Stiles woke the way she always did, on her side with one thigh hooked over the other and the thin strap of her sleep top already slipped off her shoulder. Morning light cut a pale stripe across her bed and landed on the heavy swell of her tit where the fabric had given up. She didn’t fix it. She never did. The air felt nicer on her skin than cloth ever did.

She was twenty-two and built like someone had been generous on purpose. White skin that marked if you looked at it too hard. Pink mouth that stayed a little parted when she was thinking. Tits that sat high and full even when she wasn’t wearing anything, the kind that made cheap little tops look obscene without her meaning them to. Ass that filled out whatever she pulled on and then some. She knew she had a body people stared at. She just never knew what to do with the staring, so she smiled small and looked at the floor and said thank you like it was a polite inconvenience.

Tiny clothes were habit. Not a performance. A little white tank that stopped above her navel. Soft shorts that rode up when she sat. Dresses so short her dad would sigh and then immediately forget because she was his baby and she looked happy in them. She told people it was comfortable. That was true. It was also true that when she bent to pick something up, the air kissed the undersides of her tits and the crease where her ass met her thighs, and something low in her belly fluttered like it wasn’t supposed to.

She lived with Noah in a house that was too big for two people. He was rich the way some men were — quiet about it, always on calls, always tired in a kind way. He called her baby girl even when she was late for class. She was in her final year studying art, walking around campus with charcoal on her fingers and a tote bag that never closed properly. Boys tried. She went pink and said she had to finish a piece. She had never let anyone put their hand between her legs. When she got horny she locked her door, put on her headphones, opened something filthy on her laptop, and rubbed her clit in tight little circles until her thighs shook. She never pushed a finger inside. The thought of it made her squeeze her legs together and feel stupid. She was a virgin and she knew it sat on her like a secret she didn’t know how to spend.

And then there was Derek.

He lived next door. Forty-five. Tall enough that she had to tip her head back when they talked over the fence. Shoulders that filled a shirt. Hands that looked like they could break things and never did. CEO, old friend of her father’s, the kind of man who still said her name gently when he saw her carrying groceries. He was married to Sana. Arranged years ago, both families pleased, no children, a life that looked fine from the outside. They were kind to each other. They ate dinner. They traveled. They were more like good friends who shared a last name than people who reached for each other in the dark. Stiles knew that the way you know things you shouldn’t think about too long.

She had a crush on him the way some girls have a crush on a teacher or a neighbor they have no right to want. Small. Persistent. Embarrassing. She told herself she was a fool every time her stomach dropped because he waved from his driveway. He was married. He was her dad’s friend. He was old enough that wanting him felt like a private little sin she carried in her panties.

She still wanted him.

Then Sana died.

It was an accident. Fast. Ugly in the way sudden deaths are ugly. One day there was a woman who laughed at Noah’s bad jokes and asked Stiles about her paintings. The next day there was a funeral and a hole in the ground and Derek standing in a black suit like someone had emptied him out and left the suit standing.

Stiles cried until her pink mouth looked swollen. She stood a little behind her father and watched Derek receive condolences like they were stones being dropped into his hands. Noah stayed close to him. Held his shoulder. Spoke low. Did the things a real friend does when the world splits open.

A week later the house next door went quiet in a different way.

Derek stopped coming out. He didn’t answer the door unless Noah knocked hard. He wasn’t eating. The lights stayed off except one upstairs. Stiles would glance at his windows while she made tea and feel her chest hurt in a stupid, tender way, like her heart had decided his grief was her problem.

One night she sat across from her father at the kitchen island in a tank top so thin her nipples showed if the air conditioning kicked on, shorts barely covering the underside of her ass, hair in a messy knot.

“Dad,” she said softly. “Maybe I can take care of him. Until he gets better. Cook. Clean. Just… be there. He won’t come out for anyone. Maybe he’ll let me.”

Noah looked at her for a long time. Then his face did that thing it did when he was proud and trying not to get wet-eyed about it.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “Kindest thing in this house. You sure? He’s not himself.”

“I’m sure.” She picked at the hem of her shorts. “He’s Uncle Derek. I don’t want him to disappear in that house.”

So she started going over every morning.

His place smelled like closed rooms and leftover grief. She let herself in with the spare key Noah had. Tiny shorts, a cropped tee that kept riding up over the soft underside of her tits when she reached for the top cupboard. Bare feet on his floors. She opened windows. She cooked rice and soup and whatever she thought a man who wasn’t eating might actually swallow. She cleaned the kitchen like she was apologizing to it.

He stayed in the bedroom.

She would knock, wait, then go in with a tray.

He was always in bed. Sheets twisted around his waist. Chest bare some mornings, the muscle there looking wasted by not moving. Eyes dark and far away. He looked older and younger at the same time.

“Hi,” she would whisper, like volume could break him. “I made you something. You have to eat a little, okay? Just a little for me.”

She sat on the edge of the mattress. The mattress dipped and her shorts crawled higher. She blew on the spoon because she was like that, even now. Held it to his mouth. Sometimes his lips parted. Sometimes she had to wait. When he swallowed she smiled like he’d given her a gift.

She told him cute, clumsy jokes. About the neighbor’s dog who stole her sock. About mixing up two paint tubes and turning a whole canvas the color of a bruise. About Noah burning toast and pretending it was artisanal.

He didn’t laugh. Once, twice, the corner of his mouth moved. A smile that wasn’t a smile yet, just the ghost of one, and it was only for her. Then he would lie back down and stare at the ceiling like it had answers.

Stiles’s heart hurt. Actually hurt. She wanted to crawl into the bed and put her cheek on his chest and tell him he wasn’t allowed to fade. She didn’t. She was shy and she was a virgin and he was a widower and she was his friend’s daughter in a shirt that barely existed.

But her body didn’t care about any of that.

When she leaned over to fix his pillow, her tits hung heavy in the thin cotton and the neckline gaped. She felt the air on the inner curves. She felt her nipples go tight and hated herself for it. When she stood to take the tray, her shorts were wedged between her ass cheeks and she had to tug them down with one hand, face burning, hoping he hadn’t looked.

He looked sometimes. Not hungry. Just there. Like his eyes had nowhere else to land and she was the only moving thing in the room.

At night she went home, showered, locked her door, and put her laptop on her thighs. She told herself she would watch something generic. She never did. She put on something filthy and rubbed her swollen little clit with two fingers, circling, circling, never pushing inside, panting into her pillow with her shorts shoved to the side. She thought about his mouth. His hands. The way the sheet sat low on his stomach. She came quiet and shaking and then she cried a little because she was a fool and he was broken and wanting him now felt even worse than wanting him when Sana was alive.

In the morning she put on another tiny outfit, packed a bag of groceries, and walked next door again.

She cooked.

She cleaned.

She sat on his bed and fed him and told him he still had a face worth smiling with.

He smiled for her, barely.

And Stiles, kind and shy and so wet she had to press her thighs together on the walk home, told herself she was only taking care of him.

She was such a good poor thing.

She was also already in trouble.