I stand at the top of the stairs, my hand gripping the banister like it’s the only solid thing left. The wood is smooth and warm under my palm, worn from years of small hands and heavy feet. I can hear my own heartbeat, stupidly loud in the silence, and I force myself to breathe. In. Out. Like I’m the one who needs to be coaxed back from the edge.

I smooth my hair, tucking a stray strand behind my ear. My jeans are still loose, my T-shirt untucked, and I feel the ghost of my own touch between my thighs, a lingering warmth that has nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the thing I’m trying not to think about. The monitor. The red light. The warmth of the plastic in my hands.

Stop it. You don’t know that anyone saw.

I take the stairs one at a time, my trainers soft on the carpet, and I try to look normal. What does normal look like? I don’t know anymore. I feel like every movement I make is too loud, too deliberate, as if the house itself is watching me.

The kitchen is at the back of the house, down the hall past the living room and the downstairs loo. The floor changes from carpet to tile as I round the corner, and I hear it before I see him—the soft clink of a mug against the counter, the creak of a cabinet door opening and closing. My stomach drops. There’s someone here. Of course there’s someone here. Emma said they’d be back in a few hours, but I knew, I knew when I saw that monitor that something was off.

I stop at the doorway.

Bradley is standing at the kitchen island, his back to me. He’s in his work clothes—dark trousers, a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the collar undone. His shoulders are broad, the soft curve of his middle visible even from behind, and he’s holding his phone in one hand, scrolling with his thumb. The kettle is steaming next to him, a tea bag already in a mug.

He hasn’t heard me yet. Or he’s pretending not to.

I clear my throat. It comes out smaller than I meant it to, almost a question.

‘Bradley.’

He flinches. Actually flinches, his whole body tightening, and he turns around so fast his elbow knocks the mug. It rocks, spills a few drops of hot water on the counter, and he catches it, his hand clumsy and quick. He sets it down and looks at me.

His face is the colour of old paper. He looks guilty. He looks caught. He looks like a man who has just been walked in on, and I feel the blood drain from my own face as I understand—he saw me. He knows what I did. He watched.

The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. His phone is still in his hand, the screen glowing, and I see it before he can hide it: the baby monitor app, open, the video feed frozen on a still image of the guest room ceiling, the bed, the corner of the chest of drawers.

He saw me. He saw everything.

‘Laura.’ His voice cracks. He clears his throat, tries again. ‘I didn’t—I mean, I came home early, work let out, and I—’ He stops. His jaw tightens, and he looks down at his phone like he’s only just remembered he’s holding it. He sets it face-down on the counter, a mirror of what I did upstairs. ‘Shit.’

I don’t know what to say. My mouth is dry, my hands cold, and I feel the heat rising in my cheeks, a slow, burning flush that starts in my chest and spreads up to my ears. I want to disappear. I want to run back up the stairs, lock the door, pretend I never came down. But my feet are rooted to the tile, and my eyes are locked on his, and I can’t look away.

‘How long were you watching?’ The words come out before I can stop them, flat and surprising, and I see him wince.

He runs a hand over his bald head, then down his face, rubbing his beard. ‘I don’t know. A minute? Two? I came in, checked the monitor—I don’t even know why, habit, Lily’s room is just next to the—’ He stops. Takes a breath. ‘I saw you on the bed, and I didn’t—I should have turned it off. I know I should have. But I didn’t. And then you saw the light, and I panicked, and I turned it off. I’m so sorry, Laura. Fuck. I’m so sorry.’

He looks genuinely pained. His shoulders are hunched, his hands gripping the edge of the counter like he’s holding himself upright, and I see the shame in the set of his jaw, the way he can’t quite meet my eyes for more than a second. He’s not cocky. He’s mortified.

And underneath my own shame, underneath the burning embarrassment, there’s something else. A flicker. A dangerous, quiet curiosity. He watched. He kept watching. He didn’t turn it off right away. Why? Because he wanted to see? Because he liked it?

The thought slides through me like a hot blade, and I push it away, hard.

‘I can’t believe this happened,’ I say, my voice thin. ‘I was just—I was reading, I didn’t think anyone—’ I stop. The lie is too obvious, too flimsy. He saw what I was doing. There’s no point pretending I was just reading. ‘Why didn’t you just leave? Why didn’t you turn it off the second you saw me?’

He flinches again, and I watch him struggle for an answer. His hands are white-knuckled on the counter. ‘I don’t have a good reason. There’s no good reason. I was just—I was frozen. And then I was watching, and I knew I should stop, but I didn’t. And I hate myself for it. I hate that I did that to you.’ He looks up, finally meeting my eyes, and there’s something raw in his gaze. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Laura. I don’t expect you to forgive me.’

I should be furious. I should scream at him, tell him he violated me, threaten to tell Emma. That’s what a normal person would do. That’s what a sister would do. But I’m not furious. I’m embarrassed, yes. Mortified. But there’s a part of me—a part I don’t want to acknowledge—that’s wondering what he thought, what he felt, whether he liked what he saw.

I haven’t been touched properly in weeks. I haven’t felt desired in longer than I want to admit. And the idea that someone watched me, that someone saw me lose control, that someone kept watching—it’s wrong, it’s so wrong, but it makes my stomach tighten in a way that has nothing to do with shame.

I don’t say any of that. I just stand there, my arms crossed over my chest, my nails digging into my own skin.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I manage. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

Bradley lets go of the counter, straightens up, and for a moment he looks almost like himself again—tired, human, a man who made a terrible mistake. ‘You don’t have to decide anything right now. I just—I wanted you to know I’m sorry. And I won’t tell anyone. Obviously. I’ll delete the app, the whole thing. It won’t happen again.’

I nod, a jerky, automatic motion. ‘Okay.’

The silence returns, heavier than before. The kettle clicks off, and the steam fades. The kitchen smells of tea and the faint citrus of his deodorant, and I feel the distance between us like a physical weight. Three feet of tile and counter, but it might as well be a mile.

‘How did you get home early?’ I ask, the question coming out of nowhere, just to fill the space.

He blinks, surprised. ‘Finished my meetings early. One got cancelled, the other ran short. I was going to surprise Emma, have the house sorted before she gets back.’ He gestures vaguely at the kitchen. ‘I was making tea.’

‘Right.’ I look at the mug, the tea bag still steeping. ‘You haven’t even had any yet.’

‘No.’ He almost smiles, a ghost of his usual dry humour. ‘Guess I got distracted.’

The almost-smile breaks something in me. I feel my own lips twitch, a reaction I can’t control, and I look away quickly, staring at the clock on the microwave instead. 3:47. Emma and the kids will be back in about an hour. An hour of this. An hour of standing in this kitchen, pretending we’re normal, pretending I didn’t just find out my brother-in-law watched me masturbate through his daughter’s baby monitor.

‘I should probably go back upstairs,’ I say. ‘Get changed. Help you with… whatever you were doing.’

‘You don’t have to help.’ His voice is softer now, careful. ‘I’m just making tea and waiting. You can do whatever you need to do.’

I don't move. My feet stay rooted to the cold linoleum, and I watch him turn back to the counter, his hands reaching for the mug, the kettle, the tea bag he’d abandoned. He’s trying to act normal. He’s trying to give me an exit, a way to pretend this conversation never happened, but I can’t take it. I can’t walk away from this kitchen, from this moment, from the thing that’s hanging between us like smoke.

‘Bradley.’

His name comes out quiet, almost a whisper, and he stops. His shoulders tense, but he doesn’t turn around.

‘I don’t want to be alone right now.’ The words surprise me. I didn’t know I was going to say them until they left my mouth, and now they’re sitting in the air between us, raw and honest, and I can’t take them back. ‘I mean—I can’t just go upstairs and sit there. Not after…’ I trail off, gesturing vaguely at the space between us, at the whole impossible situation. ‘I need a minute. To breathe. To pretend I’m normal.’

He turns slowly, his face unreadable. His hand hovers over the kettle, and I see the tremor in his fingers, barely there but unmistakable. He’s as shaken as I am. That should make me feel better. It doesn’t.

‘I can make you a cup of tea,’ he says. ‘If you want to stay. I mean—if you need a minute. Here. In the kitchen. With me.’ He’s stumbling over his words, and I realise he’s trying to be kind. He’s trying to give me something to hold onto, something ordinary.

‘Okay.’ I step forward, my trainers soft on the tile. ‘Tea would be good.’

He nods, turns back to the counter, and picks up the kettle. The water is still hot, and he pours it into a fresh mug, dropping in a tea bag with more care than the task requires. I watch his hands as he works—broad, capable hands, the nails clean and short. He has a small scar on his knuckle, pale and faded. I wonder how he got it. I wonder why I’m noticing it now.

The silence stretches, but it’s different from before. Less suffocating. More like a held breath, waiting to be released.

‘I keep thinking about what you said,’ I say, my voice steadier than I feel. ‘About not having a good reason. About being frozen.’ I pause, watching him stir the tea with a concentration that feels deliberate. ‘I believe you. I think. I don’t know.’

He sets the spoon down, turns to face me. His eyes meet mine, and this time he holds them. ‘That’s more than I deserve. You believing me.’

‘Don’t make this into something it’s not,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m not forgiving you. I’m not saying it’s fine. I’m just—trying to understand.’

He nods slowly. ‘I get it. I don’t have answers. I just have the thing I did, and I can’t undo it.’ He slides the mug across the counter toward me. ‘Here. Sugar’s on the sideboard if you want it.’

I wrap my hands around the mug, the heat seeping into my cold fingers. I don’t take a sip. I just stand there, holding it, letting the warmth ground me. ‘How long have you been home?’

‘About twenty minutes before I heard you moving around upstairs.’ He leans against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘I came in, put my bag down, checked the monitor out of habit. Lily’s been sick, so I’ve been checking it more often. And then I saw—’ He stops, his jaw tightening. ‘And then I was watching, and I couldn’t stop.’

‘You didn’t know it was me on the bed.’ It’s not a question. I’m trying to piece it together, to understand how it happened. ‘You just saw movement, saw someone—’

‘No.’ His voice is firm, cutting through my words. ‘I knew it was you. The room was bright enough, and you were—’ He stops again, his face flushing. ‘I knew it was you.’

Something cold settles in my chest. He knew. It wasn’t an accident. He saw me, recognised me, and chose to keep watching. The thought should make me angry. It should make me feel violated. And part of me does feel those things—a small, quiet part that’s screaming at me to walk away, to call Emma, to burn this whole thing down. But underneath that, underneath the shame and the guilt, there’s a flicker of something else. Something I don’t want to name.

‘Why?’ The word comes out before I can stop it. ‘Why would you keep watching if you knew it was me?’

Bradley looks down at his hands. He’s quiet for a long moment, and I watch his chest rise and fall with a deep breath. When he speaks, his voice is low. ‘Because you looked… beautiful. And I don’t mean that as an excuse. I mean it as a fact. You looked beautiful, and I couldn’t look away, and I hate myself for it.’

The word hits me like a physical blow. Beautiful. He called me beautiful. Not sexy, not hot—beautiful. And I feel my cheeks burn, my stomach tightening in a way that has nothing to do with anger. I look down at my mug, watching the tea swirl, trying to find something to say that won’t make this worse.

‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ I manage, my voice barely above a whisper.

‘Probably not.’ He runs a hand over his head, a nervous gesture I’ve seen him do a hundred times at family dinners, at Christmas, at barbecues. But now it feels different. Now it feels like he’s trying to hold himself together. ‘But you asked, and I don’t want to lie to you. Not after what I did.’

I look up at him, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. The clock on the microwave ticks over to 3:51. Nine minutes since I came downstairs. It feels like a lifetime.

‘What happens now?’ I ask, and I’m not sure if I’m asking about the next hour or the next year. ‘When Emma gets home? When everyone’s here? How do I look at you across the dinner table and pretend this didn’t happen?’

‘I don’t know.’ He sounds tired, defeated. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out since I saw you standing at the door. I don’t know how we pretend. But I know we have to. For Emma, for the kids, for everyone.’

‘And if I can’t?’ My voice cracks. ‘If I look at you and all I can think about is—’ I stop, biting my lip. I was going to say something dangerous. Something I have no business saying.

‘Is what?’ His eyes narrow, and I see a flicker of curiosity in them, a mirror of what I felt earlier. ‘What will you think about when you look at me, Laura?’

I shake my head. ‘Nothing. Forget it.’

‘No.’ He steps forward, closing the distance between us. Not much—maybe a foot—but now we’re close enough that I can smell him. Citrus and tea and something warm underneath. ‘You were going to say something. Say it.’

‘I don’t even know what I was going to say,’ I lie. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I feel the heat rising to my face again. ‘This is crazy. This is—we can’t do this. We can’t stand here and talk about what you saw like it’s something we’re going to revisit.’

‘I’m not asking to revisit it.’ His voice is soft, careful. ‘I’m asking you to be honest with me. Because I’ve been honest with you, even when it made me look like a monster. And I think you deserve to be honest too.’

I set the mug down on the counter with a clatter. The tea sloshes, a few drops landing on the tile. I don’t care. ‘Honest? You want honest? Fine. Honest is that I don’t know how to feel. Honest is that part of me is furious, and part of me is mortified, and part of me—’ I stop. Take a breath. ‘Part of me is curious. About why you kept watching. About what you thought. About whether you—’ I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t have the words.

He’s watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. ‘Laura—’

‘No. Don’t. Don’t say my name like that, like you’re trying to calm me down. I’m not a horse.’ I press my palms flat against the counter, leaning forward. ‘You saw something you shouldn’t have. You kept watching. And now we’re standing here, in your kitchen, talking about it like it’s some kind of—I don’t even know what.’

He doesn’t flinch. He just stands there, meeting my eyes, and when he speaks, his voice is steady. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have watched. I shouldn’t have stayed on that app. And I’m sorry. I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. But I can’t take it back. I can’t unsee what I saw. And the only thing I can do now is promise you that it won’t happen again.’ He pauses. ‘And if you want to tell Emma, I’ll understand. I’ll tell her myself if you want me to.’

The offer stops me cold. ‘You’d do that?’

‘If it’s what you need. Yes.’

I look at him, really look at him. The tiredness around his eyes, the slump of his shoulders, the way his hands are clenched at his sides. He’s not trying to manipulate me. He’s not trying to talk me out of it. He’s offering me a way out, even if it destroys him.

And I realise, with a sinking feeling, that I don’t want to take it.

‘I don’t want to tell Emma.’ The words come out before I can think about them. ‘I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want this to go away.’

‘It won’t go away,’ he says quietly. ‘It’ll still be here. Between us.’

‘I know.’ I pick up the mug again, taking a sip of the tea. It’s lukewarm now, too strong and slightly bitter. I don’t care. ‘But maybe we can pretend it’s not. For her sake.’

He nods slowly, and I see something shift in his expression. Relief? Or resignation? I can’t tell. ‘Okay. We pretend. We act normal. We don’t talk about it.’

‘And we don’t do anything stupid.’ I say it like a warning, aimed at both of us.

‘Agreed.’

We stand there, the word hanging between us like a promise neither of us believes. The clock ticks to 3:55. Emma will be home in forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes to compose myself, to find my mask, to pretend I’m the same person who walked into this house three hours ago.

I finish the tea in silence, and Bradley watches me. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. We both know this isn’t over. We both know pretending is just a word we’re using to buy time.

When I set the mug in the sink, I feel his hand brush against mine—accidental, brief, a spark of warmth against my skin. I jerk back like I’ve been burned, and he does the same.

‘Sorry,’ he mutters, not meeting my eyes.

‘It’s fine.’ But it’s not. Nothing is fine. And as I walk out of the kitchen, up the stairs, back to the guest room, I feel his gaze on my back, and I know that when I look at him across the dinner table tonight, I won’t see my brother-in-law. I’ll see the man who watched me lose control, who called me beautiful, who made me feel something I haven’t felt in years.

And I’ll have to pretend I don’t want to feel it again.

The guest room looks the same as I left it. The bed is still rumpled, the sheet twisted where I lay, the pillow dented from my head. The book is on the nightstand, face-down, spine cracked open to the page I was reading. I stare at it for a long moment, then pick it up, close it, and slide it into my bag. I don't want to see it again. I don't want to be reminded of what I was doing when he saw me.

I sit on the edge of the bed, my hands pressed flat against my thighs. My heart is still hammering, a steady, insistent drum that won't quiet. I close my eyes and try to breathe, but all I can smell is him—citrus and tea and that warm, indefinable thing that clung to his shirt when he stood close to me. I press my palms harder into my jeans, grounding myself in the rough denim, the pressure of my own weight.

I should text Sam. That's what a normal wife would do. Check in, say I arrived safe, ask about his day. I pull out my phone, scroll to his name, and stare at the last message I sent him this morning. A picture of the motorway, the sky grey and heavy, with the caption: Off I go. He'd replied with a thumbs-up emoji. That was it. That was the sum total of our communication today.

I type: Here safe. Emma not back yet, just me and the house. I pause, my thumb hovering over the send button. The lie sits in my throat, smooth and familiar. I send it anyway. His reply comes a minute later: Good. Don't eat all the biscuits. A joke. A normal joke from a normal husband to a normal wife. I almost laugh, but it comes out as a strangled sound, half-sob, half-something else.

I put the phone down and look at myself in the mirror above the chest of drawers. My face is flushed, my hair escaping from its bun in messy tendrils. I look like someone who's been caught. I look like someone who's been seen. I reach up and pull the elastic free, letting my hair fall around my shoulders, and I don't know why that feels like a small act of defiance.

Downstairs, I hear him moving. The clink of a mug being washed, the tap running, the soft thud of a cabinet door closing. Ordinary sounds. Sounds that should mean nothing. But now every noise feels loaded, every footstep a question I don't know how to answer.

I stand up and walk to the window. The garden stretches out below, green and overgrown at the edges, a child's trampoline sagging in the corner. Ben's bike is propped against the shed, a dinosaur sticker peeling off the frame. Normal. Everything is so painfully normal. And I'm standing here, in the room where I touched myself while my brother-in-law watched, trying to remember how to be the person I was this morning.

A car door slams in the distance. My stomach lurches. I lean closer to the glass, peering down the street, but it's not Emma's car—just a neighbour, unloading shopping. I let out a breath I didn't realise I was holding. Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. That's all I have left before I have to be her sister again, before I have to look at Bradley across a table full of food and pretend the air between us isn't charged with something electric and forbidden.

I turn away from the window and catch my reflection again. My hand drifts to my chest, tracing the edge of my floral tattoo where it peeks above my collar. I remember getting it—the sting of the needle, the thrill of doing something my parents would hate. I was twenty-two, fresh back from New Zealand, wild and unafraid. I don't recognise that girl anymore. But for a moment, just now, I felt her stir.

My phone buzzes. I pick it up, expecting Sam, but it's a message from an unsaved number. I open it, and my heart stops.

I know I said we'd pretend. But I need you to know I meant what I said. You are beautiful. And I'm sorry that makes things harder.

I read it three times. The words blur and sharpen, blur and sharpen. My thumb hovers over the reply box, and I feel the pull of it, the dangerous, magnetic pull of wanting to write back. Wanting to say something I can't take back.

I don't reply. I lock the phone and set it face-down on the nightstand, the screen dark, the message still burning in my mind. I don't delete it. I tell myself I will later. I tell myself a lot of things.

Downstairs, the front door opens. Emma's voice rings out, bright and tired, calling for Bradley, calling for Ben. The sound of her—my sister, my family—hits me like a wall of cold water. I hear Lily's fussy cry, Ben's heavy footsteps, the rustle of bags being set down. Normal. Loud. Alive.

I take one last look at myself in the mirror, smooth my hair, and head for the stairs. My feet feel heavy, each step carrying me closer to the performance I've agreed to. At the bottom, Emma is wrestling Lily out of her coat, her auburn hair escaping from a messy ponytail, her glasses slightly askew. She looks up as I reach the last step, and her face breaks into a tired smile.

'Laura! You made it. Sorry we're late—Lily had a meltdown in the car park over a sticker. A sticker, Laura. I don't even know where she got it.' She laughs, and it's so ordinary, so familiar, that I feel something crack inside me.

'It's fine,' I say, and my voice sounds almost normal. 'I've only been here an hour or so. Made myself at home.'

Bradley appears in the kitchen doorway, a tea towel over his shoulder. His eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, and I see the question in them— Did you get my message? —before he looks away, bending to scoop Lily into his arms.

'There's my girl,' he says, his voice warm and fatherly. 'Did you have a good time with Mummy?'

Lily babbles something incoherent, her small hand patting his cheek, and the sight of them—father and daughter, ordinary and sweet—makes my chest ache with a guilt I don't know how to name.

Emma brushes past me, heading for the kitchen. 'I'm dying for a cuppa. Brad, put the kettle on. Laura, did you eat? I can make you something.'

'I'm fine,' I say, following her. 'I had some toast earlier.'

She nods, already pulling mugs from the cupboard, and I watch her move through her own kitchen with the ease of someone who belongs here. This is her life. Her husband. Her children. And I'm standing in the middle of it, carrying a secret that could shatter everything.

I take a seat at the table, my hands clasped in my lap, and I watch Bradley hand Lily a biscuit, watch Emma stir sugar into her tea, watch Ben come barrelling through the back door with a handful of leaves he wants to show his dad. Normal. Loud. Alive.

And I smile, and I nod, and I pretend I'm fine.

But underneath the table, my fingers are pressed into my palm so hard that my nails leave crescents in my skin. And when Bradley sets a mug of tea in front of me, his fingers brush the edge of mine—deliberate this time, I'm sure of it—and I don't pull away.

I don't pull away at all.