I did that. I had a plan. The plan was: coffee shops, public spaces, maintain control. The plan was NOT: invite a man who's clearly obsessed with me into my personal space at 11 PM on a Tuesday.
But I did it anyway.
And you know what he did? He sat on my couch and talked to me about film theory for an hour and didn't try to kiss me once.
An hour.
On my couch.
Where I was wearing shorts and sitting close enough that our legs touched.
And he just—talked. About Goddard and French New Wave and whether visual language has changed with streaming.
I wanted to kill him.
I also wanted to climb into his lap and see what would happen.
I did neither. Just sat there getting increasingly frustrated while he explained the political context of Breathless like he didn't notice I was losing my mind.
---
I think he noticed.
Actually I know he noticed because at one point I leaned forward to grab my coffee and my hand brushed his knee and he went completely still. Not uncomfortable still. Predator still. Like every muscle in his body was focused on not reacting.
His jaw did this thing. This tightening thing.
And I realized: oh. He's dying. He's actually, physically dying to touch me and he's choosing not to.
That's power.
Not the usual power where I perform and men react. Different power. The power of him seeing me actually want something and making me wait for it.
I've never wanted to fuck someone more in my life.
---
Which is a problem because I don't do this.
I don't do the thing where I actually care if someone touches me. I don't do the thing where I'm awake at 3 AM thinking about someone's hands. I don't do the thing where I'm comparing every other interaction to one specific person.
I do casual. I do strategic. I do "this is fun until it's not."
I don't do whatever the fuck this is.
---
Avery asked me yesterday if I'm seeing someone.
I said no.
She said "you look different."
I said "I got new skincare."
She didn't believe me but she didn't push it.
The thing is I DO look different. I keep catching myself in mirrors and there's this—I don't know. Something. Some stupid glow or whatever that happens when you're thinking about someone constantly.
I hate it.
I also kind of love it.
Mostly I hate that I love it.
---
Here's what I've observed about Khalid that's different from literally everyone else:
He asks me questions and then actually listens to the answers. Not the thing where guys ask questions as foreplay to talking about themselves. Actual listening. Where he remembers details from three conversations ago and brings them up later.
Last week I mentioned I hate cilantro in passing and yesterday he ordered food for us and specifically made sure nothing had cilantro in it.
It's such a small thing.
It's the smallest thing.
Why am I thinking about it at 3 AM?
---
He's also stupidly hot in this way I wasn't prepared for.
At the gala he was just—tall, well-dressed, rich guy. Fine. Whatever.
But up close he's got this intensity that makes my skin aware of itself. The way he looks at me makes me feel like I'm the only person in the world who exists. Everything else disappears. His business, his other obligations, his normal life—none of it matters when I'm in the room.
That should be creepy.
It's not creepy.
It's the most attractive thing that's ever happened to me.
---
I keep trying to find the angle.
Like—what does he want? What's the play here?
Because men always want something. They want to fuck me, or be seen with me, or use me to get to someone else, or prove they can have me. There's always an angle.
I can't find Khalid's angle.
He's not trying to be seen with me publicly—we've been careful about that.
He's not trying to fuck me—clearly, painfully not trying.
He's not using me to get to anyone else—he has more connections than I do.
He just—wants to know me?
That can't be it. That's too simple.
Nobody actually wants to know me. They want the performance. They want Roman Helton, actress. They want the wild stories and the scandal and the carefully constructed brand.
They don't want the actual person who's broken and careful and doesn't know how to stop performing.
Except maybe he does.
---
At the Edison last week (I sent him to the wrong party first because I'm a bitch and I wanted to see if he'd actually chase me—he did), we talked until 2 AM.
Not about anything important. Just—everything. Movies and childhood and the worst things we've ever done and whether people can actually change or if we're all just slightly better at hiding our damage.
Heavy shit for a first real conversation.
But it didn't feel heavy. It felt easy.
And at one point I was talking about this role I turned down because the director was a creep, and Khalid said something like "good" and I looked at him and he was just—present. Not trying to fix it or make me feel better or offer advice. Just there.
Nobody's ever just been there before.
Everyone's always trying to do something. Fix me or fuck me or turn me into a story they can tell at parties.
Khalid just exists next to me and lets me exist next to him.
---
I'm going to fuck this up.
I can feel it already. This thing where I start to care and then I panic and then I do something destructive to prove I was right to not care in the first place.
I can already feel the panic starting.
Because here's the thing: if I let him in—actually let him in, past the performance and the strategy and all the walls I've built—he's going to see everything. The ugly parts. The broken parts. The parts that are so damaged I don't even look at them anymore.
And then he's going to leave.
Everyone leaves eventually.
But the not-leaving is almost worse. Because if he stays after seeing all that, if he sees the absolute worst of me and decides he still wants to be here, then I'm fucked. Then I'm actually, genuinely trapped in caring about whether someone stays.
I don't know which I'm more afraid of.
---
His watch is nice.
I don't know why I keep noticing it. It's just a watch. Expensive, probably. Simple. He wears it on his left wrist and sometimes when he's thinking he touches it with his other hand.
It's such a small thing to notice.
I've noticed it four times.
---
I'm testing him again this week.
Not sure what the test is yet. Maybe I'll cancel plans. Maybe I'll flirt with someone in front of him. Maybe I'll just be myself—the messy, difficult, occasionally cruel version—and see if he flinches.
Everyone flinches eventually.
I need to know when he will.
So I can leave first.
---
Except I'm starting to think I don't want to leave.
Which is the worst possible development.
Because once you stop wanting to leave, once you start imagining what it would be like to stay, you've already lost.
You're already his.
And I'm not anyone's.
I'm not.
---
It's 4 AM now.
I should sleep.
I won't.
I'll probably just lie here thinking about his hands and his watch and the way he looked at my mouth and whether I'm brave enough to let him touch me.
Or whether I'm brave enough to let him keep not touching me until I break.
I'm going to break.
I can feel it.
And I think he knows it.
And I think he's waiting.
Fuck.