Chapter 3 The Bedframe

Julia’s apartment always ran warm, even in winter, as if it held her refusal to let anything feel unused. By August, it was an oven. The window unit rattled against the heat, and the hallway smelled of new particleboard.

I climbed the stairs with my drill in one hand and a canvas tote of tools in the other, grateful for their weight. Tools made sense. Manuals made sense. Follow the steps, tighten the bolts, and things will hold.

Julia opened the door before I could knock twice.

“There she is,” she said, sweeping me inside. “My emergency contact. My wife. The only competent person I’ve ever loved.”

“You say that now,” I said, shifting the drill so she wouldn’t hug it into my ribs.

“I’ll say it louder when you see the bed frame.”

She kissed my cheek, her scent instantly familiar. For one easy second, I leaned into it. Julia’s warmth and her unquestioning faith in me had been the oldest safe place in my adult life.

“Where’s the disaster?” I asked.

“Back bedroom,” she said. “He started opening boxes without me, which means all the screws are probably in seventeen different spiritual dimensions.”

He.

Of course. I’d known he’d be here, the knowledge sitting like a hidden bruise. Still, hearing Julia say him so lightly made my stomach tighten with jealousy and regret.

I followed her down the hall.

Eli stood in the middle of the room, a flat‑packed headboard leaning against his thigh and hardware balanced in his palm. The bedroom was small even without the bed. Boxes crowded the floor, slats stacked beneath the narrow window, heat pressing down from the low ceiling until the air felt thick.

He looked up.

The same shock ran through me as yesterday, smaller only because I’d expected it. Julia’s little brother was still the label my mind reached for first, and every time I saw him, it peeled loose and fell away.

He wore a faded T‑shirt damp with sweat across the back, athletic shorts loose on his hips, and the deliberate expression of someone working hard to act as though nothing about this room—or me—was unusual.

“Hey, Elena,” he said.

My name shouldn’t have felt strange in front of Julia. It did. It slid under my skin too easily, leaving me exposed.

Julia groaned at the hardware in his hand. “See? Chaos.”

“I sorted them,” Eli said.

“That,” I replied, taking in the floor, “would be a generous definition of sorted.”

His mouth twitched.

Julia clutched her chest. “God, the sexual tension in this room is actually just everyone wanting the screws alphabetized.”

I shot her a look too fast to be casual. She only laughed and shoved me toward the bed frame.

“Fix him,” she said. “I’m making iced coffee before I melt through the floorboards.”

She vanished down the hall.

I set the drill and tote on the floor. “Nothing gets opened further until I see the manual.”

Eli held it out immediately.

Of course, he’d already found it.

I crouched and opened the paper. The room seemed to contract, heightening my awareness of his position and the limited space between us. I focused on the diagrams—headboard, rails, slats—and felt myself settle into the order of numbered steps.

“Separate the bolts by size,” I said. “And don’t guess.”

“Yes, Professor.”

The title should have steadied me. Instead, the quiet way he said it made it feel like a private joke we were both failing to understand.

I looked up. He was already crouched across from me, expression unreadable, attention fixed on the hardware. Obedient. That should have made this easier.

It didn’t.

Julia returned with three sweating glasses of iced coffee. “My two favorite control freaks in one room. Nature is healing.”

“You’re in the way,” I said.

“That’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

For half an hour, we worked in a rhythm almost normal. Julia misread labels on purpose. Eli lifted what I pointed at, braced what I told him to brace, and passed me the right tool without needing it repeated. We’d made this shape before: Julia talking, me fixing, Eli at the edge.

Except now, I noticed.

I noticed the sweat at the back of his neck, the flex in his forearm as he tightened a bolt, the way he ducked under the low angle of the headboard. Once, reaching blindly for the screwdriver, his hand met mine in the hot, narrow space between the supports. Not a grab. Not a pause.

But neither of us moved away quickly enough.

I took the tool and kept my face empty.

The room had become unbearable. Every inch pressed in—knees almost touching, his thigh brushing the bed rail, the wood smell blending with heat and detergent.

Julia’s phone rang.

She checked the screen and swore. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Hospital?” I asked.

“Of course.” She jabbed the answer button, listened, and closed her eyes. “I have to go in.”

“Then go.”

“You’ll stay?”

I looked at the half‑built frame.

She read the answer. “You two can finish this. It’s basically done. Eli, do not improvise. Elena, don’t let him die.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Eli said.

Julia kissed my cheek, punched Eli lightly in the shoulder, and was gone in a gust of urgency and perfume.

The apartment settled.

A siren passed outside. The window unit groaned. In the sudden quiet, the sound of Eli setting down a bolt was indecently loud.

“Hand me the slats,” I said.

He did.

I knelt to fit one into place. He knelt opposite me, close enough that I could feel heat coming off him. The mattress support dipped under our weight.

“You filed the form,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And I dropped the class.”

I fitted another slat too hard. “Good.”

“I withdrew from the lab, too.”

That made me look up. His face gave nothing away except attention.

“You didn’t have to—”

“I know.”

Meaning: I did it anyway. Meaning: for you.

I turned back to the bed. “This is the right arrangement.”

“For who?”

“For everyone.”

He was quiet long enough that I hoped he’d let it go. Then, softly: “Does it feel right?”

My fingers slipped against the wood. “Don’t.”

“Okay.”

He obeyed at once. Again. That terrible, measured obedience.

We finished the slats in silence. I stood, and he rose too, the room narrowing to inches and heat, the finished frame fixed between us like proof.

“I meant what I said,” he told me.

I knew which part.

“Eli—”

“I’ll do what you ask,” he said, voice-controlled. “I’ll keep a distance. I’ll be careful. I’ll make it easy if that’s what you need.”

Need. Not want.

“Yes,” I said.

Something moved in his face—wanting pulled tight enough to pass for composure. “All right.”

He stepped back.

It should have relieved me. Instead, the loss of his warmth landed hard.

I studied the finished frame. My pulse stayed uneven. My body felt unreliable. Julia would return and thank us, never knowing what the room had held.

Distance, I told myself. Distance was a rule. Rules were useful. Rules had saved me before.