Lucy Corbett
 

Lucy listened to him while they walked, the quiet rhythm of their footsteps settling into the empty street. The houses along this part of town sat closer together now—porches with wicker chairs, wind chimes that knocked softly in the breeze, the faint glow of a television flickering through someone’s living room curtains.

When he repeated “graceful in defeat,” she gave him a sideways look.

“A plaque?” she said lightly.

Lucy lifted one brow at him.

“Let’s not get carried away.”

But there was a trace of humor in her voice that hadn’t been there earlier in the night. It lingered there now, relaxed and unforced as they continued down the sidewalk.

His comment about her mom and the window displays pulled a quiet smile from her before she could stop it.

“That’s a polite way of saying terrifying,” she said.

Lucy could picture it clearly—her mom standing in the shop long after closing, sleeves rolled up, rearranging a table display for the third time because the colors didn’t balance right. Lucy had grown up with the sound of hangers sliding across metal racks and old records playing softly in the background while the town slept outside.

When he said she hadn’t ruined it, Lucy’s eyes flicked toward him.

She didn’t answer right away.

For a moment she just looked ahead at the sidewalk, one hand shifting slightly in the pocket of her jeans. The compliment sat there between them—simple and honest.

Lucy didn’t make a big deal out of it.

She just gave a small smile and a quiet, almost shy little shrug of one shoulder.

“Thanks.”

The word came soft but sincere.

And there was a tiny bit of pride in the way she said it, even if she didn’t elaborate. The shop mattered to her. Anyone who knew her even a little would know that.

They reached the next corner and Lucy turned without hesitation, stepping onto the quieter street that ran toward her building.

The shift was subtle but noticeable.

Main Street had still held a trace of life in it—storefront lights, the courthouse glow, the faint hum of the town center. This street felt softer, more residential. Rows of old trees lined the sidewalks, their leaves whispering faintly overhead. Porch lights dotted the block like warm little beacons.

Her apartment building sat halfway down the street.

A small brick place with three floors, ivy creeping up one side of the front steps and a narrow row of balconies above the entrance. The lights in most of the windows were off now.

Lucy glanced ahead toward it before looking back at him as he talked about Bedford Falls sounding bigger when she described it.

She thought about that for a second.

“I guess it never felt small to me,” she said.

Her voice carried a quiet certainty again, the kind that came from someone who had never needed the town to be anything other than what it was.

“I always had everything I needed here.”

The line wasn’t sentimental. It was simply true.

When he mentioned hanging around the shop with no real reason, Lucy’s mouth curved slightly.

“Oh you definitely had a reason,” she said.

Her tone stayed calm, teasing just enough to acknowledge it without making a whole thing out of it.

“Mostly you stood there pretending to look at jackets.”

She glanced at him briefly.

“You never bought any of them.”

Then he asked about Danny and the truck, and Lucy let out a quiet laugh.

“He still has it,” she said.

Lucy shook her head lightly.

“I’m pretty sure it runs on stubbornness and duct tape at this point.”

They passed a row of parked cars, the gravel crunching faintly under their shoes near the curb.

When he said he was choosing to hear “historic moment” as admiration, Lucy looked over at him again.

Her expression stayed relaxed, but the faint smile returned.

“You’re very brave making that assumption,” she said.

She let the silence sit for a couple steps before adding, with a small glance sideways—

“I’m not correcting you though.”

Her tone held that same quiet amusement.

Lucy nodded ahead toward the building now visible at the end of the block.

“That’s me.”

The apartment building stood just a little farther down the street, its front steps lit by a single yellow porch light.

She slowed her pace slightly as they approached it, the walk clearly nearing its end.

But she didn’t rush.

Not tonight.

Cameron followed her gaze to the apartment building and felt something in him ease at the fact that she’d slowed without making it abrupt.

That’s me.

The porch light cast a warm yellow wash over the front steps, catching the ivy climbing one side of the brick like the building had been there forever and saw no reason to change now. It looked like the kind of place Lucy would live—quiet, a little worn in, close enough to Main Street to walk anywhere worth going.

He kept his pace matched to hers.

Not dragging it out. Not hurrying it either.

When she said she wasn’t correcting him, his mouth pulled into a grin he couldn’t quite hide.

“See?” he said, low and satisfied. “That’s basically an endorsement.”

He shoved one hand a little deeper into his jacket pocket as they kept walking the last stretch.

“And I appreciate your maturity in letting me have that.”

The tease sat easy between them, but he let it settle after that instead of stacking more on top of it. The night had earned its quiet. So had she.

He looked ahead at the building again, then over at Lucy, catching the softened edge of her expression in the porch light and the way she still wasn’t rushing for the steps even though they were almost there.

He liked that more than he should have. That she wasn’t hurrying to shut the door on the night the second it got within reach of ending.

When they reached the bottom of the steps, Cameron slowed with her and stopped, one sneaker scraping lightly against the sidewalk as he shifted his weight back.

For a second he just looked up at the building, then back at her.

“Well,” he said, voice easy, quieter now in the residential hush of the street, “successful escort mission.”

His eyes flicked briefly to the porch light, the dark balconies above, then returned to her.

“You made it the full few blocks. Against all odds.”

That earned himself a faint, amused shake of his head.

Then he let the joke soften and tipped his chin once toward the door.

“Thanks for letting me walk you.”

He meant that plainly. No angle tucked into it. Just gratitude for the extra stretch of the night she’d handed him.

His gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he looked down the street they’d come from, hands still in his pockets, shoulders loose.

The whole block had gone still in that particular after-midnight way—no voices, no engines, just leaves moving faintly overhead and the occasional creak from somebody’s porch swing down the street.

Cameron glanced back at her, that easier warmth still there in his expression.

“I had a good time,” he said again, because it felt worth saying twice if it was true. “Better than I expected, honestly.”

A small breath of laughter left him.

“Thought I was just gonna have a beer and get humbled at darts. Didn’t realize I was signing up for a full character-building experience.”

His mouth tipped at one corner, but the fondness under it stayed quiet and real.

Then he rocked back slightly on his heels, giving her the shape of an opening if she wanted it—the easy out, the clean goodnight, the choice fully hers.

But he didn’t step away yet.

Didn’t force the ending into place.

Instead he stayed there at the foot of her steps, content in the pause, the kind of man he hadn’t always known how to be with her but seemed to be getting closer to tonight.

After a beat, his eyes drifted up toward the balconies and back down again.

“Which one’s yours?” he asked, casual and light. “So I can make sure you don’t get abducted between here and the front door.”

Lucy slowed the last few steps the same way she had slowed the whole walk—without announcing it, without turning the moment into something heavier than it needed to be. The porch light above the building cast a warm glow across the small set of brick steps and the ivy climbing up the side of the entryway.

She followed his gaze when he looked up at the building, then back at him when he started joking about his “successful escort mission.”

Her mouth curved again.

“You really showed remarkable courage,” she said dryly.

“Three whole blocks.”

Lucy rested one hand loosely against the strap of the small crossbody bag at her side while he talked, the other still tucked in the pocket of her jeans. She listened while he said he’d had a good time, and for a moment her expression softened just slightly.

She didn’t make a big reaction out of it.

But she didn’t brush it off either.

“I had a good time too,” she said simply.

The honesty in it matched his—quiet, unperformed.

When he asked which one was hers, Lucy tilted her head a little and looked up toward the building again. Her apartment was on the second floor, the small balcony with a potted fern she constantly forgot to water.

She looked back at him.

One eyebrow lifted slowly.

“Oh,” she said.

Her tone slipped into something lightly sarcastic now, that familiar dry edge returning.

“Would it make you feel better to walk me to the door?”

Lucy nodded toward the steps with a faint tilt of her chin.

“You know.”

She paused just long enough to let the humor land.

“Really make sure I make it safely.”

The corner of her mouth twitched with the start of another smile.

She didn’t move up the steps yet.

Lucy held his gaze for another second after the question left her mouth, watching the way the porch light caught the side of his face.

The little sarcastic edge in her tone had been intentional.

Not cruel.

Just… Lucy.

When he didn’t immediately move for the steps, she let out a quiet breath through her nose, the corner of her mouth lifting again.

Then she started walking backward toward the building.

Still facing him.

Still looking at him.

“You’re very dedicated to this safety plan,” she said lightly as she stepped onto the first brick step.

She tilted her head slightly and pointed behind her with her thumb toward the second floor.

“It’s the one on the left.”

Lucy gave a small nod toward the balcony rail barely visible above them.

Then she turned before he could answer.

Just like that.

No long goodbye.

No lingering pause on the steps.

She climbed them easily, pushing open the front door and disappearing inside the quiet hallway of the building. The door closed behind her with a soft click that echoed faintly through the small entryway.

The hall smelled faintly like old carpet and someone’s laundry detergent.

Lucy moved up the staircase, her steps quiet on the worn wood, the familiar rhythm of home settling back over her shoulders as she reached the second floor landing. She pulled her keys from her bag, unlocked the door to her apartment, and stepped inside.

The place was dark.

Comfortably dark.

She flicked on the small lamp near the front window, warm light filling the living room in a soft glow.

For a second Lucy just stood there, slipping her shoes off near the door, letting the quiet of the apartment settle in after the walk.

Then curiosity tugged at her.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she crossed the room toward the window and pulled the curtain back slightly.

Just enough to see down to the street.

And there he was.

Still standing there.

Looking up.

Lucy blinked once in mild disbelief.

For half a second the whole thing looked like something out of some ridiculous teenage movie — the guy lingering under the streetlight, waiting for the girl to appear in the window like they were sixteen again and the world was still simple enough to pretend those kinds of scenes meant something permanent.

And for the first time all night—

her heart did that weird little thing.

A quick, unexpected flip in her chest.

Lucy’s expression didn’t change.

She didn’t acknowledge it.

Didn’t let the moment grow into anything larger in her mind.

Instead she reminded herself, very clearly—

He cheated.

That thought landed steady and grounding.

Lucy lifted one hand and gave him a small wave through the glass.

Nothing dramatic.

Just a simple goodnight.

Then she let the curtain fall back into place and stepped away from the window, leaving the streetlight glow outside and the quiet warmth of her apartment inside.

Cameron almost smiled the second she asked if it would make him feel better to walk her to the door.

Almost.

Because the way she said it—dry, lightly sarcastic, that familiar little edge she used when she was amused and refusing to make it too obvious—hit him somewhere warm and easy.

“Probably,” he said.

And he meant it just enough to make the joke work.

So he followed her to the steps, unhurried, hands still in his jacket pockets until she started backing up them and pointing out the second-floor balcony like she was briefing him on a security detail he’d taken way too seriously.

The one on the left.

He tipped his chin up toward it and gave a soft, acknowledging nod.

“Got it.”

Her turning before he could add anything felt exactly like her. No big moment made out of nothing. No drawn-out goodnight on the steps. Just Lucy deciding the shape of the ending and letting it be enough.

Cameron stayed where he was when she disappeared inside, the door clicking shut behind her.

The night folded in around him again after that—quiet street, yellow porch light, a breeze just cool enough to move the leaves overhead. He looked up toward the second floor without really thinking about it, eyes finding the left-side window and the thin shadow of the balcony rail.

He could’ve left right then.

Probably should have.

He knew how this looked. Knew if anybody happened to drive by and catch him standing under her building staring upward, it would get turned into a whole thing before breakfast.

But he also knew why he stayed.

Not to make it into something. Not to push. Not to turn one decent night into some overblown, small-town version of romance that belonged more to gossip than reality.

He just… wanted to make sure she got upstairs.

That was it.

Or mostly it, anyway.

Cameron shifted his weight, one heel scraping lightly against the sidewalk, and exhaled through his nose as he looked up at the dark window. The porch light cast enough glow to silver the edge of the balcony and the ivy crawling up the brick. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked once and then thought better of it.

He laughed softly to himself.

If anybody had told seventeen-year-old him that one day he’d be standing on a quiet Bedford Falls sidewalk after midnight, half-buzzed and weirdly content just because Lucy Corbett had let him walk her home and beat him at darts, he probably would’ve called bullshit.

But there he was.

And the truth of it sat simple in his chest: he’d always love her. That was never really going to stop being true. But tonight hadn’t been about winning her back or proving anything or chasing some version of the past that didn’t exist anymore.

It had just been good.

She’d laughed. She’d called him Cam. She’d let him stand beside her without turning the whole thing tense and brittle.

That was enough to leave him in a better mood than he’d had in a long time.

Then the lamp came on inside.

Soft yellow light spilled through the second-floor window, and Cameron looked up fully now without bothering to pretend otherwise. A second later, the curtain shifted.

And there she was.

He felt it in his chest immediately—that quick, stupid jolt of recognition even though he already knew she lived there, already knew she was safe, already knew this wasn’t some scene out of a movie no matter how the light framed her for half a second.

Lucy looked down.

Cameron’s mouth pulled into a grin before he could stop it.

Not cocky. Not triumphant. Just caught.

He lifted one hand in an easy little wave, the kind that said yeah, okay, you got me.

Then she waved back.

Small. Simple. Enough.

The curtain fell closed a second later, and with it the moment softened right back down into what it actually was: a good night ending cleanly.

Cameron stood there for one more beat, looking at the window where she’d just been, then let out a quiet breath through his nose and shook his head once.

“Yeah,” he murmured to himself, smiling a little. “Alright.”

Then he finally turned and headed back toward his truck.

His hands went into his pockets again as he walked, shoulders loose, steps easy against the sleeping street. The courthouse clock still glowed over the square behind him. Somewhere a wind chime knocked softly in the dark. Bedford Falls looked the same as it always had.

But it didn’t feel quite as tight around his ribs tonight.

By the time he reached the row of angled spaces near the square, that low, steady contentment was still there.

He climbed into the truck, started it, and sat for a second with one hand on the wheel, looking out through the windshield at the empty street.

Then he laughed quietly once, mostly at himself.

Graceful in defeat. Publicly coached. Walked her home. Stood outside like an idiot until she waved from the window.

Not exactly the kind of Friday night high school Cameron Tate would’ve bragged about.

Present-day Cameron, though?

He’d take it.

He pulled away from the curb a moment later, the truck rumbling softly through the quiet town, and for once he didn’t spend the drive home trying to decode every look, every sentence, every small mercy she’d given him.

He just let the night be what it was.

Good.

And maybe that was the most grown-up thing he’d done around Lucy Corbett in a very long time.

Lucy’s smile didn’t even try to hide anymore.

It stayed.

Soft, a little too bright, and completely unbothered by the fact that she was very obviously enjoying herself as they walked.

His comment about the plaque earned him a quiet laugh, her head tipping slightly toward him as she glanced at the lilies in his hand.

“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “These are carrying at least fifty percent of your score right now.”

A beat.

“Maybe sixty. The judges love a strong visual element.”

Her fingers squeezed his lightly where they were laced together, her thumb brushing once over his knuckles without thinking about it.

And when he said he deserved an award for not passing out when she kissed him, Lucy let out another soft laugh, shaking her head.

“You’re being dramatic,” she murmured, though her eyes flicked up to his face with something warmer sitting underneath it. “You handled it fine.”

A small pause.

“Suspiciously fine.”

Her mouth curved, teasing, but there was no real bite to it anymore. Not tonight.

Then he admitted he’d had a better version of asking her out.

That made her slow just a fraction—not enough to stop walking, just enough that her attention settled more fully on him.

“No,” she said gently, almost immediately. “Don’t do that.”

Her voice softened without her really trying to make it.

“It was perfect.”

She meant it. You could hear it.

She glanced ahead briefly, then back at him, her expression easing into something more open.

“It sounded like you,” she added.

A beat.

“And that’s kind of the whole point.”

She gave a small shrug, her smile turning a little more playful again.

“Honestly, if you’d come out with some overly confident, perfectly rehearsed speech?”

Her nose wrinkled.

“I would’ve assumed you practiced it in a mirror and immediately distrusted you.”

That got her own quiet laugh.

“No one wants that guy,” she went on. “You know the one—too smooth, too sure, thinks he’s doing you a favor by asking.”

She shook her head.

“The ego gets… exhausting.”

Then she glanced at him again, softer now.

“You weren’t like that.”

Her voice dipped just slightly.

“You were honest.”

A small pause.

“And a little awkward,” she added, just to keep herself from being too sincere for too long.

Her smile widened again.

“Which, for the record, worked very much in your favor.”

They reached the edge of the street then, the quiet stretch of Cherry giving way to the darker crossing toward Main. Lucy looked both ways out of habit, then stepped off the curb with him.

And without really thinking about it—

she lifted their joined hands.

Guided them up.

And gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they crossed.

It wasn’t a big, dramatic move.

Just natural.

Like it belonged there.

Her body settled a little closer into his side as they walked across, the lilies brushing lightly against her arm, his presence warm and steady beside her.

She didn’t look up at him right away.

But her smile softened again.

“Also,” she added, quieter now, “the terrible version absolutely had character.”

A beat.

“I liked that you were nervous.”

That one slipped out more honestly than she meant it to.

She glanced up at him then, eyes warm.

“It meant you cared.”

A small pause.

“And that you weren’t just assuming I’d say yes.”

Her shoulder pressed lightly into him as they reached the other side of the street, her arm still looped comfortably around his.

“That part matters,” she said.

Then, because she could feel herself getting a little too sincere again, Lucy exhaled softly and tipped her head.

“But don’t get used to me complimenting you this much,” she added. “It’s temporary.”

A beat.

“Very limited-time offer.”

Her lips curved again, but she didn’t move away from him.

Not even a little.

Main Street had gone soft by the time they reached it.

Not empty exactly.

Just quiet in that small-town way that made everything feel a little more intimate after hours. The storefronts were dark or dimmed down low, display lights left glowing behind glass like little pockets of warmth for nobody in particular. The bookstore window still held a faint gold reflection from the streetlamp overhead. The bakery had gone dark except for the back prep lights, muted and sleepy through the frosted panes. Even Honey Bee, across the street and farther down, sat tucked into itself for the night, window display glowing faintly behind the glass like it was resting.

Lucy noticed all of it automatically.

She always did.

Only tonight, it all felt softer around the edges because Cameron’s arm was around her shoulders and she had let herself fit there without second-guessing it every three seconds.

That part alone was enough to make her smile again.

It kept happening tonight.
The smile.
The warmth.
The very inconvenient amount of peace sitting low in her chest every time she leaned a little more comfortably into him and he just… let her.

Or maybe not let her.

Held her there.

That was somehow worse.

Her hand, the one not looped around his waist now, slipped lightly over the front of his shirt for balance as they walked, fingers absentminded and warm against the cotton. The lilies were still in his other hand, and every now and then the scent of them drifted back toward her when the breeze shifted.

She looked up the block, then over at the dark windows and low streetlamps and finally tilted her head slightly toward him.

“Okay,” she said, voice low in the hush of the street, “I will admit…”

A tiny pause.

“This is kind of offensively cute.”

Her mouth curved before she even finished the sentence.

She glanced ahead again, taking in the quiet sidewalks, the empty benches, the sleepy glow of the old storefront signs.

“The dead Main Street walk after dinner?” she went on. “Very strong accidental date atmosphere.”

A beat.

“You’re getting a lot of mileage out of one pie and a decent shirt.”

That earned herself a little smile, and she tucked a little closer into his side without even really realizing she was doing it until after she’d already done it.

She didn’t correct it.

Didn’t want to.

Her Converse scuffed lightly against the sidewalk as they passed the bookstore, and she looked into the darkened glass for half a second, catching the faint reflection of them moving together.

That made something in her chest pull softly.

Not in a painful way.

Just in that strange, floating way the whole night had felt since Cherry Street.

Like she was inside something she’d wanted before she’d fully let herself admit she still wanted it.

Lucy looked away before she could stare too long and smiled to herself instead.

Then, because silence with him didn’t feel threatening tonight—it just felt full—she let it stay for a few more steps before speaking again.

“You know what’s annoying?” she asked.

Her tone was dry again, but softer now.

“The fact that this is exactly the kind of thing I would make fun of if it was happening to somebody else.”

A beat.

“Like, if Tessa told me she walked through a sleepy Main Street at night with a guy carrying her flowers and his arm around her after dinner?”

She gave a small, helpless shake of her head.

“I’d be unbearable about it.”

Her mouth twitched.

“I’d call it manipulative cinematography.”

That got a little laugh out of her, quiet enough not to break the hush of the block.

Then she looked up at him again, her expression gentling almost immediately after.

“But,” she added, “unfortunately for me…”

Her hand slid just slightly over his side, more of a subconscious little hold than anything deliberate.

“…I’m having a really good time.”

That one she gave him plain.

No cover over it.

No immediate joke to hide behind.

Because it was true, and maybe that was the strangest part of all.

Nothing about tonight had felt forced.
Nothing about him felt sharp around the edges the way she’d been half-braced for, even while she kept letting him closer.

It just felt… easy.

And maybe easy was what made it dangerous.
Or maybe easy was what made it worth something this time.

Lucy exhaled softly through her nose and let her head lean just a little more comfortably toward him as they passed the darkened florist window, where the metal watering cans and ceramic pots sat ghostlike in the low light.

“I’m also just saying,” she murmured after a second, “if you start getting too smug about how well this night is going, I reserve the right to ruin your confidence immediately.”

A beat.

“Just to keep the ecosystem balanced.”

Her lips curved again.

Then she looked up at him, softer than before, and added—

“But for now…”

She tucked herself a little closer beneath his arm.

“You can have like… a moderate amount of satisfaction.”

A small pause.

“Not too much.”

And the smile on her face gave away exactly how little she meant that.

Lucy’s eyes flicked ahead before they even reached it.

She knew the shape of the street too well not to.

Honey Bee came into view first—quiet now, the big front windows dimmed but not dark, the display still softly lit from inside like it refused to fully go to sleep. The ceramics sat where she’d left them, the little handwritten tags, the layered shelves, everything arranged just so.

Her place.

Her thing.

And for a second, she slowed.

Not enough to stop them. Just enough that her steps softened, her gaze catching on it the way it always did—even when she tried to pretend it didn’t matter as much as it did.

Cameron’s arm was still around her shoulders.

The lilies were still in his hand.

And Lucy—without thinking about it—tilted her head just slightly toward the window as they passed, a small, almost automatic gesture of recognition.

“There she is,” she murmured.

Soft. Fond.

Not talking to him, exactly. Not not talking to him either.

Her fingers brushed lightly along his side where her arm looped around him, grounding herself in the feel of him there as they kept walking.

“It looks better at night,” she added after a second, quieter now. “Less… busy.”

A beat.

“More like it’s just existing instead of trying to prove something.”

The words slipped out before she overthought them, and for once she didn’t immediately walk them back.

Because she meant it.

Then she glanced up at him, the corner of her mouth lifting just a little.

“Don’t get used to me letting you see it when it’s calm,” she added. “Usually it’s just chaos and me pretending I have control over it.”

Her smile softened again, but it didn’t disappear.

They kept moving.

And a few steps later—

The bench.

Lucy saw it at the same time her body did something quiet and instinctive beside him.

Not stopping.

Just… noticing.

The same spot. Same angle under the tree. Same slats of wood that had held them earlier that morning when everything had still been… different.

More careful.
More uncertain.
Less… this.

Her fingers tightened just slightly around his side.

Not enough to be obvious.
Enough that he might feel it.

Her gaze lingered there for a second longer than it needed to, taking in the empty space where they’d sat, where she’d studied him, where he’d answered her in ways she hadn’t expected him to.

Where something had started to shift.

“Okay,” she said quietly, her voice carrying that soft thread of disbelief again. “That feels like it was… a week ago.”

A small exhale left her, almost a laugh but not quite.

“We were sitting there acting like two people who absolutely had it together.”

Her head tipped slightly, glancing up at him now.

“Very composed. Very emotionally stable.”

A beat.

“Definitely not kissing in the middle of the street twelve hours later.”

That got a real, quiet laugh out of her this time, her shoulder brushing into him again as they walked past the bench instead of stopping.

She didn’t want to stop.

Not tonight.

Her steps stayed slow, but intentional—choosing forward instead of back.

Her hand slid just slightly higher along his side, holding him a little closer without making it obvious she was doing it on purpose.

“Kind of rude, honestly,” she added, tone light again. “We really skipped several normal stages there.”

A pause.

“No awkward texting phase. No ‘what are we doing’ spiral. Just straight to…” she gestured faintly between them, “this.”

Her lips curved.

“Very inefficient.”

But there was no real complaint in it.

Only warmth.

Only that quiet, growing certainty that whatever this was, it wasn’t something she wanted to pick apart too quickly and risk breaking.

Lucy looked ahead again, Main Street stretching out quieter and darker in front of them, and leaned just a little more comfortably into his side as they left the bench behind.

Then, softer—

“Still…”

A small pause.

“I think I like this version better.”

And she didn’t take that one back either.

Lucy didn’t slow right away after she said it.

She let the words sit between them for a few steps—the quiet, the warmth, the soft certainty of I think I like this version better—like she wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if she looked at him too quickly after admitting something that honest.

But she could feel it.

The way his arm stayed around her.
The way his hand held steady at her shoulder.
The way the night seemed to narrow just slightly around the two of them like it had earlier on Cherry Street.

And that was enough.

Her fingers curled lightly against his side, and after another step—just one—Lucy turned her head toward him.

Not all the way at first.

Just enough to look up at him from where she was tucked in close, her expression softer now than she’d been letting it stay for more than a second at a time all day.

There was still a trace of that smile.

Still that quiet, almost disbelieving warmth sitting in her eyes.

And then she stopped.

Not abruptly.

Just enough that it gently pulled him to a stop with her.

The street stayed quiet around them. The dim glow from Honey Bee behind them, the bench just passed, the soft hum of distant night noise—none of it interrupted the small, suspended space they’d stepped into again.

Lucy didn’t say anything this time.

Didn’t make a joke.
Didn’t warn him.
Didn’t soften it before it happened.

She just shifted slightly closer—

and leaned in.

The kiss was softer than the ones before.

Less breathless.
Less surprising.

But somehow more certain.

Her hand slid lightly against his chest as she tilted up onto the balls of her feet again, the familiar stretch in her calves grounding her just enough as her mouth found his. It lingered—warm, steady, unhurried—like she wasn’t trying to prove anything anymore.

Like she already knew.

Her fingers curled faintly into his shirt, not pulling, just holding there, and for a second she let herself stay in it. Stay close. Stay still.

When she pulled back, it was slow.

Just enough space to breathe.

Her forehead hovered near his for half a second before she dropped back onto her heels, her hand slipping back down from his chest to rest more loosely against his side again.

Her smile returned—quieter now, softer at the edges.

A little shy.

But still very much there.

“Okay,” she murmured, like she was half talking to herself. “I’m gonna need you to stop making this so easy.”

A beat.

Her eyes flicked up to his again, warm and just a little playful.

“Or I’m not gonna stand a chance at being normal about this.”

She exhaled softly through her nose, a small laugh following it, and then—without pulling away from him this time—she tucked herself back in under his arm like she’d been there all along.

“Come on,” she added, voice gentler again.

“My deeply unprepared living room is waiting.”

And this time when they started walking, she stayed just a little closer than before.

Cameron’s grin came easier now.

Not the old one—the effortless, cocky thing he used to wear when he was younger and still dumb enough to think charm could cover anything.

This one sat lower. Warmer. Real enough that he didn’t bother trying to hide it when Lucy told him the flowers were doing most of the work.

“Only most?” he asked, glancing down at the lilies in his hand like he was weighing their contribution. “That feels unfair to me. They haven’t had to survive the conversation.”

But his fingers tightened around hers when she laughed, and that little brush of her thumb over his knuckles did something stupidly soft to his insides.

Then she accused him of handling her kiss a little too well, and Cameron let out a short breath through his nose, half amused, half wrecked all over again just thinking about it.

That was the thing about Lucy. She could say something lightly and still hit him right in the sternum with it.

Because no, he had not handled it fine.

He had barely kept from forgetting his own name.

He looked down at her, smile pulling crooked. “That what you think happened?”

There was enough amusement in it to keep it easy, but the truth lived underneath all the same. She’d kissed him in the middle of Cherry Street and he was still trying to recover with dignity intact.

Then he made the mistake of second-guessing himself out loud.

And Lucy shut it down so fast it almost made him laugh.

No. Don’t do that.

He felt that one in his chest before he even fully processed the words after it. The gentle certainty of it. The way she told him the awkward version had been right because it had sounded like him. Not polished. Not some rehearsed line from a guy who already assumed the answer.

Him.

Cameron’s expression changed before he could stop it.

It softened. Opened. Went a little helpless around the edges.

He looked away for a second, not because he wanted to escape it, but because sometimes the only thing worse than Lucy being hard on him was Lucy being kind in exactly the place he didn’t expect it.

When he looked back, there was a quiet smile on his mouth.

“Yeah?” he said, voice lower now. “Good.”

That was all he gave her out loud, but it carried more than that. Relief. Gratitude. The simple, almost boyish satisfaction of hearing that he hadn’t ruined the moment by being himself in it.

And then she wrinkled her nose at the idea of him giving some over-rehearsed, mirror-tested speech, and Cameron laughed outright.

“Okay, that one’s fair,” he said. “I would’ve hated that guy too.”

He could picture him clearly—some polished version of himself he might’ve tried on once at nineteen and gotten deservedly punched in the ego for. Lucy distrusting that version of him made perfect sense. Lucy trusting the real one, even a little, felt bigger than he knew what to do with.

So when she told him his honesty had mattered—that the nerves had mattered, that not assuming mattered—Cameron went quiet.

Not because he didn’t have an answer.

Because he did.

Too many of them, probably.

The truth was, he had been nervous because it was her. Because asking Lucy out now, after everything, wasn’t some casual swing he could take and laugh off if it missed. Because it had mattered to him in a way that made him feel about seventeen and twenty-five all at once—old enough to know the cost of getting it wrong, young enough around her to still want it badly anyway.

He didn’t say all that.

He just let his arm settle around her shoulders when she lifted their joined hands and guided it there, and the ease of it hit him hard enough that he felt it in his throat.

Like it belonged there.

Like maybe, in some quiet stubborn part of both of them, it always had.

Cameron glanced down at her tucked into his side and had to bite back a smile for a second because the simple fact of it was making him way too happy.

Then she admitted she liked that he’d cared.

That she’d noticed him being careful not to presume.

And that nearly did him in more than the kisses had.

His arm drew just a fraction tighter around her shoulders as they crossed the street. Not possessive. Not performative. Just instinctive. Protective in that steady, grounded way that always seemed to come out of him before he thought about it.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”

Care. Worry. Mean it.

All of it sat inside those three letters.

By the time she warned him not to get used to the compliments, he was smiling again.

“Temporary, huh?” he said. “I’ll enjoy the trial period while I’ve got it.”

He liked this version of her maybe too much—the one who kept trying to put dry little edges back onto things after showing him something real, only for the warmth underneath to keep slipping through anyway.

And Main Street at night didn’t help.

Neither did the way she kept leaning into him a little more every few steps like her body had decided on something before the rest of her had finished pretending not to.

The town had gone quiet around them, storefront windows glowing low and sleepy behind the glass, and Cameron became aware in a new, ridiculous way of how this must look from the outside.

The flowers. The arm around her shoulders. The slow walk through town after dinner.

It was, unfortunately, kind of perfect.

So when Lucy called it offensively cute, he tipped his head back and laughed.

“There it is,” he said. “I was waiting for you to accuse the universe of laying it on too thick.”

He glanced toward the dark storefronts, then down at her. “And for the record, the shirt’s doing more work than the pie.”

But when she admitted she’d make fun of somebody else for this exact scene—called it manipulative cinematography in that dry, clever way that made him want to grin every time—Cameron felt something loosen warmly in his chest.

Because she was happy. Because she was saying so. Because he could hear it without having to squint for it.

And then she gave it to him plain.

She was having a good time.

No joke fast enough behind it. No retreat.

Cameron’s steps slowed just slightly, not enough to interrupt their pace, just enough that the moment settled.

He looked down at her with that same open, unguarded warmth he only ever seemed to let slip when she caught him off-balance.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Me too.”

It came out simple. Immediate. Like there was no point dressing it up when she’d just handed him the truth so cleanly.

Then she warned him not to get smug.

Said she’d wreck his confidence on principle if he pushed his luck.

Cameron nodded like he was taking a solemn oath. “That feels fair. Probably necessary.”

But when she granted him only a moderate amount of satisfaction and then smiled like she didn’t mean a word of the limit she was placing on it, he just looked at her for a second and thought, gone. Absolutely gone.

Honey Bee came into view a minute later, and he felt the shift in her before she said anything.

It was subtle. A softing of pace. The way her attention moved toward the window like a thread tightening. He followed her gaze to the shop and saw what he always saw when he looked at anything Lucy had touched for long enough—it felt like her.

Warm. Intentional. Inviting without trying too hard.

When she murmured to it, fond and half to herself, Cameron’s mouth curved.

He looked at the softly lit display, then back down at her.

“There she is,” he echoed quietly, not making fun of it, not making it bigger than she’d meant it. Just meeting her there.

And when she said it looked better at night—calmer, less like it was trying to prove anything—something about that lodged itself under his ribs.

Because he knew she was talking about the shop. And because some part of him suspected she wasn’t only talking about the shop.

He didn’t press. Didn’t ask her to unpack it.

He just looked at the window a second longer, then said, “Looks like it knows exactly what it is.”

It was the kind of thing Cameron might not have said a few years ago. Too earnest. Too close to the center of the feeling.

But tonight, with Lucy warm beneath his arm and the lilies in his hand and the whole street looking like a scene she’d later accuse of trying too hard, the line just came out anyway.

He felt her soften at it even if she didn’t answer right then.

Then they passed the bench.

And Cameron felt that too.

The small tightening of her hand at his side. The way her attention caught. The way the hours between then and now suddenly seemed ridiculous in the face of where they’d ended up.

When she said it felt like a week ago, he laughed under his breath.

“We were real convincing this morning,” he said. “Very composed.”

He could still see it—the careful distance, the studied answers, both of them pretending not to stand right on the edge of something they’d already begun falling into.

When she pointed out that they’d skipped several normal stages, Cameron barked a soft laugh.

“No awkward texting spiral,” he agreed. “No pretending we were just being weirdly friendly for no reason.”

He looked down at her, grin tugging crooked again. “Terrible process. Zero structure.”

But when she said she liked this version better, the joke in him quieted.

He went still inside it.

Not outwardly. He kept walking. Kept holding her. Kept his expression from doing anything too dramatic.

But the words landed deep.

Because he liked this version too. Because he might’ve liked it enough already to scare himself if he looked at it head-on. Because there was something almost unbearably right about Lucy saying it while tucked into his side on a quiet Bedford Falls sidewalk like she was letting them both have the truth a little at a time.

He turned his head toward her slightly, gaze dropping to her face.

“Yeah,” he said after a beat, rougher this time. “I do too.”

That was when she stopped.

And Cameron let her stop him.

No resistance, no confusion—just the easy adjustment of a man whose body had already started trusting her cues tonight.

He looked down at her under the low spill of streetlight, the bench behind them now, Honey Bee warm at their backs, and he knew before she leaned in what was about to happen.

Still, that didn’t make it hit any less hard.

This kiss was different.

Not the rush of Cherry Street. Not relief cracking open into something hungry and bright.

This one felt settled. Certain. Like an answer she already knew she meant.

Cameron’s hand shifted from her shoulder to the side of her neck without even consulting him first, thumb brushing lightly near her jaw as he kissed her back slow and deep and unhurried. He met her there completely. No hesitation. No showmanship. Just feeling, steady and full, poured cleanly into it.

Her fingers curled into his shirt.

His other hand tightened around the lilies because he had nowhere else to put what the kiss was doing to him.

And for a second—one suspended, impossible little second—everything in him went still in the best way.

When she drew back and told him he needed to stop making this feel so easy, Cameron’s smile came slow.

Soft. Almost disbelieving.

He looked at her like he wanted to answer with something better than a joke and probably could have if she’d given him another five quiet seconds.

Instead he brushed his thumb once at the line of her jaw and said, “I could say the same thing.”

Because he could.

Because for all the history between them, for all the mess and the years and the caution they’d both worn like armor, being with her tonight had felt shockingly, almost unfairly natural.

Then she tucked herself back under his arm and told him to come on.

Her living room was waiting.

Cameron huffed a quiet laugh and started forward with her, but he kept looking at her for a second longer than necessary, like he still wasn’t over the fact that this was happening.

That she wanted him there. That the night wasn’t over. That he got to keep walking beside her instead of watching her disappear through another doorway.

They moved on together, slower now, closer than before.

And Cameron found himself suddenly, vividly aware of every small thing—the scuff of her Converse on the sidewalk, the weight of the flowers in his hand, the warmth of her tucked against him, the sleepy hush over Main Street like the whole town had finally gotten out of their way.

A few steps later, he glanced down at the lilies and then at her.

“You know,” he said, “I was prepared to charm my way through your building lobby.”

A beat.

“Had a whole respectful, mysterious guest routine ready.”

His grin kicked in a little more at the edges.

“Now I gotta go straight from that to meeting the denim jacket chair. Feels like a lot emotionally.”

He said it lightly, but beneath the joke was the real thing: he was charmed already. More than charmed. He was weirdly honored by it. The denim jacket chair. The uncurated living room. The version of her night she hadn’t cleaned up first.

That meant something.

So after another quiet stretch of sidewalk, Cameron added, gentler now, “I like that you didn’t tidy it up for me.”

He looked ahead as he said it, giving her the mercy of not having to meet his eyes right away if the line landed too directly.

“Feels better that way.”

Real. Earned. Hers.

He let that breathe between them for a couple steps, then glanced over again, smile returning.

“Also,” he said, “for the record, if there’s a camera bag on the floor and I eat shit tripping over it, I’m still coming in. I just want that on the record now so nobody panics.”

It earned him his own quiet laugh, low in his chest, and he adjusted the lilies in his grip before guiding her a little closer with the arm around her shoulders as they headed toward her building.

By the time they reached it, Cameron was smiling to himself again in that helpless, satisfied way he couldn’t seem to shake tonight.

Not smug. Never that.

Just happy in a way that felt almost boyish.

Like maybe he’d spent years thinking the best version of Lucy Corbett was behind him, only to find out that walking beside her now—older, softer in some places, surer in others—felt even better than remembering had.

At the bottom of the steps, he slowed with her and looked up toward the dark windows above.

Then down at her.

“You realize,” he said, voice warm with the kind of teasing that only worked because there was something steadier beneath it, “this is a lot of pressure on a living room.”

His mouth pulled crooked.

“It’s got a reputation now.”

And then, because he couldn’t help himself and because she’d been looking too happy all night for him not to say it at least once, he leaned in just enough for the words to feel private.

“I’m really glad you asked me up, Lucy.”

He didn’t dress that one up either.

Didn’t hide it.

Just gave it to her plainly before following her inside, lilies in hand, heart still beating with that same warm, disbelieving rhythm that had started back on Cherry Street and, apparently, had no intention of letting up anytime soon.

Lucy smiled the second he said it.

Not big.
Not theatrical.

Just that softer, quieter smile she seemed to keep accidentally giving him tonight—the one that made her look a little younger and a little less guarded all at once.

“Try not to make eye contact with it,” she said as she steered him toward the steps. “If the living room senses fear, it gets worse.”

Her fingers stayed threaded with his as she led him up the narrow exterior staircase to the second floor, the old wood steps giving their usual soft creak beneath their feet. The lilies brushed lightly against his leg with every few steps, and Lucy kept glancing back over her shoulder at him in that half-amused, half-still-not-over-this way she hadn’t quite been able to stop doing since Cherry Street.

It was ridiculous, honestly.

A little embarrassing.

And unfortunately very real.

By the time they reached the landing, she was smiling again before she even meant to be.

Her apartment door sat beneath the warm yellow porch bulb with the little brass number slightly crooked and a tiny chipped ceramic moon hanging from the knob—something Tessa Alcott had thrifted for her two years ago and declared “aggressively Lucy” before forcing her to keep it.

Lucy pulled her keys from her bag one-handed, still holding onto him with the other for an extra second before finally slipping her fingers free.

“Okay,” she said, glancing at him while she fit the key into the lock. “Ground rules.”

The deadbolt clicked.

“You are not allowed to act impressed by anything just because you’re trying to get invited back.”

She turned the knob, pushing the door inward with her shoulder.

“And if you see one singular mug on the coffee table, that’s not mess, that’s atmosphere.”

Then she stepped inside first.

And—

it was fine.

More than fine, actually.

Not staged.
Not suspiciously perfect.
But warm and lived-in in that exact way Lucy always hoped it would feel when she saw it from the outside.

The apartment glowed soft and golden under the lamplight she’d left on before dinner. No overhead lights, thank God. Just the standing lamp near the couch, the little amber one by the record shelf, and the low kitchen light spilling gently across the breakfast nook.

Her living room opened up immediately from the front door—cozy and colorful and unmistakably hers.

The couch was a worn velvet rust color with a cream knit throw half-folded over one arm and two slightly mismatched pillows that looked collected rather than bought together. Her coffee table had the usual little scatter of real life on it—two stacked magazines, a candle burned low in a glass jar, one camera lens cap, and yes, one mug with the faintest ring of dried tea still at the bottom.

The denim jacket chair, unfortunately, was real.

It sat near the window with a black leather jacket thrown over the back, one folded sweater draped over the arm, and a tote bag hanging off the side like it had quietly given up on boundaries.

Lucy paused in the doorway just long enough to clock exactly where his eyes might go and sighed dramatically.

“There she is,” she muttered, deadpan. “The chair with no respect for itself.”

But the apartment did look good.

The framed band posters along the wall.
The stack of vinyls beside the record player.
The old thrifted wood shelves lined with books, candles, tiny ceramic trinkets, and a couple disposable cameras she’d never thrown away.
The window by the couch with gauzy curtains half-drawn and the dark quiet of Bedford Falls outside.

Further back, the little breakfast nook caught the soft kitchen light, and beyond that the hall opened toward the bedroom and bathroom, the whole place carrying that same layered, curated, music-girl warmth that made it feel like a home instead of an apartment.

Lucy stepped aside then, turning back toward him as she reached for the lilies.

“Okay,” she said, looking up at him with a small, crooked smile. “You can come in.”

A beat.

Her eyes flicked to the flowers in his hand.

“And hand those over before you accidentally start acting like you live here.”

She took the lilies carefully, gentler now, and her expression softened when she looked down at them.

God.

Still ridiculous how much she liked them.

She glanced back up at him, warmth flickering in her face again.

“I’ll put these in water before you ruin your whole nice-guy reputation by letting them die in the entryway.”

Then, already turning toward the kitchen, she added over her shoulder,

“You can sit down. Or stand there and take in the deeply overwhelming glamour of my reasonably clean apartment.”

A beat.

Then, softer—

“I’m glad you’re here.”

And that one she didn’t try to cover at all.

Lucy disappeared into the kitchen with the lilies cradled carefully in one arm and the kind of smile she was still trying not to make too obvious tugging at the corners of her mouth.

It was stupid, honestly.

How much the flowers got her.

Not even in some dramatic, movie-ending way. Just in the quiet, specific way of him remembering. Of him showing up with the right flowers because she’d said lilies, not roses, and actually listening hard enough to get it right.

That part sat somewhere soft.

She set them gently on the counter and moved around the kitchen with the easy familiarity of someone who knew exactly where everything was even in low light. The apartment was quiet behind her in that new, slightly charged way it got when someone else was inside it—especially someone who had not, until about twenty minutes ago, been a man she was kissing on Cherry Street like she’d lost all capacity for self-preservation.

Her fingers found the ceramic pitcher she kept tucked beside the sink, off-white with a little faded blue rim and one tiny chip near the handle. She filled it halfway with water, trimmed the ends of the stems with the kitchen scissors she kept in the junk drawer, then arranged the lilies with more care than was probably necessary.

Still.

She wanted them to look nice.

When she stepped back, they did.

Soft and pale against the warm kitchen light, a little elegant in a way that somehow made the whole counter feel prettier just by existing there.

Lucy stared at them for a second, then smiled to herself and shook her head once like get a grip.

No chance.

She turned then, leaning one hip lightly against the counter as she looked back toward the living room where Cameron stood in the middle of her apartment looking both comfortably out of place and weirdly right in it.

And that—

that did something dangerous to her.

The nice shirt.
The loosened warmth in his face.
The fact that he was standing there inside her home like he hadn’t just spent the last few weeks making her life emotionally inconvenient in the most annoyingly attractive way possible.

Lucy folded one arm across her middle and tipped her head.

“So,” she said, softer now, easy and warm. “Do you want anything to drink?”

Her eyes moved briefly toward the kitchen cabinets as she listed options.

“I have water, obviously. Wine, if we’re extending your excellent performance tonight. Ginger ale. Diet Coke.” A beat. “Possibly one beer left in the fridge, but I can’t promise it isn’t from a morally questionable point in my life.”

The corner of her mouth pulled.

“And if you say tea, I can do that, but I need you to know it feels a little intimate for this stage of the evening.”

She let that sit there just long enough to make it impossible not to smile, then glanced back toward the lilies on the counter and added, quieter this time,

“Also, don’t make fun of me, but…”

Her fingers brushed lightly over one of the petals.

“I really do love them.”

When she looked back at him, there was that same softer openness in her face again. Less shield. Less performance. Just Lucy, standing barefoot in the warm kitchen light in her own apartment with her walls finally low enough to let the moment actually be what it was.

And what it was, unfortunately, was really, really nice.

Cameron smiled the second she did.

He didn’t mean to—not in that automatic, helpless way that made him feel a little too easy around her all over again—but there it was anyway, pulling at his mouth before he could stop it as she warned him not to make eye contact with the living room like it might spook.

“Got it,” he said, warm laughter tucked into the words. “No sudden movements. Don’t challenge it.”

And God, even that felt good.

Not because the line was especially clever. Just because she was leading him upstairs to her apartment with her hand in his and looking back over her shoulder at him like she still couldn’t quite believe tonight either.

That part was getting to him more than he wanted to admit.

The old staircase creaked under their feet, the lilies brushing lightly against his leg every few steps, and Cameron had the strange, vivid awareness that this was one of those moments he was going to remember in stupid detail later. The porch bulb. The night air. The way she kept glancing back at him half amused, half glowing, like she’d forgotten how to hide it and maybe didn’t feel like trying that hard tonight.

By the time they reached the landing, he was smiling again without permission.

Then he saw the little ceramic moon hanging from her doorknob and had to duck his head for a second because yeah. That tracked. Completely.

He watched her fish out her keys one-handed and hated the brief second when she had to let go of him to get the door open. Hated was dramatic, maybe, but only a little. He liked her hand in his already. Liked it more than was probably reasonable for a man who was trying very hard not to come off like he’d been waiting on this exact version of the night for years.

Then came the ground rules.

No fake admiration just to score points. One mug on the table did not qualify as a mess. And apparently the whole apartment had a running mythology he was being dropped into on entry.

Cameron leaned one shoulder lightly against the doorframe while she unlocked it, mouth pulled crooked.

“Understood,” he said. “I’ll be respectful and deeply normal about the mug.”

But the truth was, the second he stepped inside, normal got a lot harder.

Because her apartment felt like her.

Not in some vague way. Not because it had vintage furniture or records or a lamp with warm light instead of overheads.

It felt like Lucy in the specific, layered way a place only did when somebody had actually lived in it long enough to leave themselves all over it.

The rust velvet couch. The knit throw. The candle burned low in the glass jar. The lens cap on the coffee table. The little stack of magazines. The record shelf. The posters. The books and tiny ceramic things and disposable cameras tucked into the shelves like the room had gathered them over time instead of bought them all at once in one clean swipe.

It was warm. It was real. It was hers.

And it hit him in the chest in a way he wasn’t prepared for.

Because he’d spent years remembering Lucy in pieces—high school bleachers, Main Street, the shop counter, the passenger seat of his truck, the way she used to laugh with her whole face when she forgot to be self-conscious about it.

This was different.

This was getting to see the life she’d built when he wasn’t in it.

The chair earned him, somehow, almost as much affection as everything else.

He looked at the denim jacket, the sweater, the tote bag hanging off the side like it had absolutely lost the war against being a chair and accepted its new identity, and the grin on his face gave him away before he could manage it.

Then she deadpanned about its lack of self-respect, and Cameron let out a laugh.

“I don’t know,” he said, voice low and easy. “She’s got character.”

It wasn’t a big line. Didn’t need to be.

Nothing in here did.

That was the thing about the place. It didn’t feel arranged to impress anybody. It just felt lived in. Loved in. A little cluttered at the edges, sure, but in the kind of honest way that made his chest loosen instead of tighten.

Then Lucy turned back to him and reached for the flowers.

Told him he could come in now, like he hadn’t already been mentally halfway wrecked by the fact that she wanted him here at all.

Accused him of starting to act like he lived there.

Cameron handed over the lilies carefully, the corners of his mouth lifting. “That was one time,” he said. “And I was being extremely respectful about it.”

But the second her fingers closed around the stems, gentler than before, something softened in his expression again.

Because she liked them. Because he could see it plain on her face. Because he’d remembered right.

And when she told him she was glad he was there—said it without dressing it up, without a joke to make it lighter—Cameron felt it land low and deep.

He looked at her for a beat too long.

Then answered in the same quiet register she’d used, because anything louder would’ve felt wrong.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

It came out simple. Earnest. Not hidden behind anything.

She disappeared into the kitchen with the flowers tucked in one arm and that impossible little smile she kept trying not to make so obvious, and Cameron stayed where he was for another second, just taking it in.

The apartment. The lamplight. The sound of her moving around in the kitchen like she’d done it a thousand times.

Then he moved a few steps farther in, slow and careful—not snooping, not touching too much, just letting himself exist inside the room she’d opened to him.

He noticed the mug first, because of course he did.

One singular mug on the coffee table. Atmosphere, apparently.

He smiled to himself.

Then the camera lens cap again. The stack of vinyl beside the record player. The books with their spines bent from actual use. The throw blanket that looked like she really curled up under it instead of draping it there for effect. The leather jacket slung over the chair like she’d come home some other night and let it land wherever it landed.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t trying too hard. It didn’t need to.

That might’ve been what got him.

Lucy’s apartment felt the same way Lucy herself had tonight when she stopped trying to keep every edge neatly in place. Warm. Particular. Honest without being showy. The kind of thing you noticed more the longer you looked at it.

From the kitchen came the faint snip of scissors.

Cameron glanced up.

And that nearly did him in too.

She was barefoot now, leaning over the counter under the warm kitchen light, trimming the stems with more care than the task technically required. The ceramic pitcher on the counter. The off-white glaze, blue rim, little chip on the handle. The way she arranged the lilies like she wanted them to look right, not for him, but because that was just how she moved through the world with things she cared about.

She wanted them to look nice.

That part settled somewhere tender in him before he could guard against it.

Because it wasn’t about the flowers really. Not only.

It was about being remembered. About getting it right. About her looking at something he brought into her apartment and treating it gently because it mattered.

Cameron braced one hand loosely on the back of the couch and watched her for a second too long, struck by the dangerous, disorienting fact that she looked even more like herself here than she had anywhere else that night—and somehow that made her prettier.

Or maybe not prettier.

Closer.

When she leaned against the counter and asked what he wanted to drink, the list of options rolling out easy and teasing and familiar, Cameron laughed softly under his breath.

Water. Wine. Ginger ale. Diet Coke. One potentially cursed beer. Tea, apparently, if he wanted to escalate into terrifyingly intimate territory.

He pushed off the couch and wandered a little closer, stopping just short of the kitchen threshold like he still remembered the rules. Still respected the fact that she’d invited him in; he didn’t need to take up more space than she’d offered.

“Water or wine,” he said, smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I’m flexible. Tea sounds like a level of commitment I should build up to.”

His eyes flicked briefly to the pitcher of lilies, then back to her.

“Don’t wanna rush you.”

That got the last bit of humor he needed out of the moment before she touched one of the petals and admitted, softer now, that she really did love them.

And just like that, the playful part of him eased again.

Cameron looked at her—really looked at her—for a long second.

The warm kitchen light. The bare feet. The hand on the flower petal. The openness in her face that had been hiding from him in pieces for weeks and was suddenly, unbelievably, right there.

When he answered, his voice came out lower than before.

“I wasn’t gonna make fun of you.”

No teasing in it. No deflection.

Just the truth.

His gaze dropped to the lilies for a second, then returned to her face.

“I remembered.”

Three small words, but they carried more than that.

He remembered the first time she’d said it. That she liked lilies better than roses because roses felt like people trying too hard. That lilies felt cleaner. Prettier. Less obvious.

He remembered, because he always remembered the things she said when they mattered.

Or maybe because it was Lucy, and too many things she said had always mattered more than he let himself admit.

Cameron took another step nearer, slow enough that she had plenty of room to stop him if she wanted to.

He didn’t reach for her right away.

Didn’t assume.

He just stood there at the edge of her kitchen, hands loose, expression open in that steady, grounded way he only seemed to fall into around her when he quit trying to be anything else.

“I wanted you to like them,” he said.

Then his mouth pulled a little crooked again, softer now. “Probably more than was normal, if I’m being honest.”

He let that sit between them, warm and unhidden.

Then his eyes moved once around the kitchen, the apartment beyond it, and back to her.

“And for the record,” he added, quieter but with the smile returning at the edges, “your reasonably clean apartment is making a very strong case for itself.”

A beat.

“The chair too.”

That got the humor back in just enough to keep the moment breathable, but his eyes stayed on hers.

Stayed there like he was still taking in the fact that she’d let him see this version of her night. This version of her.

And underneath the teasing, underneath the warmth and the easy lines and the flowers now sitting pretty in their chipped ceramic pitcher, Cameron stood in Lucy’s kitchen feeling the simple, almost disarming truth of it:

He was happy to be here in a way that went past charm, past flirting, past even the thrill of getting kissed in the middle of Cherry Street.

This felt quieter than that. Maybe bigger.

The kind of happiness that made a man careful with it.

So when he smiled at her again, it was with that same low, unforced warmth he kept finding around her tonight.

“No fake impressing,” he said lightly, nodding once toward the room. “But I do like it here.”

Then, after the smallest pause, because she deserved the honest version more than the polished one—

“It feels like you.”

Lucy smiled the second he said it.

It feels like you.

God.

That was annoyingly effective.

She tried not to let it hit her as hard as it did, but something in her face gave anyway—something small and soft and warm that she couldn’t quite cover in time. So instead of trying, she just looked down for a second, reached for the cabinet above the coffee maker, and said, quieter than before,

“Well. That’s because I pay rent here, so I’d hope so.”

Dry enough to save herself.
Barely.

But the smile was still there when she pulled down two mismatched glasses instead of wine glasses—one amber-tinted tumbler with tiny etched flowers around the rim and one smoky green one she’d stolen from her parents’ kitchen in what she still considered an emotionally justified act of theft when she first moved out.

She held them both up as she reached for the bottle.

“Please note,” she said, “I do own wine glasses.”

A beat as she popped the cork.

“I just don’t trust either of us enough right now to hand over stemware.”

She poured for him first, then for herself, the soft glug of wine filling the kitchen in the low, cozy quiet of the apartment. When she turned back around, she offered him the amber one and kept the green for herself, fingers brushing his for a second as he took it.

That little contact got her again.

Stupidly.

She took a sip mostly to give herself something to do.

Then leaned one hip lightly against the counter and tipped her glass toward the hallway.

“I can show you the rest of it, if you want.”

Her voice came out casual, but not careless. Less invitation now, more… inclusion. Like she’d already made up her mind that he was here and she wanted him to see it properly.

“It’s not huge,” she added. “So don’t get too excited.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“But I do feel like if you’re gonna come upstairs and meet the living room, you should probably get the full tour.”

She pushed gently off the counter and motioned for him to follow, wine in one hand as she started down the short hall.

“This,” she said first, nudging open the bathroom door with her foot, “is where I apparently keep every skincare product I’ve ever panic-bought after one bad week.”

The bathroom was small but warm, with creamy tile, a vintage oval mirror over the sink, and a narrow shelf lined with too many bottles and jars that all somehow still looked aesthetically accidental instead of chaotic. A little brass tray held rings and hair clips. There was a candle on the back of the toilet, a framed black-and-white photo of downtown Bedford Falls above the towel rack, and a claw clip the size of a weapon sitting on the counter.

Lucy took one glance in and grimaced lightly.

“Not my strongest room,” she said. “But she tries.”

Then she moved on before he could get too comfortable in there, leading him another few steps to her bedroom.

Her hand found the knob and paused for half a second—not because she was second-guessing it, but because this room felt a little more personal than the rest somehow. Softer. More hers in the quiet places.

Still, she opened it.

The bedroom glowed under the soft light of the bedside lamp she’d left on that morning, warm and low and calm. The bed sat against the far wall beneath a patchwork quilt in faded reds, cream, and dusty blue, pillows slightly rumpled in a way that proved she actually slept there and didn’t style it for company. Framed band posters and old photographs lined the walls. A thrifted wooden dresser sat beneath the window with a jewelry dish, a stack of books, and a disposable camera on top. A record sleeve leaned against the wall beside the nightstand. One of her cardigans was draped over the desk chair in the corner like it had landed there and been allowed to stay.

The whole room felt cozy and personal and just a little romantic in the way bedrooms always accidentally did when they belonged to somebody who actually lived in them.

Lucy leaned lightly against the doorframe and glanced up at him.

“This one’s more me than the living room, probably,” she admitted.

A small shrug.

“Or maybe just less… socially adjusted.”

There was a little smile in it, but something more vulnerable underneath too. Not exposed exactly. Just… known.

Then, before she could sit in that too long, she stepped back into the hall and moved to the last door.

“And this,” she said, with a hint more life in her voice now, “is my favorite.”

She pushed it open.

The spare room was darker than the others, more intentionally arranged. Half workspace, half obsession. The walls were moodier in here, the overhead light off in favor of one lamp in the corner and the soft red glow spilling faintly from the sectioned-off darkroom setup toward the back. Shelves held film canisters, old cameras, paper boxes, lens cloths, stacks of photo envelopes, and labeled little containers she alone could decipher. A worktable sat beneath the window with negatives, notebooks, scissors, and prints spread in neat little chaos. A corkboard on the wall held strips of developed film, torn inspiration pages, scribbled notes, and a few pinned photographs of Bedford Falls caught in the kind of light most people would’ve walked right past.

Lucy’s expression changed the second she looked into the room.

Softened.
Brightened.

Like something in her settled immediately.

“This is where I disappear when I’m avoiding emails, people, reality, or all three.”

She stepped inside, slower now, and ran her fingers lightly along the edge of the worktable.

“I turned it into a darkroom a few months after I moved in,” she said. “My dad thought I was absolutely losing my mind.”

A beat.

“He was sort of right, but in a productive way.”

She glanced back at Cameron then, wine glass in one hand, the red glow touching the edges of her hair and cheekbones.

And because her guard was still lower than usual—because tonight had already gone past the point of pretending she wasn’t letting him in—her smile when she looked at him was smaller and more real than before.

“This is probably the room I’d save first in a fire,” she admitted.

Then, after a beat, her brows lifted just slightly.

“Which feels like a deeply unfair thing to say in front of the bedroom, but here we are.”

Lucy drifted farther into the room as she said it, slow and unhurried, the stemless glass warm in her hand and the soft red glow from the back corner catching against the edges of her bare legs and the hem of her dress.

She didn’t say come in.

She didn’t have to.

The invitation was in the way she kept going instead of stopping in the doorway.
In the way she turned slightly and looked back at him once, not long, just enough.
In the way she didn’t close herself off from the room the second he saw it.

It was subtle.

But it was there.

The worktable stretched along the wall beneath the window, cluttered in the most Lucy way possible—organized if you knew her, probably incomprehensible if you didn’t. Contact sheets. Sharpies. A pair of old silver scissors. Stacks of prints with curled edges. A notebook with a dozen paper scraps tucked into it. Two old point-and-shoots sitting side by side like they’d been dropped there after a long day and never moved again.

She set her wine down carefully on the corner of the table beside a box of photo paper, then reached absentmindedly for one of the prints nearest her fingers.

“I know this room makes me look like I belong in a very specific kind of indie film,” she said, glancing down at the photograph in her hand before giving him a small sideways smile. “But I promise I’m only moderately insufferable about it.”

Her voice came softer in here.

Not hushed, exactly.

Just naturally quieter, like the room itself asked for that without needing to.

And maybe that made sense.

This space wasn’t decorative. It wasn’t one of the polished, easy-to-share parts of her life. It was the part that existed when no one was watching. The part that stayed up too late. The part that noticed things and kept them.

She looked down at the photo again, then back at the wall where several developed shots were clipped to a hanging line with tiny wooden pins.

Bedford Falls in pieces.

A fogged bookstore window.
A crooked flower basket.
Morning light on the courthouse steps.
Honey Bee after closing, all amber glow and shadow.
A bike left tipped against a brick wall.
The old theater marquee caught in rain.

None of them looked staged.

That was the thing.

They looked like moments most people would’ve walked right past without ever realizing they’d been worth keeping.

Lucy stepped closer to the hanging line and touched one edge lightly with her fingertips.

“I used to think I just liked taking pictures,” she said after a second.

The words came out easy, but there was something more thoughtful underneath them now.

“Like… in high school, it was just something I carried around. Something to do. Something that made me feel less weird in places where I didn’t always know what to do with myself.”

A small breath of a smile touched her mouth.

“Which, in hindsight, was a pretty solid clue.”

She glanced over at him then.

And there was something almost shy in it.
Not embarrassed.
Just a little exposed in the way people got when they were standing too close to something they actually loved.

“You knew I liked it,” she said. “But I don’t think anybody thought it was gonna turn into…” She motioned loosely around the room with the hand still holding the print. “This.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“Honestly, I’m not sure I thought it was gonna turn into this.”

But it had.

And Cameron could probably see that now without her needing to explain it too hard.

Because this room didn’t look like a hobby someone picked up and set down whenever it was convenient. It looked like devotion. Quiet, layered devotion. The kind built one roll of film, one late night, one small obsession at a time.

Lucy leaned back lightly against the edge of the worktable, folding one arm over herself while the other still held the photograph.

“It got worse after I got job,” she said, deadpan. “Which is apparently what happens when you give a slightly emotionally unstable woman access to eBay and a developing kit.”

A beat.

“Suddenly it’s ‘I just need one decent camera’ and then next thing you know you’re converting your spare room into a chemical cave and spending forty dollars on expired film because somebody online described it as ‘moody.’”

She looked down at the print in her hand again, smiling now.

Not polished.
Not performative.
Just fond.

Then she stepped a little closer to him—not all the way, just enough that if he came in further too, it wouldn’t feel like he was intruding anymore.

And when she held the photograph out toward him, it was with a kind of quiet trust that felt bigger than the gesture itself.

“This one’s from this morning,” she said.

Her voice softened just slightly.

“Before breakfast.”

The print was small, matte, and beautifully imperfect.

Main Street half-awake in the early light.
The bookstore window washed in pale gold.
The reflection of Bedford Falls layered faintly across the glass like memory.

The exact kind of thing only Lucy would stop for.

She looked at him instead of the picture while he took it.

And there was something in her face now that hadn’t been there this morning.

Less guarded.
Less afraid of being seen wanting something.

“This room,” she said quietly, glancing around once before her eyes found his again, “is probably the most honest thing about me.”

A small pause.

Then, with the faintest tilt of her mouth—

“So… try not to be weird about that.”

Cameron watched the line land.

It feels like you.

And the second something in her face softened around it, he felt it like a quiet win he had no business feeling quite that good about.

Not because he’d been trying to get her. Not because he’d said it for effect.

Just because it was true, and Lucy’s little look-down, the dry joke about paying rent there, the way she reached for the cabinet instead of meeting it head-on—all of it told him it had gotten past her defenses anyway.

That did something warm and stupid to his chest.

He didn’t push it. Didn’t grin like an idiot, even though some part of him wanted to.

He just leaned there in the edge of her kitchen and let her have the save.

When she held up the mismatched glasses and informed him—very seriously—that she did, in fact, own real wine glasses but didn’t trust either of them with stemware at the moment, Cameron laughed softly under his breath.

“That feels smart,” he said. “I respect the risk assessment.”

He took the amber glass when she offered it, and when her fingers brushed his, his hand almost tightened reflexively around the tumbler just to keep from doing something dumber, like catching her hand instead.

Everything tonight had started feeling like that.

Small things. Brief things. And somehow each one had more weight than it should have.

He took a sip mostly because she did, because it gave him something to do while he looked at her leaning against her counter in that warm little kitchen like she had always belonged there and he was the only one late to the fact.

Then she offered to show him the rest.

And Cameron had the immediate, ridiculous instinct to say only if you want to—like she hadn’t just invited him upstairs, poured him wine, and started opening doors in the exact opposite order of casual.

Still, something in him stayed careful with it.

Because he understood what this was, even if she was wrapping it in dry little comments and teasing edges.

This was her letting him in.

Not just into the apartment. Into the parts of it that felt personal.

Into the version of her life that existed when nobody else was around to watch it.

So when she motioned for him to follow, Cameron did.

Quiet. Easy. Not making too much of anything even while some part of him was making too much of absolutely everything.

The bathroom got a smile out of him immediately.

Not because it was a mess—it wasn’t, really. Just lived-in, lined with more bottles and jars than any sane man could name, warm little brass details and candles and clipped-back pieces of her life tucked into corners.

He glanced at the claw clip on the counter and lifted his brows. “That thing looks like it could take down a deer.”

The line came easy, low and fond, and he meant it exactly the way he said it—not mocking, just amused in that gentle way that came from seeing her in details.

Then she moved on.

And when she opened the bedroom door, Cameron felt the shift before he could name it.

The living room had felt like Lucy in the version she gave the world. The kitchen felt like Lucy in motion—comfortable, warm, quick-witted, a little disarmed tonight in a way that made him feel strangely honored to be witnessing it.

But this—

this felt quieter than both.

The room glowed soft and low under the bedside lamp, all warm patchwork and worn wood and rumpled pillows and that particular kind of beauty bedrooms had when they belonged to someone who genuinely inhabited them instead of arranging them. The cardigan on the chair. The books on the dresser. The disposable camera. The record sleeve. The band posters and old photographs.

Nothing about it tried too hard.

It was just… hers.

Cameron stood in the doorway a little behind her and looked past the details into the thing underneath them, the same way he had downstairs.

Lucy had made herself a life here. A real one. One with texture and habits and favorite rooms and clutter that had stories attached to it. One that clearly hadn’t needed him in it to become whole.

That should have hurt a little, maybe.

Instead it mostly made him proud in a way he didn’t quite know how to say.

So when she admitted the bedroom was probably more her than the living room—less socially adjusted, in her words—Cameron’s mouth tipped.

“I can see that,” he said, voice softer now to match the room. “In a good way.”

He didn’t over-explain it. Didn’t need to.

He had the feeling she’d hear what he meant.

Then came the last room.

And Cameron knew before she even fully opened the door that this one mattered most.

He could tell by the way her voice changed before the space even came into view. By the slight lift in it. By the way something in her settled the second she looked inside.

And when he stepped up enough to see it, he understood why.

The room felt different immediately.

Not just because of the darker walls or the softer light or the faint red glow slipping from the darkroom setup toward the back. Not just because of the shelves lined with film canisters and cameras and paper boxes and the cluttered worktable that only looked chaotic if you didn’t know the person who worked there.

It felt like the center of something.

Like the kind of room a person built not to show off, but because some part of them needed it to exist.

Cameron went quiet.

Not performatively. Not because he didn’t know what to say.

Because he did know—and the feeling of it deserved a second before words got all over it.

He stepped in when she kept moving, slow and respectful, his eyes moving over the worktable, the hanging film, the pinned photographs of Bedford Falls caught at angles most people would never bother seeing.

That part got him.

Not the technical side of it, though he could appreciate that too. The devotion got him.

The patience. The noticing. The evidence of hours spent here because she wanted to, not because anybody was asking for it. The fact that this wasn’t one romanticized little hobby tossed on a shelf when it stopped being cute. It was everywhere in the room—in the chemicals and negatives and prints and sharp little systems only she understood.

He looked at the photographs on the line and recognized the town, and then didn’t recognize it at all.

Or maybe that wasn’t right.

He recognized it better.

Like she’d managed to catch the version of Bedford Falls that lived between things. The part most people missed because they were too busy moving through it to stop and look.

He’d grown up here. Had spent his whole life in these streets and windows and corners.

And somehow she’d made them look newer. More worth keeping.

When she admitted this was the room she’d save first in a fire, he looked over at her standing there in the low red glow with her wine glass in hand, and that smile she gave him—small and real and unguarded enough to make him feel it—hit him all over again.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I get that.”

And he did.

He understood the feeling of a room that held the truest version of you. A place that didn’t need translation.

Then she drifted farther in, and he followed a little more fully this time.

Not crowding. Just closer.

Close enough to look where she looked. Close enough that when she picked up the print and said the room made her look like she belonged in a very specific kind of indie film, Cameron huffed a soft laugh and shook his head once.

“Only moderately?” he asked. “That feels generous.”

But even the teasing came quieter in here.

The room seemed to ask that of him too.

And when Lucy started talking about what photography had been back then—high school, carrying a camera because it gave her something to do, somewhere to put herself when she didn’t know where else to fit—Cameron’s expression changed.

Because he remembered that girl.

Not in theory. Not in some vague nostalgic blur.

He remembered her with a camera around her neck at games, at bonfires, at town events, sitting on truck hoods or curbs or in the passenger seat beside him, raising it toward weird little moments nobody else would’ve bothered with.

He remembered thinking she looked pretty when she was focused. Remembered the way she disappeared a little when she was looking through a lens—as if the rest of the noise of being young and watched and expected to be a certain kind of girl all fell away when she had something real to look at instead.

He hadn’t understood then what it would become.

He could see it now.

When she said he’d known she liked it but nobody had thought it would turn into this, Cameron’s gaze moved slowly around the room again and then back to her.

“I should’ve,” he said.

The words came out before he had time to polish them, which was probably why they sounded true.

She looked at him, and he lifted one shoulder slightly.

“I mean it.” His voice stayed low. Steady. “You always had it bad.”

A tiny beat.

“For this, I mean.”

His mouth pulled crooked after that, taking some of the weight off it before it got too intense too fast. But the warmth in his eyes didn’t go anywhere.

“It’s just… bigger now.”

More hers. More serious. More obviously stitched into the shape of her life.

When she deadpanned about becoming a slightly emotionally unstable woman with access to eBay and a developing kit, Cameron laughed outright then, the sound low and easy in the dim little room.

“That’s on the internet,” he said. “You can’t be trusted with niche interests and a shipping account. Nobody can.”

But then she stepped closer.

Not all the way. Just enough.

Enough that the room stopped feeling like something he was being shown and started feeling like something he was being allowed into.

And when she held the photograph out to him, Cameron took it carefully, like the gesture itself had weight.

“This morning,” she said. Before breakfast.

He looked down at it.

Main Street in the early light. The bookstore window softened gold. The reflection of town laid over glass in that layered way that made it feel half real, half memory. The kind of shot he never in a million years would’ve thought to stop for, and yet the second he saw it, it felt obvious that it mattered.

Of course she’d seen that. Of course she’d kept it.

He didn’t look up right away.

Not because he was trying to be dramatic. Because he wanted to actually look at it.

Wanted to see it the way she’d seen it, or at least get close.

And when he finally lifted his eyes, Lucy was watching him instead of the print.

That landed too.

Then she told him the room was probably the most honest thing about her.

And God.

He felt that one.

Not as pressure. Not as some grand reveal he had to react to perfectly.

Just as the kind of truth a person only offered when they were trying, a little, to let themselves be known.

So when she told him not to be weird about it, Cameron’s mouth curved slightly.

Not amused at her. Softly wrecked by her, maybe.

He stepped a little closer still, the photograph loose but careful in his hand, and answered in the same quiet tone the room seemed to pull from both of them.

“I’m not being weird.”

A beat.

Then, because she’d earned the real version and because anything less would’ve felt cheap in here—

“I just think it makes sense.”

His eyes moved once around the room, then back to her face.

“That this is the most honest thing about you.”

He glanced down at the photograph again, then toward the line of prints clipped to the wall, the fogged bookstore window, the rain on the marquee, Honey Bee after closing, all those small pieces of town she’d decided were worth saving.

“You always noticed things other people walked past,” he said.

The words were simple, but there was history inside them.

He remembered her in high school with that camera. Remembered her paying attention in a way that made him feel like the world around them had more texture when she was in it.

“I think this room just looks like what happens when you keep listening to that.”

The honesty of it hung there quietly between them.

No performance. No overdoing it.

Just him standing in the red-soft edge of her darkroom holding a photograph she’d taken that morning and looking at her like he was seeing not a surprise, exactly, but the fuller shape of something that had always been there.

His thumb brushed once, absentmindedly, along the edge of the print.

Then his mouth tipped a little at one corner again, enough to ease the intensity without breaking it.

“So no,” he said gently. “Not weird.”

A beat.

“Though I am gonna need a minute with the fact that you made the courthouse look kind of emotional.”

That got the humor back in just enough to let them breathe.

But his eyes stayed warm on hers.

And when he handed the photograph back, he did it carefully—like the print mattered, yes, but more than that, like the trust of being given it did.

His fingers brushed hers again when he passed it over.

This time he didn’t move away immediately.

He let the quiet hold for one extra second in that room that was apparently the most honest thing about her, and looked at Lucy in the low glow like he understood, at least a little, what she’d just handed him.

Not just a tour. Not just a room.

Something closer to proof.

And Cameron, for once in his life, was careful enough with something precious to know not to crowd it just because he wanted to get nearer.

Lucy didn’t take the photo back right away.

Her fingers stayed curled lightly around the edge of it where his had just been, her thumb brushing once over the corner like she hadn’t fully registered that he’d let go yet.

And then—

she exhaled.

Long. Slow. A little too loud in the quiet of the room.

“God,” she muttered, almost under her breath, tipping her head back for a second like she was appealing to the ceiling. “I hate this.”

It wasn’t sharp. Not really.

If anything, it sounded… overwhelmed. Softly exasperated in a way that had more feeling in it than irritation.

She finally pulled the photo in, setting it down on the table beside her without breaking it, just… needing her hands free for a second. One of them dragged through her hair, pushing it back off her face before she looked at him again.

And there it was.

That look.

Less guarded than usual. Less careful. Like she’d decided, somewhere between the kitchen and this room, she didn’t have the energy to keep editing herself down to something easier.

“I hate how…” she started, then huffed quietly, like the sentence itself was annoying her. “How you’re being.”

Her hand gestured vaguely at him, like she didn’t have the patience to list it all out cleanly.

“Like—mature. And honest. And…” she squinted at him a little, like the word personally offended her, “…nice.”

A beat.

“And don’t get comfortable, because I’m still deciding how I feel about the ‘cute’ part.”

Her mouth twitched, but it didn’t quite land as a joke.

Not fully.

Because underneath it—

there was something heavier sitting there.

“It would’ve been a lot easier,” she said, quieter now, “if you came back exactly the same.”

Her eyes flicked away from his face for a second, landing somewhere near the hanging prints before drifting back.

“Cocky. A little careless. Too used to getting your way. That version of you made sense.”

A small shrug.

“I knew how to be mad at that guy.”

Her arms folded loosely across her middle—not defensive, just something to hold onto while she said it.

“And I was,” she added. “Mad.”

Another breath.

“Like… longer than I let on earlier.”

Her voice softened more on that, not breaking, just… settling into something more honest than she usually let it be out loud.

“You hurt me,” she said plainly.

No dramatics. No raised voice.

Just the truth.

“And I didn’t really deal with it in some healthy, well-adjusted way either.” A faint, humorless huff. “I just… stopped trusting people for a while.”

Her gaze dropped briefly to the floor, then lifted again.

“Didn’t date. Didn’t let anyone get close enough to mess things up like that again.”

There was no accusation in it.

No pointed edge.

Just context.

Just the shape of what had followed him, even after he left.

“And I got used to that,” she went on. “To it just being… me. My shop. My apartment. My life. No one else really in it in that way.”

Her hand moved slightly, gesturing around the darkroom.

“All of this?” she said softly. “This is what happened after you left.”

Not bitter.

Just real.

“I figured out how to be okay on my own. How to build something that felt like mine without needing anyone else to make it feel… complete or whatever.”

A small pause.

Then she looked at him again.

Really looked.

“And then you come back,” she said, almost like she was still trying to wrap her head around it, “and you’re not that guy anymore.”

Her eyes moved over his face, slower now. Taking him in instead of bracing against him.

“You’re… this.”

There was something warmer in her voice now.

Something softer than frustration. Softer than defense.

“You listen. You think before you speak. You don’t just… assume everything’s yours because it used to be.”

A faint, almost disbelieving smile pulled at one corner of her mouth.

“You’re kind,” she said.

Like she was still adjusting to the word.

“And it’s—” she shook her head once, quieter now, “it’s really inconvenient.”

That earned the smallest flicker of humor back into her expression.

But it didn’t last long.

Because the truth underneath it was still sitting there.

“It’s just…” she hesitated, then let out a breath. “It’s harder to hate you when you’re like this.”

A beat.

“And hating you was a lot simpler than…” she gestured between them, vague but unmistakable, “…this being something again.”

The room felt smaller for a second.

Not in a bad way.

Just closer.

More real.

Lucy shifted her weight slightly, her shoulder brushing the edge of the table as her voice softened again.

“But at the same time,” she said, quieter now, “this is kind of… amazing.”

Her eyes held his.

No sarcasm. No deflection.

“I’m really glad you grew up.”

A small, genuine smile finally settled in.

“And I’m really glad you came back like this.”

She exhaled, softer this time.

Because that part mattered more than she probably wanted it to.

“I always knew that version of you was in there somewhere,” she admitted.

Her gaze flickered, almost shy for a second before settling again.

“It just used to get buried under… everything else.”

The confidence. The attention. The being the best without needing to try too hard.

All of it.

But now—

now she could see him without it.

And it changed things.

Lucy tilted her head slightly, studying him like she was still recalibrating in real time.

“I like this version,” she said.

Simple.

Honest.

And maybe the most vulnerable thing she’d said all night without trying to wrap it in something safer.

A small pause.

Then, softer—

“Which is… mildly terrifying, if we’re being honest.”

But she didn’t look away this time.

Didn’t take it back.

She just stood there in the low red glow of her darkroom, a few feet from him, letting him see exactly where she was—even if she was still figuring out what to do with it.

Lucy let the quiet sit there for a second after she said it.

Like she’d surprised even herself a little.

Like the words had come out cleaner than she’d planned and now there wasn’t anything left to hide behind.

Her eyes stayed on his.

Searching, maybe. Or just… taking him in without the filter she’d been using for years.

Then something in her shifted.

Small.

Decided.

She stepped forward.

Slow enough that it didn’t feel rushed. Close enough that the space between them disappeared before either of them could pretend it wasn’t going to.

Her hand lifted almost absently, like she hadn’t fully thought it through—just followed the instinct—and her fingers brushed along his jaw.

The scruff there caught lightly against her skin, rough in that soft, grounding way that made the moment feel even more real.

She exhaled a quiet little breath through her nose, her thumb grazing just under his cheekbone.

“Yeah…” she murmured, almost to herself.

A tiny shake of her head, like she was still wrapping her mind around it.

“I really like this version of you.”

It came softer this time.

Not defensive. Not layered in jokes.

Just… true.

Her hand stayed there, cupping his face now, her fingers settling a little more confidently like she’d decided she was allowed to touch him like this.

Her eyes flicked briefly to his mouth, then back up.

And that was it.

That was all the hesitation she gave herself.

Lucy leaned in.

This kiss wasn’t rushed.

Wasn’t surprising.

It was chosen.

Her lips met his slow and sure, like she meant it this time in a way that didn’t need to prove anything—just… feel it.

Her hand stayed at his jaw, thumb brushing faintly as she kissed him, grounding herself in the fact that he was actually here, actually real, not just some version of him she’d rewritten in her head over the years.

There was warmth in it.

And something steadier underneath.

Not just excitement.

Something closer to trust, beginning again.

She lingered there a second longer than she probably needed to, like she wasn’t in a rush to pull away this time.

Then, just barely, she eased back.

Not far.

Still close enough that her breath brushed his lips, her hand still resting against his face.

Her eyes stayed on his, softer now, but clearer too.

Like she’d made a choice.

And wasn’t immediately trying to take it back.

Cameron didn’t interrupt her.

Not once.

He stood there in the low red wash of the darkroom with the photograph still fresh in his hand and let her say every bit of it, even the parts that landed hard enough to make something in his chest pull tight.

Especially those parts.

Because she was finally giving it to him straight—not the cleaned-up version, not the polite one, not the easier story people told after enough time had passed and everybody wanted to pretend the damage hadn’t gone that deep.

The real one.

That she had been angry longer than she let on. That he had hurt her. That what he’d done had reached farther into her life than one bad spring and one ugly breakup and a town full of whispers.

He felt that.

Not as surprise. He’d known, somewhere. Maybe not in all the exact shapes of it, but enough.

Still, hearing her say it plain in that quiet voice of hers—he hurt her, and after that she stopped letting people close enough to do it again—made him go very still.

His jaw shifted once. Not defensively. Just the physical effort of standing there and taking a truth he had long since earned.

And when she said all of this—her shop, her apartment, this room—was what had happened after he left, Cameron’s eyes moved slowly around the space again.

The photographs. The worktable. The life.

He understood what she meant.

Not as accusation. As fact.

This was the architecture of the years he hadn’t been here for. What she had built instead of reaching back. What she had made out of the empty space after him.

And God, there was something brutal and beautiful in that all at once.

He didn’t try to defend himself. Didn’t reach for an excuse. Didn’t say he’d been young, or stupid, or any of the other useless things men said when they wanted forgiveness without having to sit all the way inside what they’d done.

He just listened.

And then she said the part that nearly undid him.

That it would’ve been easier if he had come back the same. That she’d known how to be angry at that version of him. That this one—the one who listened, who didn’t assume, who was careful and kind—was harder to hate.

Harder to hate.

The phrase hit him in such a specific place it almost made him laugh if it hadn’t hurt first.

Because there was honesty in that too. Because it was Lucy, and Lucy had never really dealt in pretty lies when she was brave enough to tell the truth.

Then she said she was glad he’d grown up.

Glad he’d come back like this.

And something in Cameron’s face changed before he could stop it.

Not dramatically. Not enough to interrupt her.

Just a quiet unraveling at the edges. A softness that came from being seen in a place he hadn’t expected her to reach yet, maybe ever.

He looked at her the whole time.

At the way her voice shifted when she stopped fighting it. At the way she held herself when she was saying something vulnerable and didn’t quite know where to put her hands. At the little flicker of almost-shyness when she admitted she’d always suspected this version of him had existed under the rest of it somewhere.

That one hit worse than anything else.

Because part of him had wanted to tell her that for years. That he hadn’t been empty back then, just buried. That being liked too easily and praised too often and never made to really answer for himself had turned him into somebody lazier with people than he should have been. That none of that excused what he did, but it had made him worse than the best parts of him were ever meant to be.

But she was already saying it.

Not to let him off the hook. Just because she could finally see it.

And when she told him she liked this version—said it simple, honest, with that faint thread of fear underneath it that made it even more real—Cameron’s throat worked once before he could answer.

He didn’t get the chance.

Because then she moved.

And he forgot everything again.

Not in the wild, dizzy way Cherry Street had hit him. This was quieter than that. Deeper.

She stepped into him like she’d already decided. Lifted her hand to his face like the touch belonged there. Let her fingers find the scruff at his jaw, and Cameron’s whole body went still in the way it did when something mattered too much to fumble.

He looked down at her with all of it open on his face now. No point hiding it. Not after what she’d just said. Not after what she’d just handed him.

Her thumb moved lightly under his cheekbone. She told him, softer now, that she really liked this version of him.

And Cameron nearly smiled—not because it was funny, not because he took it lightly, but because hearing it twice somehow made it even harder to breathe around.

His hand started toward her waist before she even leaned in. Not grabbing. Just finding her, steady and warm, like he needed the anchor of her there.

Then she kissed him.

Slow. Chosen. Certain.

Cameron kissed her back like a man who understood exactly how much trust lived inside that choice.

No rush. No hunger trying to outrun the feeling. Just warmth and care and that deep, almost aching gratitude that had been building in him since the second she started speaking and hadn’t let up once.

His hand settled more firmly at her waist. The other came up, fingertips brushing lightly at the side of her neck, then into the line of her hair with a tenderness that would’ve embarrassed him in front of anybody else and meant absolutely nothing to him here.

Because she was kissing him in the room that was the most honest thing about her. Because she had just told him what he had cost her. Because she had also, unbelievably, told him she liked who he was now.

He kissed her like he knew those things belonged together. Like he knew he didn’t get one without the other.

When she eased back only slightly, Cameron stayed close.

Close enough to feel her breath. Close enough that his thumb could still rest warm at the side of her neck. Close enough that if either of them moved half an inch, they’d be kissing again.

He looked at her for a long second.

Really looked.

At the softness in her face. At the clarity there now. At the fact that she wasn’t retreating from what she’d just done.

And when he finally spoke, his voice came out low and roughened around the edges in a way that made it clear he wasn’t putting this on.

“You don’t have to hate me less just because I finally figured out how to act right.”

It wasn’t self-pity. Wasn’t fishing.

Just truth.

His thumb moved once, gently, against her skin.

“But I’m real glad you do.”

The smallest smile touched his mouth after that. Warm. A little wrecked. Not enough to turn the moment into a joke, just enough to let it breathe.

Then it faded again when his eyes searched hers.

“I’m sorry, Lucy.”

There it was.

Not polished. Not broadened into a speech. Not followed by some explanation that would only drag the center of it away from where it belonged.

Just her name and the apology she should have gotten cleanly a long time ago.

His hand at her waist drew her a fraction closer, not enough to claim, just enough to say he was still here in it with her.

“For hurting you,” he said quietly. “For making it so easy to stop trusting people. For leaving you to carry all that without me here to answer for it.”

He didn’t look away when he said it.

Didn’t soften the truth. Didn’t try to make himself more comfortable inside it than he deserved.

“I hate that that’s part of what came after me,” he said.

The room had gone even quieter somehow.

Or maybe that was just his heartbeat in his ears. The soft red light. The fact that she was still touching his face.

His gaze flicked over her features once, almost reverent now, and when he spoke again it came more gently.

“But I’m not sorry you built all this.”

His fingers spread a little at her waist, his eyes shifting briefly around the room before coming back to hers.

“The shop. This place. This room.” A beat. “The version of you that learned how to make a life that’s yours.”

There was pride in it. Real pride. Not distant admiration, not nostalgia dressed up to sound noble.

He meant it.

“I think it’s incredible.”

The word sat between them, plain and unguarded.

And then, because she’d been honest enough to say the terrifying part, Cameron gave her his own.

“I liked you before,” he said, voice softer now. “Probably in a way I was too young and too selfish to understand right.”

A breath.

“But this version?”

His mouth tipped faintly, something fond and a little awed threading through it.

“I like her more.”

That got him close to smiling again, but the look in his eyes stayed steady. Grounded. Entirely serious underneath the warmth.

“The one who built all this and still let me upstairs anyway.”

There was something about that line that nearly broke into a joke, but he didn’t let it. Not yet. Not when the truth of it mattered more.

He let his knuckles brush lightly along her jaw, mirroring the way she’d touched him, and the gesture came with none of the old swagger she’d once known from him. Just care. Just a man trying not to mishandle something precious because he knew exactly how lucky he was to have been trusted with it at all.

“You can be terrified,” he said quietly. “I’m a little terrified too.”

A faint exhale of a laugh moved through him then, soft enough not to fracture the moment.

“Seems fair.”

He stayed there with her, hand at her waist, the other against her face, and let the honesty settle fully this time instead of running from it.

Then his gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes.

“And for what it’s worth,” he murmured, “I like this version of you too.”

His thumb traced once, lightly, just beneath her cheekbone.

“The one who tells me when I’ve got her messed up.” A beat. “The one who built a darkroom and a whole life and still looks at me like this anyway.”

There was wonder in that. Quiet, genuine wonder.

Not because he thought he deserved it. Because he knew he didn’t, not automatically.

And maybe that was exactly why it meant so much.

He held her there for one more beat, letting her see all of that on his face if she wanted to.

Then he leaned in again.

Slow enough to let her stop him. Close enough to ask without words.

And when his mouth found hers this time, the kiss carried all the things he hadn’t dressed up because there hadn’t been any point: apology, gratitude, relief, and that deep, steady care that had been growing in him all night until it no longer fit behind anything as flimsy as charm.

His hand stayed gentle at her jaw. The other steady at her waist.

He kissed her like he meant to be careful with this version of her. With this version of them. With the room. With the trust. With all of it.

And when he pulled back, it was only far enough to look at her again.

Still close. Still holding her. Still very obviously not rushing to fill the quiet just because silence made him nervous.

This one didn’t.

Not with her. Not here.

So Cameron stood in the red-soft honesty of Lucy’s darkroom with her hand still warm against his face and let the moment stay exactly what it was:

Not simple. Not clean. Not easy in the ways that cost nothing.

But real.

And maybe, for the first time between them, that was better.

Lucy felt the apology before she answered it.

It moved through him differently than everything else had tonight.

Not like a line.
Not like a moment he’d rehearsed because he knew eventually he’d owe her one.

It sat heavier than that. Quieter. Like he had been carrying it for a long time and finally put it down in the right place.

And God, that did something to her.

Not because it erased anything.

It didn’t.

Nothing was ever going to undo being eighteen and heartbroken in a town too small to hide in. Nothing was ever going to reach backward and untangle all the nights she’d laid in bed replaying things she should’ve said, or the way she’d spent years teaching herself not to need too much from anyone because once had been enough to learn the lesson.

But hearing him say it like that—
cleanly,
without protecting himself inside it,
without trying to make the pain prettier than it had been—

that mattered.

It mattered more than she wanted it to.

Her hand stayed against his face, fingers curved warm along his jaw, and for a second she just looked at him.

Really looked.

At the honesty in his face.
At the quiet ache of it.
At the fact that he didn’t look away when he said the ugly parts out loud.

That alone almost undid her.

Because once upon a time, Cameron Tate had been very good at skating over things with a smile and a shrug and just enough charm to keep the room from asking harder questions.

This Cameron—

this one stood still inside them.

And that was so unfairly attractive she almost wanted to be annoyed about it.

Almost.

Instead, her thumb moved once against the scruff at his cheek, slow and absentminded, like she needed the contact there to keep herself grounded.

Her eyes dipped briefly when he said he hated that that was part of what came after him.

And something in her chest softened in a way that felt old and new all at once.

Because she believed him.

That was maybe the most startling part.

She believed him.

Not in some naïve, romantic, this fixes everything kind of way.

Just…
plainly.

She believed that he hated what he’d done.
She believed that he saw it now.
She believed that the man standing in her darkroom wasn’t saying these things because he thought they’d earn him access to her, or forgiveness, or some fast, clean redemption arc he could wear like a medal.

He was saying them because they were true.

And for Lucy, who had spent years distrusting polished men with easy answers and nice smiles and no real weight under them—

that was not a small thing.

When he said he wasn’t sorry she’d built all this, her gaze flicked up again.

And when he looked around the room as he said it—
the shop, this place, this room, the life—

her throat tightened just slightly.

Because she knew what it meant for him to see it and not flinch.

To see what she had become without him and not take offense to the fact that she had become something at all.

To look at her life and not act like he’d missed his rightful place in it, but instead… admire what she’d built in his absence.

That felt enormous.

Her fingers curled just a little more securely against his cheek.

Then he said he thought it was incredible.

And Lucy actually had to let out the smallest, quietest breath through her nose before she rolled her eyes a little—not because she didn’t feel it, but because she did.

Too much.

“Okay,” she murmured softly, almost like a complaint. “You really need to stop being this emotionally competent in my house.”

It landed light, but her voice had gone too tender for it to fully count as a joke.

Because then he said the part that made her heart do something truly inconvenient.

That he’d liked her before.
That he’d been too young and selfish to understand it right.
That he liked this version of her more.

Lucy’s face changed before she could stop it.

Not dramatically.
Just enough.

Her expression softened in that helpless, unguarded way it only seemed to around him now when he said something that hit too close to the center of her.

And for a second, all she could do was look at him.

At the steadiness in him.
At the warmth.
At the complete lack of performance in any of it.

He wasn’t trying to charm her.

He was just… telling her the truth.

And maybe that was why it got through so easily.

Her eyes flicked down for half a second, not out of retreat but because she needed a second to gather herself before she said something too embarrassingly sincere and then had to fake her own death.

Still, when she looked back up, the softness was still there.

“You really are making it very difficult,” she said quietly.

A beat.

“To maintain any kind of emotional upper hand.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

But the smile faded almost as soon as it arrived, because there was something bigger pressing at the back of it—something she didn’t really want to joke over.

So she didn’t.

Instead, Lucy let her hand slide a little more fully against his face, her palm settling warm at his cheek, her fingertips drifting just slightly into the hair at the nape of his neck.

And when she spoke again, it came quieter.

Honester.

“I know it doesn’t fix it,” she said.

Her eyes held his.

“And I’m not pretending it does.”

That mattered enough to say clearly.

Because she wasn’t trying to skip steps.
Wasn’t trying to collapse years of pain into one beautiful apology and call it healed because it would be more convenient for the pacing.

But—

“It does matter,” she said softly.

The apology.
The way he said it.
The way he stayed in it.

“All of it does.”

A pause.

“And I think…” she exhaled gently, the words catching just slightly as she figured them out in real time. “I think part of why this all feels so weird is because I spent a really long time assuming if I ever saw you again, I’d either feel nothing…”

Her mouth tipped faintly, sad and fond all at once.

“Or I’d still be angry enough for it to make sense.”

A beat.

“But this?”

Her eyes moved over his face, slower now.

“This is not what I pictured.”

Her voice softened further.

“And I don’t hate that.”

That was maybe the closest she could get to saying the full shape of it without her heart trying to physically leave her body.

Because she didn’t hate it.

She liked it too much, actually.

Liked the way he stood in her space without taking it over.
Liked the way he listened.
Liked the way he touched her like he understood she was not some thing he had recovered, but a person choosing him back in real time.

And maybe most dangerously of all—

she liked how safe she felt with him right now.

That was the part she almost didn’t say.

Almost.

But her hand was still on his face and he was looking at her like that and they were standing in the one room in the apartment she had already admitted was the truest thing about her, so really, she was out of excuses.

Lucy swallowed lightly.

Then said it anyway.

“You feel…” She stopped, almost laughed at herself, then pushed through it. “You feel safe now.”

There.

The words settled between them with a softness that somehow hit harder than anything sharper could have.

Her thumb brushed once beneath his cheekbone again.

“And that’s really not something I give out lightly.”

Not anymore.

Not after him.
Not after what came after him.
Not after all the years she’d gotten very good at being self-contained because self-contained didn’t ask for much and therefore didn’t get blindsided when it didn’t receive it.

But him now?

He made her want to unclench.

That was terrifying.

And lovely.

And so, so unfair.

Lucy’s mouth curved again, smaller this time. More intimate.

“Which is rude, by the way,” she murmured. “For you. Personally.”

A tiny shake of her head.

“Showing back up all… emotionally literate and broad shouldered and good with flowers.”

The line softened the air just enough for her to breathe again, but the warmth in her eyes didn’t go anywhere.

If anything, it deepened.

Because underneath all the teasing and all the dry little attempts to keep herself from combusting in place, the truth was sitting there plain as day now.

She liked him.
She liked this.
She liked the man standing in front of her so much it was beginning to stop feeling theoretical.

And maybe that was the scariest thing of all.

Or maybe—

maybe it was just the most honest.

Lucy stepped in closer again, barely any space left between them now, close enough that her wine-warm breath brushed the edge of his mouth when she spoke.

“I think,” she said softly, “if I’d met this version of you first…”

She stopped.

Not because she didn’t know the rest.

Because she did.

And it felt too revealing to say all of it out loud.

So instead, her eyes flicked to his mouth and then back to his eyes, and she gave him the tiniest, most helpless little smile.

“…I would’ve been in a lot of trouble.”

It landed exactly how she meant it to.

Soft.
Fond.
A little awed by her own bad luck.

Or maybe her good luck, depending on how she wanted to frame it.

Then, because there was only so much honesty she could survive in one standing position without doing something about it, Lucy leaned in again.

This time slower.

No urgency.
No uncertainty.

Just intention.

Her lips found his with a quiet kind of certainty that felt almost more intimate than hunger. Her hand stayed at his face, her other resting lightly against his chest now like she needed the steady rise and fall of him there to remind herself this was real.

The kiss deepened after a second—not because she rushed it there, but because it naturally did.

Because she wanted to.

Because she was done pretending she didn’t.

Her fingers curled slightly at the back of his neck, holding him there just enough to make it clear she was the one keeping them in it now, and there was something so quietly emotional in that realization she nearly lost her footing inside it.

Not physically.

Just… inwardly.

Because this wasn’t eighteen.
This wasn’t fantasy.
This wasn’t memory.

This was now.

This was Cameron in her darkroom, older and better and apologizing properly and looking at her like she was something worth learning instead of just winning.

And God.

Yeah.

She kissed him like she knew that.

When she finally pulled back, it wasn’t far.

Her forehead almost brushed his.
Her hand stayed on his face.
Her eyes opened slowly, finding his again in the low red light.

And for a second, all she did was smile.

Small.
Soft.
A little disbelieving.

Like maybe she still couldn’t quite believe this was where the night had ended either.

Then, in a voice barely above a murmur, she said—

“I really, really like the man you came back as.”

And this time, she didn’t try to take it back.

Lucy smiled before she even meant to.

It was still there from what she’d just said—small and warm and a little disbelieving—and when she looked at him and saw the way he was looking back at her, all steady and a little wrecked and so obviously feeling every bit of this too, something in her just… gave.

Not in a bad way.

Not like surrender.

More like relief.

Like she was finally tired of stopping herself halfway to what she actually wanted.

Her hand stayed at his face, thumb brushing once across the line of his cheek, and then she leaned in again.

She kissed him softly at first.

Not tentative.
Not shy.

Just… happy.

There was a smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth when her lips met his, and she could feel it there between them—feel the warmth of his answering smile almost immediately, like neither one of them could quite help it now.

It made the kiss sweeter somehow.

Lighter for one second.

Then it deepened.

Not because she pulled away and decided to try again.

Because she didn’t pull away at all.

That was the difference this time.

Lucy just stayed.

Stayed close.
Stayed in it.
Stayed with her mouth on his and her fingers sliding from his cheek into the hair at the nape of his neck as if she’d quietly decided she was done pretending she didn’t want more than these careful little almosts.

Her other hand flattened more fully against his chest, feeling the steady warmth of him through his shirt, the rise and fall of his breathing changing beneath her palm as the kiss shifted into something fuller.

Slower.

Longer.

The kind of kiss that stopped feeling like punctuation and started feeling like its own conversation.

And God, she liked this.

She liked the way he kissed her back without trying to take it over.
Liked the steadiness of his hand at her waist.
Liked the quiet patience in him even now, like he was still letting her set the pace no matter how badly he clearly wanted her too.

That alone did something ridiculous to her.

So Lucy leaned in a little more.

Rose just slightly onto the balls of her feet again without thinking about it, because he was taller and she liked the tiny stretch of it now, liked the way it brought her closer, and she let her mouth part more fully against his as the kiss deepened another shade.

Still not rushed.

Still not messy.

Just more.

More feeling.
More trust.
More of the thing they’d both been skirting around all day finally being allowed to exist without immediately apologizing for itself.

Her fingers curled lightly at the back of his neck, holding him there just enough to say stay here, stay here, stay here without needing words for it.

And when she smiled again against his mouth—because she couldn’t help it, because some soft, delighted part of her still couldn’t believe this was actually happening—she didn’t stop to laugh it off.

She just kissed him through it.

Warm and lingering and a little breathless now.

Her body had gone loose in the best way, all the tension she usually kept tucked into her shoulders and jaw and ribs quietly unwinding the longer she stayed this close to him. The red glow of the room blurred at the edges, the shelves and hanging prints and worktable all fading into background while Cameron became the only thing she could really feel with any clarity.

The warmth of his hand.
The scruff at his jaw when her fingers drifted back there.
The way he fit into her space now without feeling like an intrusion at all.

That part almost got her worse than anything else.

Because this didn’t feel wrong.

It didn’t feel forced.
It didn’t feel reckless.
It didn’t even feel like they were borrowing something fragile they’d regret in the morning.

It just felt…

right.

And that was terrifying enough that Lucy probably should have stopped and made a joke and thrown some dry little comment over the whole thing before it got too sincere.

But she didn’t.

For once—

she didn’t.

Instead, she kissed him like she was letting herself have it.

Like she was done rationing every soft thing down to a safer size.

Her thumb brushed once beneath his ear, and she tilted her face just slightly, keeping the kiss unbroken, unhurried, letting it go on until it became impossible not to feel the shape of it changing them both a little.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

When she finally eased back, it wasn’t because she wanted to stop.

It was because she needed one breath.

Just one.

And even then, she barely gave it to herself.

Her forehead hovered close to his, her lips still only a breath from his, and she let out the smallest, quietest laugh—soft and a little stunned by her own lack of self-control.

Then she looked at him through her lashes, her fingers still threaded loosely into the hair at the back of his neck, and murmured, voice low and warm and a little smile-dragged—

“Okay…”

A tiny breath.

“That one was better.”

And before he could answer—
before he could say anything charming or sweet or dangerous enough to undo her all over again—

Lucy leaned in and kissed him once more.

Lucy didn’t move.

If anything, she leaned a little more.

Her weight settled more fully into him, her body fitting against his like she’d quietly decided this was where she was staying for a while. His steadiness made it easy—effortless, really—and she let herself rely on it in a way she normally would’ve caught and corrected by now.

But she didn’t correct it.

Not tonight.

Her hand stayed at his chest, fingers lightly curled in his shirt, and she tilted her head back again, looking up at him through her lashes. The red glow softened everything—his features, the edges of the room, the way her own smile lingered like she couldn’t quite get rid of it even if she tried.

And she didn’t try.

Not when he was looking at her like that.

Not when she felt like this.

There was something almost playful in her expression now—something that hadn’t been there earlier, something lighter but still threaded through with all the warmth that had been building between them all night.

Her thumb traced a small, absent circle against his chest.

“…you know,” she murmured, voice soft and a little amused, “you’ve seen the darkroom.”

A tiny pause.

“The living room.”

Another faint smile tugged at her mouth.

“The chair.”

Her eyes flicked up to meet his more directly now, that spark of mischief growing just a little stronger.

“And technically,” she added, dragging the word just slightly, “you’ve already been invited into my bedroom…”

Her brows lifted a fraction, like she was letting that settle between them on purpose.

Then her mouth curved—slow, knowing, just the smallest bit teasing.

“…and you didn’t even make a comment about it.”

A beat.

“Which, honestly, feels like a missed opportunity.”

Her fingers tightened just slightly against his chest, not pulling, just holding him there with her.

Not pushing.

Not rushing.

Just… nudging the moment forward in her own way.

Her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth again, then lifted, softer now but still carrying that same quiet confidence she hadn’t had earlier.

“I mean,” she added, almost under her breath, “I gave you a full tour.”

A tiny, breathy laugh slipped out.

“Very generous of me.”

But the humor didn’t pull her away.

She stayed right there—leaning into him, held up by him, her face tipped up toward his like she wasn’t afraid of where this was going anymore.

If anything—

she looked a little excited by it.

The second Lucy said bedroom like that, Cameron’s whole face gave him away.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

A slow blink. A little shift in his mouth. The faintest pull of heat low in his stomach that climbed fast and mean the second she looked up at him with that spark in her eyes and called him out for not saying anything about it.

Because she was right.

It had absolutely been a missed opportunity.

And the only reason he hadn’t taken it was because he’d been working overtime all night not to be the kind of man who ruined good things by grabbing at them too fast.

Which got significantly harder when she was standing in the red glow of her darkroom, leaned into him like she belonged there, one hand curled in his shirt, looking up at him like that.

He let out a breath through his nose that was almost a laugh.

Almost.

His hand spread a little wider over her waist instead, steadying there like he needed the anchor before he trusted himself to speak.

“That’s true,” he said, voice low and a little rough now. “I did miss that one.”

His thumb moved once against her side.

“In my defense, I was trying real hard not to get kicked out before I made it through the tour.”

That got the smile in his mouth a little crooked again, warmer at the edges, but his eyes stayed locked on hers. Stayed there in that open, boyish, slightly wrecked way that seemed to happen around her whether he meant for it to or not.

“Also,” he added, quieter now, “you looked real pretty standing in it.”

The line came out without polish.
Without strategy.

Just honest.

Very him.
Very now.

And maybe that was what made it land the way it did—because he wasn’t tossing it out like a smooth line. He was saying it because he’d been thinking it from the doorway on and apparently no longer had enough self-control to keep it to himself.

His gaze dipped to her mouth, then lifted back to her eyes.

“The room,” he said, because apparently he still had some survival instinct left. “But you too.”

A little late.
A little helpless.
Enough to make it worse.

He smiled at his own recovery like he knew it wasn’t helping, then looked at her with that same soft heat still sitting under everything and let himself enjoy the fact that she was smiling too. That she was teasing him. That she was leaning into him instead of away.

Because Lucy didn’t do anything halfway when she’d really made up her mind.

And tonight she kept making up her mind in his direction.

That was doing dangerous things to him.

When she said she’d given him the full tour—very generous of her—Cameron huffed a quiet laugh and dipped his head, his forehead nearly brushing hers again.

“You have,” he murmured. “Been an unbelievably gracious host.”

The words carried a smile, but his hand had shifted lower by then, settling at the small of her back in a way that felt more intimate than even the teasing. Not grabbing. Not presumptuous. Just firm and warm and like he wasn’t planning on letting too much space open up between them if he could help it.

His other hand came up slow, easy, fingertips brushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. The gesture made the room go quieter somehow. Or maybe that was just him. Maybe all the noise had been burning off him in layers all night until there was nothing left but this—Lucy in front of him, wine on her breath, red light at the edge of her cheek, looking at him like she wanted him to answer properly.

So he did.

“I noticed the bedroom,” he said softly.

There was no swagger in it.
No wink.
No cheap edge.

Just the truth, given back warm.

“Believe me.”

The low Tennessee drawl in him deepened when he said it—not exaggerated, not put on, just there in the places it always lived when he was tired or happy or wanting something enough that he stopped editing himself.

And Lord, did he want her.

He’d wanted her in pieces all night.
Wanted her on Cherry Street when she kissed him like she was done waiting.
Wanted her on Main when she tucked under his arm like she belonged there.
Wanted her in the kitchen when she stood barefoot with the lilies and the wine and that open look on her face like she’d forgotten how to hide from him for a while.

But here, with her saying things like you’ve already been invited into my bedroom in that quiet, playful voice?

Here it sharpened.

Not into something careless.
Into something deeper.
Hotter.
A little harder to pretend wasn’t happening.

Cameron’s hand at her back pressed just enough to bring her in closer, his chest brushing hers more fully now. The movement was slow enough to ask, not take. And when she stayed right there—when she leaned into it instead of back—his eyes darkened a little in a way he didn’t bother hiding.

“I was just trying to be respectful,” he said.

A beat.

“First trip upstairs and all.”

His mouth tipped.

“Felt rude to stand in your hallway talking about your bedroom before I’d even met the emotionally compromised chair.”

That got his smile back for half a second, but it didn’t last long. Not with the way she was looking at him. Not with the way her thumb kept moving against his chest like she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.

He glanced down at her hand there, then back up to her face.

“Now, though?” he said, voice dropping.

The words sat between them.
Warm.
Dangerous in a softer way than before.

His thumb traced once along the line of her spine through the fabric at her back.

“Now I’m thinking I showed a whole lot of restraint for a man you marched through an apartment and then cornered in a darkroom.”

The line should’ve sounded cockier than it did.

It didn’t.

Because the smile on his mouth wasn’t smug.
It was fond.
Because there was too much wonder in him for smug tonight.

Because even now, standing this close to her, Cameron looked more grateful than victorious.

And that, if anything, made him hotter.

His gaze dropped to her mouth again. Stayed there this time.

When he spoke, it came quieter.

“Especially since you keep lookin’ at me like that.”

He didn’t say how.
Didn’t need to.

Like she was enjoying this.
Like she was done pretending she wasn’t.
Like she might kiss him again in the middle of his sentence and he’d probably thank God and lose all remaining ability to think.

His hand slid a fraction higher and then back down again at her waist, a small restless adjustment that told on him more than he meant it to. Told her that his control was intact, sure—but occupied. Working hard. Not effortless.

And then Cameron smiled, a little breathless around the edges now.

“Missed opportunity, though,” he murmured. “You’re right.”

His forehead brushed hers this time.
Barely.
Enough to make the air between them feel even thinner.

“So let me fix that.”

He gave her half a second.

Not for drama.
For choice.

Then he tipped her chin gently with two fingers and kissed her.

Not soft this time.

Not rough either.

Just deeper from the start—like all the heat he’d been keeping carefully banked had finally gotten permission to show up without wrecking the room. His hand at her back tightened, pulling her fully into him, and the first thing that left him was a low, involuntary sound that he couldn’t have hidden if he’d tried.

Lucy tasted like wine and warmth and the kind of trouble a smarter man might have recognized sooner.

Cameron kissed her like he’d been trying very hard to be good and had finally reached the exact point where good had become impossible in the face of her.

Still careful.
Still listening.

But no longer pretending he wasn’t affected.

His mouth moved with hers slowly at first, then a little more insistently when she stayed in it—when she answered him right there, right then, no hesitation. The hand at her waist slid around to the curve of her lower back, holding her there with a steadiness that bordered on possessive only because he wanted so badly to keep feeling the exact shape of her against him.

Not ownership.
Just want.

Pure and unmistakable.

His other hand stayed at her jaw for a second longer before slipping into her hair at the nape of her neck, fingers spreading there, gentle and warm and just firm enough to tilt her how he wanted when the kiss deepened another shade.

And Jesus.

That did it.

Because Lucy didn’t kiss like she was unsure anymore. She kissed like she meant to be here. Like she was choosing this and knew he knew it.

Cameron had spent years playing baseball—had known the exact electric split-second before a pitch hit a glove, before a bat connected, before a body committed fully to motion and there was no taking it back.

This felt like that.

That clean, charged moment of knowing something had landed.

He kissed her until the room blurred at the edges, until the little red light and the shelves and the photos all fell away and there was only her mouth, her hands, the warmth of her body leaning into his like she trusted him to hold what she gave him.

That part almost undid him more than anything else.

So when he finally pulled back, it wasn’t far.

It was because if he kept going at exactly that pace, he was going to stop pretending he had patience left at all.

His lips brushed once, twice, against hers as he eased back just enough to breathe, and the look on his face when he opened his eyes was wrecked in the sweetest way possible. Warm. A little dazed. Entirely too pleased with her.

“Bedroom,” he murmured, voice low and smiling now against her mouth, “definitely worth noticing.”

The line should have been flippant.

Instead it came out rougher than that, like he meant every word and was only barely managing to keep the mood from swallowing him whole.

His thumb stroked once at the small of her back.

Then he looked at her—really looked—and the smile in his eyes softened again.

“You gonna keep saying things like that,” he asked quietly, “or is this the part where I’m supposed to act like a gentleman and recover?”

There was playfulness in it, yes.

But underneath it was that same Wally-like sincerity she kept pulling out of him tonight—the sense that even when he flirted, he was still telling the truth. He was not recovered. He was not remotely normal about any of this. He was standing in Lucy’s darkroom holding her close and trying not to grin like some awestruck idiot because she had just all but admitted she was glad he’d seen her bedroom and maybe wanted him to think about it.

He tipped his head and kissed the corner of her mouth this time.
Then the line of her jaw.
Not fast.
Not greedy.

Deliberate enough to feel like an answer.

His hand flexed once against her back when he felt her lean into it, and that nearly got a curse out of him.

Instead he breathed out a quiet laugh against her skin.

“Lucy,” he said softly—like it had slipped out warmer than he meant it to, because it had—“you are not making it easy to stay respectful in the room with the red lighting.”

The second the words left him, he smiled against her jaw like he knew exactly what he’d done and wasn’t sorry in the least.

Not too slick.
Not too polished.

Just warm southern instinct and a man a little too far gone to monitor every word before it escaped him.

He drew back enough to see her face again, eyes bright now, mouth still close enough to distract him all over.

“But I am trying,” he added.

A beat.

“Real hard.”

That one sat lower.
Hotter.

And because he was only human—and because Lucy had spent the last several minutes being funny and vulnerable and gorgeous in equal measure—his gaze flicked once toward the hall behind her, then back to her with the smallest crooked smile.

“So,” he murmured, fingertips spreading at her waist again, “you wanna stay right here and keep distracting me in your chemical cave?”

A tiny pause.

“Or you wanna let me take another look at that bedroom…”

His eyes dropped briefly to her mouth, then lifted again.

“…seeing as I was a little distracted by what was standing in it the first time?”

The red light of the darkroom felt like it was pulsing in time with Lucy’s heart. She looked up at Cameron—really looked at him—and felt that familiar, terrifying slide of her defenses.

She was twenty-four now, not sixteen. She wasn't the girl who had been shattered by a high school betrayal, and he wasn't the boy who had walked away without a backward glance. But as he stood there, his thumb tracing her spine, the sheer sincerity in his eyes told her that the heart she’d kept under lock and key for six years was already halfway back in his hands.

She was ready to give it to him. She just wasn't ready to let the night end in the one way that felt too final, too fast.

"The chemical cave is a little cramped, don't you think?" she whispered, her voice finally finding its footing.

She didn't give him a choice. She reached out, her hand sliding down his chest until her fingers hooked into his belt loop, and she tugged. She walked backward, leading him out of the red haze and into the cool, silver-lit hallway, her eyes never leaving his. Cameron followed in a daze, his footsteps silent on the hardwood, his presence a heavy, warm weight that seemed to swallow the air between them.

The bedroom was quiet, smelling of her perfume and the faint, lingering scent of the lilies in the kitchen.

Lucy stopped when the back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. She didn't wait for him to lead. She reached out, her fingers sure and steady as she found the button of his jeans. She felt him hitch a breath—a sharp, ragged sound—as her knuckles grazed the heat of his stomach. She popped the button and slid the zipper down with a slow, deliberate rasp.

She pushed the denim over his hips, letting the heavy fabric pool around his ankles, and then she sat.

Lucy sank onto the edge of the bed, her legs parting just enough to let him stand in the cradle of her thighs. She looked up at him, her blonde hair shimmering like silk in the dim light, her eyes dark with a desire that was six years deep.

"I’m not ready to go all the way tonight, Cam," she murmured, her voice a soft, uncompromising command. She saw his jaw tighten, but he didn't pull away. "But I’m not done with you."

She gripped his hips and pulled, hard, bringing him down as she fell back against the pillows. They hit the bed in a tangle of limbs and heat, the mattress yielding beneath them. Lucy didn't let him breathe. She rolled, straddling his waist, her hands frantic as they mapped the hard, athletic planes of his chest.

The kiss they shared was desperate—raw with everything they hadn't said for a decade. The room was filled with the sound of them: the wet friction of their mouths, the rustle of sheets, and the low, guttural groans Cameron couldn't seem to swallow. Every time she moved, he made a sound that vibrated through her whole body, a wrecked "Jesus, Lucy" that made her feel entirely, dangerously powerful.

She sat back on her heels, her gaze dropping. With one steady, predatory motion, she hooked her thumbs into the elastic of his boxers and pulled them down, finally revealing him to herself in the silver light.

It had been a lifetime.

Lucy leaned forward, her blonde hair spilling over his thighs like a curtain, shutting out the rest of the world. She leaned down to devour him, her mouth finally claiming the only man she’d ever truly let in, wanting to leave him so breathless and broken that he’d never doubt she was his.

The room had narrowed to the silver-lit space between her hands and the jagged, heavy rhythm of Cameron’s breathing. Pale blonde silk spilled over his thighs as Lucy leaned forward, her hair creating a private curtain that shut out the rest of the world, leaving only the two of them in a heated, desperate orbit.

It had been years since she’d allowed herself to be this close to him—even longer since she’d allowed anyone this close at all. The power of it, the raw physical reality of the man who had once shattered her heart now trembling and defenseless under her touch, was a heady, intoxicating weight.

She didn't rush. She wanted to taste the anticipation, to feel the way his pulse thrummed against her lips.

Starting slow, her tongue traced the salt and heat of him, swirling around the sensitive head with an agonizing deliberation that made his breath hitch and stall. She could hear the sharp, fractured catch in his throat—a sound that was half-groan and half-prayer. Cameron’s hands flew to her head, his fingers burying themselves deep in her blonde strands, not to pull her away, but to anchor himself to the mattress as his knuckles turned white.

She looked up at him once, her eyes dark and heavy, catching the way his head was thrown back against her pillows. His jaw was set so tight it looked painful, his eyes squeezed shut as he lived in the sensation she was crafting for him.

"Lucy," he choked out, the name a wrecked, low rasp that vibrated through the mattress.

She didn't answer with words. She leaned in further, taking him deeper with a smooth, relentless intent. As she moved to take him fully, her throat met the solid reality of him, and a slight, muffled gagging sound escaped her. Her eyes watered in the dim light, the physiological reaction only adding to the raw, unpolished intensity of the moment.

The sound seemed to shatter whatever remained of Cameron's iron-clad restraint.

He let out a long, low curse, his hips bucking instinctively off the bed as his grip in her hair tightened. Lucy stayed there for a heartbeat, savoring the fullness and the overwhelming presence of him, before she began to move. She kept it rhythmic and devastatingly thorough, her hands sliding down to grip the hard bone of his hips, pulling him even closer.

She wanted him to feel the weight of every year she’d spent waiting in the silence he’d left behind. She wanted to leave him so breathless and broken that he’d never be able to look at her bedroom door again without remembering exactly how it felt to be entirely at her mercy. She was prepared to give him her heart tonight, but first, she was going to make sure he never forgot the taste of her surrender.

Cameron couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t sure he even remembered how. His entire universe had contracted to the silver-lit shadows of her bedroom, the faint, lingering smell of the lilies sitting out in her kitchen, and the devastating, all-consuming heat of her mouth. He felt the soft slide of her hair against his thighs, a ghost of a touch that sent shivers racing up his abdomen. This was her space. Her sanctuary. The place she had built when she was picking up the pieces he’d carelessly dropped. And she had brought him here.

When she made that sound—that soft, involuntary, muffled catch in her throat as she took him deeper—it was like a live wire snapping straight against his spine. It wasn't just the physical sensation, though that was enough to make his vision blur. It was the absolute, staggering vulnerability of the act. The fact that she was willing to be this exposed with him, to give him this much of herself after everything he had broken, was completely undoing him.

He swore again, the sound tearing out of his chest ragged, low, and entirely stripped of whatever pride he had left. His large hands were tangled in the cool silk of her hair, his fingers curling tight, but he forced himself not to pull, not to guide her, not to do anything that even vaguely felt like taking. He was just holding on because if he didn't anchor himself to her, he felt like he was going to shatter into a million pieces right there on her mattress. He was terrifyingly close to the edge, completely and entirely unmoored by the slow, agonizing drag of her lips.

He forced his eyes open, looking down through the hazy, dizzying fog of his own wrecked breathing. The moonlight filtering through the window caught the slope of her shoulders and the pale, beautiful curtain of her hair. The sheer reality of it—the undeniable fact that *Lucy Corbett* had let him into her most personal space, stripped him down, and was currently claiming him with this kind of fierce, unapologetic ownership—felt like a miracle he hadn't earned and was terrified to wake up from.

Six years ago, he had been a stupid, arrogant kid who walked through the world thinking it would just hand him whatever he wanted. He had been careless with the best thing he’d ever had. Tonight, under the heavy weight of her touch, he was a man who knew exactly what a second chance cost. He looked at the woman between his knees—stronger, sharper, and so incredibly beautiful it physically hurt to look at her—and felt perfectly, blissfully terrified of her. He loved her so much his chest ached with the sheer volume of it.
"Luce," he breathed out, his voice shaking so badly it barely sounded like his own. His hips jerked up to meet her against her hands, a helpless, involuntary response to the agonizingly slow, deep slide of her mouth.

He forced his hands to release her hair, terrified of accidentally being too rough, of falling back into the reckless boy who took things for granted. Instead, his hands dropped, his wide palms flattening against the mattress on either side of her head. He gripped the fitted sheet in his fists, his broad shoulders tensing, the heavy, athletic muscles in his arms and chest pulling visibly taut as he tried to give her exactly what she was demanding without losing his mind completely. He was practically vibrating with the effort of staying still.

He wanted to touch her everywhere. He wanted to drag her up his body, to bury his face in her neck, to wrap his arms around her waist and kiss the breath out of her lungs until she forgot the last six years even happened. But she had told him she wasn't done with him. She was leading this. And Cameron was going to let her take whatever she wanted, for exactly as long as she wanted it. Every deliberate, torturous drag of her tongue, every breathless, wet sound echoing in the quiet room felt like an absolution he was desperate for.

"Sweetheart," he gasped, his head falling back against the pillows with a heavy thud, his eyes squeezing shut again. His chest heaved, a fine layer of sweat pricking at his skin in the cool Tennessee night air. "Jesus, you're—God, I'm yours. I'm yours."

He meant it as a total surrender. He had walked into this apartment tonight hoping just to sit on her rust-colored velvet couch, listen to a record, and maybe, if he was incredibly lucky, earn a second kiss. Now, stripped bare under the silver light, completely at the mercy of the woman who had built a whole, beautiful, layered life without him, Cameron realized he didn't just want her to trust him again. He wanted to belong to her. He wanted to be the safe place she finally let her guard down in.

And as she pulled him deeper, leaving him totally, completely ruined in the quiet dark of her bedroom, he knew he already did.

The sound of his voice—that wrecked, gravelly vibration of her name—hit Lucy like a physical spark. Luce. He hadn’t called her that in years, not with that specific brand of desperation. Hearing it now, muffled by the silver-heavy silence of her bedroom, tasted better than the finest wine. It was the sound of a man who had finally realized he was no longer the one holding the map.

She didn't slow down. If anything, Cameron’s undoing only fueled her. She felt the way his large frame shuddered beneath her, the rhythmic, helpless hitch of his hips that spoke of a man right on the precipice. It was deeply, darkly satisfying to know that she was the one who had brought him there. For six years, she had carried the weight of what he’d broken; tonight, she was letting him carry the weight of her desire, and it was a burden he seemed more than willing to bear.

She heard him gasp out "sweetheart," a broken prayer against the headboard, and a fierce, protective sense of ownership flared in her chest. She wanted to leave a mark on him that no other woman could ever hope to erase. She wanted to redefine the very concept of pleasure for him, to make every memory of his life without her feel like a pale, flickering shadow compared to the blinding heat of this moment.

Moving with a slow, deliberate grace, Lucy reached up. While she continued the agonizingly deep, rhythmic slide of her mouth, her right hand began a slow trek across his heated skin. Her palm flattened against his lower abdomen, her fingers splaying over the ridged, tensed muscle of his abs. He was rock hard, vibrating with the effort of staying still for her, and she took a moment to just feel him. She tracked the line of his V-taper, her thumb grazing the dark hair that led down into the shadows, before her hand drifted lower to cup him—a grounding, possessive weight that drew a sharp, choked-off shout from his lungs.

She wanted him to feel adored, cherished, and completely consumed. But she wasn't done playing with the tension.

Slowly, Lucy broke the contact of her mouth, the sudden absence of heat causing him to let out a low, mourning whimper. She didn't let him breathe for long. She began to crawl up the length of his body, her knees pinning his thighs, her movements fluid and feline. She pressed soft, lingering kisses to the hollow of his hip, then moved to the center of his stomach, feeling the frantic pulse of his heart through his skin.

She dragged her tongue upward, tracing the line of his sternum until she reached his chest. With a deliberate flick, she licked over his nipple, catching the bud between her teeth for a fleeting, sharp second that made his back arch off the mattress.

"Luce," he choked out, his hands searching for her, but she caught his wrists, pinning them lightly as she moved higher.

She kissed the frantic pulse in his neck, tasting the salt of his skin, before trailing her lips along the sharp, stubbled line of his jaw. She hovered there for a heartbeat, her breath mingling with his wrecked exhales, letting him wait, letting him ache. Then, finally, she turned her head and captured his mouth.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was deep, hungry, and full of the six years of silence that had sat between them. She kissed him until the room spun, until he forgot his own name, until the only thing left in the universe was the taste of her and the absolute, undeniable truth that he belonged to her.

Lucy finally broke the kiss, but she didn’t pull away. She stayed right there, her breath hitching in time with his, her heart hammering against his ribs as she looked down at him in the silver-drenched dark. She reached up, her palms framing his face, her thumbs tracing the high, sharp line of his cheekbones. He felt so real, so solid, and so entirely hers in this moment that it made her chest tight.

She wanted to memorize him—not the boy from six years ago, but this man. The man who had grown into his edges, whose face bore the weight of the years they’d spent apart.

She began to pepper his face with soft, lingering kisses, moving with a slow, agonizing tenderness that was almost more overwhelming than the heat from moments before. She pressed her lips to his cheek, tasting the salt of his skin, then moved to the bridge of his nose. She kissed his closed eyelids, her eyelashes brushing against his skin, and felt the way he trembled under her touch.

"Look at me, Cam," she whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound in the quiet room.

When he forced his eyes open, they were dark, blown out, and filled with a raw, terrifying honesty. She saw the love there, the kind that didn't just burn but sustained, and she felt a corresponding ache in her own throat.

"I want you to feel everything," she murmured, her thumbs smoothing the tension from his brow. "Every single second of this. I want you to remember that I’m the one holding you. Not some memory, not some ghost. Just me."

She leaned down, pressing her forehead against his, closing her eyes as she inhaled the scent of him—soap, woodsmoke, and the clean Tennessee night air. For a long, breathless minute, she just held him there, her hands anchoring him to the present, to her bed, to the life she had built. She was letting him in, truly and completely, and as she felt his hands finally move from the sheets to tentatively rest on her waist, Lucy knew there was no going back for either of them.

Cameron felt a tremor start deep in his chest and radiate outward, shivering through every heavy, tense muscle in his body. Her words—*“Just me”*—wrapped around his heart like a vice. He stared up into her eyes in the dim silver light, feeling the soft, grounding pressure of her forehead against his, and something inside him finally, permanently broke open.

He didn’t want to hold back anymore. He didn't want to be careful. He just wanted *her*.

His large hands, resting tentatively on her waist, tightened. With a low, rough exhale, Cameron shifted his weight. He moved with the smooth, athletic grace of a man who knew exactly how to use his body, but with a careful, deliberate reverence that made it perfectly clear he was still asking permission. Gently, but with an undeniable, heavy intent, he rolled his hips, shifting their center of gravity until Lucy was flat on her back against the mattress and he was hovering over her, his broad shoulders blocking out the rest of the bedroom.

He didn’t break her gaze. He braced his weight on his forearms, framing her head, and brought his mouth down on hers.

This kiss wasn’t an apology. It was an absolute declaration. Cameron poured every ounce of his regret, his six years of aching absence, and his raw, desperate hunger into the way his mouth moved over hers. It was deep, wet, and utterly consuming. His tongue swept inside, claiming her, tasting himself on her lips, kissing her with a fierce, possessive heat that told her exactly how completely she had ruined him. He angled his head, a guttural groan vibrating in his chest as he slanted his mouth over hers again and again, letting her feel the hard, heavy evidence of his arousal pressing flush against her inner thigh. He wanted her to feel the absolute magnitude of what she did to him.

When he finally pulled back to breathe, his chest was heaving, his eyes blown entirely black with need. He looked down at her in the shadows, the boyish sincerity stripped away to reveal a man entirely focused on worshipping the woman beneath him.

His hands moved to the hem of her soft vintage camisole. He didn't rush, his knuckles grazing the warm, bare skin of her stomach as he slowly pushed the fabric up. He pulled it over her head, tossing it blindly onto the hardwood floor, his eyes never leaving the pale, silver-lit canvas of her skin. He leaned down, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the center of her chest, right over the frantic pulse of her heart, before his hands moved to the button of her pants.

His fingers were trembling slightly, completely affected by her, but he made quick work of the heavy denim. He slid the pants down her legs, taking her delicate lace underwear with it, stripping away the last physical barriers between them until she was completely bare under the moonlight.

Cameron let the clothes hit the floor and shifted backward, settling his weight onto his knees. He looked at her, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, his gaze sweeping over the soft, beautiful lines of her body. He looked at her like she was a miracle he still couldn't believe he was allowed to touch.

With a soft, shuddering exhale, he moved down the bed. He settled himself between her thighs, his broad shoulders parting her legs, opening her completely to him. He gently gripped her hips, his large, warm hands anchoring her securely to the mattress.

He didn't just want to make her feel good; he wanted to devour her. He wanted to give back every ounce of the devastating pleasure she had just forced on him.

Cameron leaned down, his warm breath fanning over her damp center before he pressed his first kiss exactly where she needed it most. He tasted the slick, heavy proof of her desire, and a low, feral growl vibrated in the back of his throat. He parted her delicate petals with his thumbs, opening her up, and then his tongue traced a long, wet, agonizingly slow path right up her center.

He was relentless. He used his mouth with the same careful, devastating focus he applied to everything else he cared about. His tongue lashed deeply, thoroughly, swirling over her most sensitive bundle of nerves before he sucked hard, his scruff scratching deliciously against her soft inner thighs. He held her hips in a vise grip, keeping her perfectly positioned against his mouth as he consumed her, showing her with every wet, heavy stroke of his tongue, every ragged breath, and every deep, hungry kiss exactly how irrevocably his heart belonged to her.

He didn’t let up for a single second. Shifting his grip, he dragged one large hand from her hip, his thumb replacing the steady, agonizing friction of his tongue right at her center. He kept up the devastating pressure, drawing a shuddering gasp from his own chest, before sliding two blunt, calloused fingers deep inside her slick heat. She melted perfectly around him, yielding to the intrusion, and a low, ragged sigh tore from his throat at the feeling. He curled his fingers upward, establishing a slow, deep, driving rhythm that mimicked exactly what he wanted to do to her, while his mouth dropped lower to press hot, open-mouthed kisses against the trembling inside of her thigh. He worked her with a focused, reverent patience—his hand and mouth moving in a perfect, ruthless tandem—utterly determined to pull her completely apart before he ever thought of letting her piece herself back together.

Lucy was lost. The world outside the four walls of the bedroom had ceased to exist the moment Cameron’s weight settled over her, his massive frame a warm, protective eclipse that blotted out everything but the scent of him and the staggering heat of his skin. When he kissed her, she didn't just feel it in her mouth; she felt it in her marrow. Her hands, frantic and seeking, scrambled over the hard, bunching muscles of his shoulders before sliding down the broad expanse of his back. She traced the dip of his spine, her nails grazing his skin as she tried to pull him closer, needing to anchor herself to the only thing that felt real.

When he stripped her bare, she felt no shame, only a raw, soaring vulnerability. As he moved down the bed, Lucy’s breath hitched, a soft, broken sound catching in her throat. As his broad shoulders moved between her thighs, she didn't hesitate. She opened for him willingly, her legs falling apart in a silent, desperate invitation, offering him everything she was.

As he settled there, his hands anchoring her hips, she reached down, her fingers trembling as they framed his jaw. She looked down at him through the silver-dark, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. For a fleeting second, she just wanted to memorize the sight of him—the man who held her entire world in his hands—before his mouth finally made contact.

The first touch of his tongue sent a jolt of pure electricity straight to her core, arching her back off the mattress. Her hands instinctively flew to his head, her fingers diving deep into the thick silk of his hair. She gripped him, her knuckles white, anchoring herself as he began to systematically dismantle her. He was devouring her, his tongue a ruthless, wet flame that licked away every thought she had ever had.

The sensation was too much, a tidal wave of pleasure that threatened to drown her. Her breath came in ragged, shallow stutters. Seeking some way to ground the soaring intensity, she let one hand slip from his hair. Her palm slid down her own body, over the curve of her ribs, until she cupped her own breast.

Her fingers squeezed the soft flesh, her thumb rolling over the peaking tip in a frantic, instinctive rhythm that mirrored the devastating work he was doing between her legs. The dual sensation—the sharp, focused ache in her chest and the heavy, wet heat of his mouth—sent her spiraling. She was at his absolute mercy, a creature made of nothing but nerve endings and need, her head tossing back against the pillow as she succumbed to the beautiful, ruthless worship of the man who had finally come home.

The sound of his name was the only thing she had left—a broken, breathless prayer that spilled from her lips the moment he drove those calloused fingers deep inside her.

“Cameron,” she whimpered, the syllables fracturing as her hips bucked instinctively against his hand. “Cameron.”

She was completely undone. Every time his tongue lashed against her or his thumb applied that rhythmic, ruthless pressure, her grip in his hair tightened, pulling him even closer into her heat. She was a live wire, sparking and desperate under his touch. The hand cupping her breast squeezed harder, her own touch a pale reflection of the fire he was stoking between her thighs.

She looked down at him again, her vision blurred by the sheer intensity of what he was doing to her. He was so big, so focused, his broad shoulders filling the space between her knees as he worked with that devastating, quiet reverence. Seeing him there, seeing the man she had ached for over six long years completely consumed by her, was what finally pushed her over the edge.

“Cameron, please,” she sobbed, her voice a low, melodic vibration of pure surrender.

She wasn't asking him to stop; she was begging him to take the rest of her. Her internal muscles clamped down around his fingers, a rhythmic, pulsing squeeze that signaled the beginning of the end. Her head fell back, her throat bared to the moonlight, as her name for him turned into a long, keening moan that filled the quiet room, marking the exact moment she shattered beneath him.

Cameron felt the exact second she tipped over the edge. The sudden, frantic tightening of her thighs against his ears and the beautiful, deep, rhythmic clenching of her muscles around his buried fingers sent a shockwave of pure adrenaline straight to his heart. Hearing his name tear from her throat—a raw, keening sob of absolute surrender—was the single most beautiful thing he had ever heard in his twenty-five years on earth.

He didn't stop. He refused to let her fall alone. As she shattered beneath him, Cameron swallowed her release, his mouth pressing firmly against her slick heat to catch every shuddering tremor, his tongue gently soothing the hypersensitive bundle of nerves he had just spent the last ten minutes ruthlessly destroying. He kept his fingers buried deep inside her, holding his hand steady so she could pulse and milk around him, wanting her to feel him anchoring her through every single aftershock.

When her breathless sobs finally quieted into soft, ragged pants, he slowly, reverently withdrew his fingers. He pressed one last, impossibly tender kiss to the damp, trembling skin of her inner thigh before he finally moved.

His massive frame slid up the mattress, the heat of his skin dragging over hers until he was hovering over her again. He caged her in with his thick forearms, his broad chest heaving, a fine sheen of sweat making the heavy muscles of his shoulders gleam in the silver moonlight. He looked down at her flushed, beautiful face, at the way her chest was still rapidly rising and falling, and felt a surge of love so intense it almost knocked the wind out of him.

He brought his mouth down on hers, kissing her slow and deep, deliberately sharing the salt and sweet taste of her own climax. He wanted her to know exactly how much he loved every part of her, how completely unapologetic he was about what they were doing.
"I've got you," he whispered fiercely against her lips, his voice a gravelly, wrecked rumble. "I've got you, sweetheart. I'm right here."

He didn't push a single fraction further. He remembered exactly what she had said when she pulled him onto the bed, and tonight was about proving to her that he was safe, that his word actually meant something, and that he wanted *her* far more than he wanted to get off.

With a long, shaky exhale, Cameron shifted his weight. Instead of settling between her legs, he rolled to his side, gently pulling her with him until she was flush against his side. He wrapped his large, heavy arms around her waist and tucked her head neatly under his chin, cradling her against the broad expanse of his chest. The aching, rigid throb of his own arousal pressed against her thigh—an undeniable physical reality of how completely undone he still was—but he made absolutely no move to do anything about it.

He reached down, his thick hand blindly finding the edge of the duvet at the foot of the mattress and pulling it up to cover them both, shielding her bare, trembling skin from the cool air of the room.

Once they were tangled together under the covers, he just held her. He pressed his face into the soft, blonde silk of her hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and the faint, lingering smell of the lilies that permeated the apartment. His large hand smoothed slowly down her bare back, tracing the delicate line of her spine over and over again in a quiet, deeply grounding rhythm.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, his breath warm against her temple as he pressed a long, tender kiss to her hairline. "I'm not going anywhere, Luce. I promise."

He was still vibrating with need, every heavy muscle in his body pulled tight with restraint, but as she settled securely against his chest, her breathing finally slowing to match his, Cameron felt a profound, settling peace. He had the woman he loved back in his arms, trusting him enough to let her guard down, and he had the rest of his life to show her he wasn't going to let go again.

The weight of him was a comfort she had forgotten her body could crave so deeply. As Cameron pulled her flush against the solid, radiating warmth of his side, Lucy let out a long, shuddering sigh, her forehead coming to rest in the hollow of his throat. The world felt quiet, the silver light of the moon casting a soft glow over the duvet that now shielded them.

Her hand, still trembling slightly from the force of her release, drifted up to his face. Her fingertips traced the sharp, familiar line of his jaw, feeling the slight prickle of his stubble, before her palm settled over his heart. Beneath her touch, his chest was a broad, heaving landscape of muscle, his heart thudding in a heavy, grounding rhythm that she wanted to memorize.

She listened to his promise, the gravelly sincerity of his voice vibrating through her own skin. For the first time in six years, the hollow ache in her chest didn't feel like a wound; it felt like a space being filled. She nodded slowly, her hair brushing against his chin, and let his words wash over her until the last of her defenses dissolved.

"I believe you," she mumbled against his skin, her voice small and thick with emotion. "I really do."

She stayed there for a moment, simply breathing him in—the scent of him, the heat, the sheer physical reality of his presence. Then, with a soft, tired smile, she tilted her head back to look up at him. Her eyes, still dark and hazy with the lingering fog of pleasure, searched his.

"Don't think you're getting off that easy, Cameron Tate," she whispered, a trace of her usual spark returning to her voice. "I am definitely not done with you. I just need... give me five minutes to recoup, and then it's my turn."

She reached down, her smaller hand finding his large, calloused one where it rested against her waist. She interlaced their fingers, her thumb idly tracing the ridges of his knuckles and the strength in his hand. It was a tether, a way to make sure he was still there. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she let them fall shut, inhaling a deep, lung-filling breath of him as she drifted in the quiet, perfect space between them.

Lucy let out a soft, hummed breath of contentment, her fingers continuing their lazy, rhythmic play with his much larger ones. The silence of the room was thick and sweet, broken only by the steady syncopation of their breathing. She felt the heavy, rigid line of his thigh against hers—a silent testament to his restraint—and she felt a fresh wave of affection for him swell in her chest.

"You know," she started, her voice a low, honeyed rasp that felt intimate in the quiet air. She shifted slightly, just enough to look up at the shadow of his jawline. "We've had a lot of years and a lot of... moments. But out of every orgasm you’ve ever given me? That was probably one of the best ones. Maybe even the best."

She didn't wait for him to process the praise. With a soft, feline grace, she nuzzled her face back into the warm, salt-sweet curve of his neck. She breathed him in deeply, the scent of him acting like a drug on her senses, before she began to trace a path of slow, lingering kisses along the sensitive skin behind his ear.

"Mmm," she murmured against his pulse point, her lips dragging downward. She moved with a deliberate, agonizing slowness, her kisses light and fluttering at first before becoming firmer as she worked her way down the corded muscle of his neck.

Every touch was a reclamation, a way of marking him as hers just as thoroughly as he had marked her. She could feel the way his body reacted—the hitch in his breath, the subtle tightening of his hold—and it made her smile against his skin. She wasn't just recouping; she was savoring the calm before she inevitably pulled him back into the storm.

Cameron let his eyes fall shut, his head dropping back against the pillows as her words washed over him. *I believe you.* The quiet, profound weight of that admission hit him harder than a fastball to the ribs. For six years, he had imagined coming back, imagined looking her in the eye and trying to apologize, but he had never dared to hope she would actually let him all the way back in. He squeezed the small hand she had laced with his, bringing her knuckles up to press a fierce, reverent kiss against them in the dark.

He was just starting to get his heart rate under some semblance of control when she dropped her next bomb.

A startled, breathless laugh punched its way out of his chest—a sound that was half boyish disbelief and half pure, unadulterated arousal. He shifted under the duvet, the rigid ache of his body protesting the movement, as she casually informed him that she was going to take her turn. And then, right as she pressed her face into his neck, she delivered a compliment that made his brain completely and totally short-circuit.

*One of the best ones. Maybe even the best.*

Cameron’s breath hitched violently as her lips grazed the sensitive skin just below his ear. His large hand, resting protectively on the bare dip of her waist, flexed involuntarily, his heavy fingertips digging just slightly into the soft curve of her hip. A low, ragged groan vibrated deep in his chest, rumbling right against the cheek she had pressed to his throat. Hearing that he had managed to give her something better than anyone else in the years he’d been gone stoked a fierce, primitive kind of pride in him that was dangerously close to burning out of control.

"Jesus, Luce," he rasped, his voice dropping an octave, thick and gravelly in the quiet room. He turned his head just enough to press his lips against her hairline, his chest rising and falling in erratic, heavy stutters. "If that was only *maybe* the best... I guess I'm just going to have to try harder next time. I've got six years of lost time to make up for, and I plan on putting in the practice until there isn't even a close second."

He felt the soft drag of her mouth moving down his neck, her kisses deliberate and torturously slow, and his jaw locked tightly in an effort to stay still. He was a large guy, built solid from years of college ball, but under the delicate, fluttering touch of her lips, he felt like he was entirely defenseless. Every deliberate brush of her mouth, every soft breath against his skin, sent a jolt of agonizing heat straight down his torso.

"Five minutes," he choked out, his eyes squeezing shut as her lips found the erratic thud of his pulse point. He shifted his grip, bringing his free hand up to softly cup the back of her head, his thick fingers tangling lightly in the cool silk of her blonde hair. He wasn't pushing her away; he was just holding onto her like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the mattress. "Take all the time you need, sweetheart. But if you keep doing that... I'm not gonna make it to five."

He rolled his broad shoulders back against the pillows, opening his chest up to her a fraction more, implicitly offering himself to whatever she wanted to do next. He was completely stripped of his defenses, entirely, blissfully wrecked by her touch, and he had never been happier in his entire life to hand over the control.

Lucy felt the low, rumbling vibration of his laugh against her cheek, and it was the most intoxicating sound she’d heard in years. It was the sound of the boy she’d loved becoming the man she couldn’t live without. As he tightened his grip on her hip, his touch heavy and possessive, she felt a fresh surge of power blooming in her chest. She loved that she could still wreck him this easily.

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes dancing with a playful, silver-lit mischief despite the heavy haze of lingering pleasure. She traced the frantic thud of his pulse with her thumb, feeling the heat radiating off his broad chest.

"I wouldn't dream of letting you get blue balls, Cameron Tate," she whispered, her voice a low, sultry tease that made the air between them charge with static. "Especially not after what you just did to me. That would just be bad manners, wouldn't it? And I was raised better than that."

She didn't give him a chance to respond. She shifted her weight, the duvet rustling as she began to move. Her lips brushed against the center of his chest, her breath hot against his skin as she murmured the words, "Besides, I've always been a fan of your stamina. Let's see if six years has changed anything."

She began a slow, torturous descent. Her kisses were soft, deliberate anchors as she moved down the center of his torso, tracing the hard, defined line of his abdominal muscles. Her fingertips grazed his sides, her nails light as air, sending shivers over his skin that she could feel under her touch. She felt him straining, his muscles coiling like a spring, and she took her sweet time, savoring the way he sucked in a sharp, jagged breath every time her hair brushed his stomach.

When she reached the source of his heat, she didn't rush. She settled between his legs, her blonde hair spilling over his thighs like silk. She looked up at him for one brief, searing second—a silent acknowledgement of the shift in power—before she leaned down.

She didn't take him in yet. Instead, she leaned in close, her warm breath fanning over him, before she began to tease him. She swirled her tongue slowly, agonizingly around the very tip of him, tasting the salt of his skin and the heavy proof of his need. She felt him jerk beneath her, a low, guttural sound escaping his throat, and she hummed against him, a dark, satisfied sound that told him exactly how much she enjoyed having him right where she wanted him.

Lucy didn't look away from him as she worked, her eyes hooded and dark with a focused, predatory intent. She wanted him to feel every ounce of the hunger she’d been forced to suppress for half a decade.

Starting at the very base of his shaft, the tip of her tongue flicked upward in a slow, agonizingly wet line, tracing the heavy vein that throbbed with his heartbeat. She moved with a rhythmic, steady deliberation, savoring the way his hips bucked off the mattress in a blind, reflexive jerk. When she reached the top, she didn't hesitate; she opened her mouth and fully consumed the head of him, her heat swirling around him in a tight, wet velvet grip.

Her hand wrapped firmly around the base of his length, her knuckles grazing the hair at his groin as she began to stroke him. She moved in a flawless, synchronized motion—her mouth sliding down as her hand moved up, creating a seamless, crushing friction that drew a fractured, high-pitched gasp from his lungs.

She kept her jaw loose and relaxed, allowing him to slide deep against the back of her throat. To push him even further over the edge, her free hand reached lower, her fingers dancing lightly over his heavy, tight balls. She teased and rolled them with a gentle, kneading pressure, feeling the way his entire body vibrated with the effort of not coming right then and there.

Lucy was relentless. She didn't slow her pace, not even when she heard his fingers curling into the bedsheets or felt his large hands reaching down to blindly grasp at her hair. She was a woman possessed, devouring him with a rhythmic, ruthless focus, determined to show him that while he might have worshiped her center, she was more than capable of returning the favor until he was nothing but a memory of a man beneath her.

Lucy didn’t want there to be a single inch of distance between them, even as she was buried in the heat of him. She wanted him to feel the connection, the raw intimacy of her mouth on his skin combined with the grounding weight of his touch.

Keeping her rhythm steady and her mouth tight around him, she reached up blindly with her free hand, her fingers searching the tangled sheets until she found his large, trembling hand. She didn't just grab it; she threaded her fingers firmly through his, pulling his arm down until their laced hands were pinned against the mattress right beside her head.

The contrast was staggering—the rough, calloused strength of his hand locked with hers while she worked over him with a soft, wet, and ruthless devotion. She squeezed his hand hard every time she took him deeper, using the physical link to feel the tremors racking his massive frame.

Through their joined palms, she could feel his pulse racing, matching the frantic thud of her own heart. She increased the suction, her tongue swirling around him in a slick, demanding rhythm that forced a low, broken sound from his throat. She wasn't just giving him pleasure; she was claiming him, anchoring him to her with every stroke of her hand and every deep, consuming pull of her mouth. She kept her eyes locked on his chest, watching it heave in the moonlight, refusing to let up for a single second as she drove him toward the same beautiful, shattering edge he had just given her.

Cameron’s brain essentially flatlined the second the words "blue balls" and "stamina" left her mouth. A ragged, disbelieving sound tore from his throat, part breathless laugh and part desperate groan. The sweet, guarded girl he had dated in high school was gone, replaced by this fierce, unimaginably confident woman who knew exactly how much power she held over him—and he was absolutely obsessed with her.

When her lips began their slow, torturous descent down his stomach, Cameron’s entire body went rigid. His abdominal muscles flexed hard, cording with tension beneath the agonizingly soft flutter of her kisses. Every time the heavy silk of her hair dragged across his bare skin, a violent shiver wrecked its way through his large frame. He was gripping the fitted sheet so hard his knuckles ached, his jaw locked tight as he stared blindly up at the dark ceiling, trying and failing to remember how to breathe.

Then she settled between his legs, and Cameron felt his last thread of control snap.
When her warm breath fanned over him, followed by the wet, deliberate swirl of her tongue against the ultra-sensitive tip, his hips jerked off the mattress completely of their own accord. A guttural, animalistic sound ripped out of his chest. "Jesus, Lucy," he gasped, his head thrashing back against the pillows.

But she was merciless. When she finally opened her mouth and took him in, swallowing him in that tight, crushing, impossibly hot velvet grip, Cameron felt the world drop out from under him. He was a big guy, used to taking hits and pushing his body to the limit, but the sheer, devastating force of her mouth and hand working in perfect, frictionless tandem reduced him to absolutely nothing.

He couldn't think. He could only feel. He felt the maddening slide of her lips, the tight, rhythmic stroke of her hand at his base, and the agonizingly gentle kneading of her fingers lower down. It was a sensory overload so profound he felt like he was burning alive from the inside out. He blindly reached down, his large, shaking hands wanting to tangle in her hair, wanting to touch her, to pull her closer, to do *anything* to ground himself.

Instead, her smaller hand found his.

The moment she threaded her fingers through his and pinned their joined hands to the mattress, Cameron’s heart completely broke open. The contrast of it—the raw, filthy intensity of what she was doing to him combined with the sweet, romantic intimacy of holding his hand—was the most profoundly beautiful thing he had ever experienced. It wasn't just physical anymore; it was her claiming him, body and soul.

He squeezed her hand back with a desperate, crushing strength, his heavy fingers locking her to him. "Luce," he choked out, his voice a wrecked, sobbing rasp that echoed in the quiet room. "Sweetheart, I'm—"

He was falling, the edge rushing up to meet him faster than he could stop it. Every time she squeezed his hand and pulled him deeper, another tremor violently shook his broad frame. He stared down the length of his own body, his chest heaving with ragged, desperate breaths in the silver moonlight, watching her blonde hair spill over his thighs as she absolutely destroyed him.

"Don't stop," he begged blindly, his hips bucking up to meet her rhythm, his restraint entirely obliterated. He was completely out of his mind, completely at her mercy, and he never wanted to be anywhere else. "God, Luce, please, I'm right there—I'm yours, I'm yours—"

The raw, desperate sound of Cameron’s voice—wrecked and pleading—was the only fuel Lucy needed. She felt the way his large frame shuddered, the violent tremors of a man who had reached his absolute limit, and she leaned into it with a fierce, possessive hunger. As he bucked against her, his hips seeking more, Lucy didn't slow down. Instead, she picked up the pace, her hand and mouth working in a frantic, rhythmic blur that drove him over the precipice.

When he finally snapped, his body arching off the bed in a silent, soul-deep release, Lucy didn't pull away. She tightened her grip on his hand, feeling the crushing strength of his fingers as he found his peak. As he came, she felt the hot, heavy pulse of him deep in her throat. She gagged slightly, her eyes watering at the sheer intensity of it, but she didn't recoil. She stayed right there, swallowing every bit of him, claiming the very essence of the man who had just declared himself hers.

The room was silent save for Cameron’s harsh, sobbing breaths. Lucy took a moment, her tongue darting out to lick the final, stray droplets from the sensitive tip of him, ensuring she tasted every bit of the power she’d just dismantled.

Slowly, she crawled up his body, her knees sinking into the soft mattress on either side of his legs. She felt the heat radiating off his skin like a furnace. When she reached the pillows, she collapsed into his side, tucking her head into the hollow of his shoulder and draping one arm across his broad, heaving chest. The scent of them—salt, skin, and intimacy—wrapped around her like a blanket.

She waited until his heart rate began to settle, though she could still feel the residual tremors running through his muscles. Lucy shifted, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the sweat-damp skin of his neck.

"Cam?" she whispered, her voice a low, tired rasp that carried a hint of her old shyness. She felt him stir, his arm coming around to pull her impossibly closer. She smiled against his skin, her cheeks flushing a deep rose in the moonlight. "I should probably admit... if it wasn't for those two glasses of wine at dinner, I probably wouldn't have had the courage to do any of that."

Lucy felt his chest rumble beneath her ear—a deep, grounding vibration that signaled he was finally coming back to earth. She breathed in the scent of him, feeling a sudden, overwhelming wave of affection that pushed past the lingering buzz of the wine.

"But I'm glad I did," she murmured, her voice gaining a tiny bit of that new, fierce edge. "I'm so glad. I wouldn't change a single thing about tonight, Cam. Not a single second."

She shifted slightly, her hair spilling across his bicep like silk. The vulnerability in his voice earlier had done something to her, cracking open a part of her heart she usually kept guarded. "And... you can keep calling me that," she admitted, her voice dropping to a shy, velvet breath. "I didn't want you to stop. I don't think I ever want you to stop calling me sweetheart."

Her fingertips began a slow, idle dance across his skin, tracing the heavy muscle of his pectorals. The heat radiating off him was incredible, a testament to the way she had just worked his body into a fever pitch. She couldn't seem to keep her hands still; it was as if she needed to map out every inch of the man she had just claimed.

Her flat palm slid lower, the friction of her skin against his causing his abdominal muscles to jump and twitch in a reflexive, post-orgasmic shiver. She traced the hard ridges of his abs, her touch deliberate and adoring, before her hand drifted further down. She let her palm rest over his pelvis, her fingers brushing against the coarse hair there, feeling the heavy, steady thrum of his pulse beneath his skin. She looked up at him through her lashes, a playful, soft smile tugging at her lips as she felt him react to her touch all over again.

Cameron felt like he had been completely unmade and put back together in the span of ten minutes. His brain was entirely offline, floating in a heavy, golden haze of absolute ruin. The memory of her mouth, the tight, slick friction, and the staggering reality of her swallowing his release had permanently rewired his nervous system. He was a large guy, heavily muscled and built for endurance, but as Lucy collapsed against his side, Cameron felt bone-deep exhaustion in the best possible way.

He wrapped his thick arm around her automatically, his massive hand splaying wide over her bare back to pull her flush against his side. He pressed his face into the soft, blonde silk of her hair, his chest still heaving in ragged, uneven stutters. He couldn't speak. He wasn't sure he remembered how to form words. He just held her, letting the rapid thud of his own heart slow down against the warm, grounding weight of her body.

When she whispered her confession about the wine, a low, exhausted chuckle rumbled deep in Cameron’s chest, vibrating against her cheek. He turned his head, pressing his lips to the crown of her head, inhaling the sweet, familiar scent of her.

"I don't care if it was the wine, the moon, or a dare," he rasped, his voice a gravelly, wrecked whisper that still hadn't fully recovered its strength. "I'm just glad you let me in, Luce. I wouldn't trade the last twenty minutes for anything in the world."

Then she asked him to keep calling her that word. *Sweetheart.* Cameron’s heart did a violent, painful flip in his chest. Six years ago, it had been a casual term of endearment, something he threw around easily. Now, hearing her ask for it—hearing the shy, vulnerable breath in her voice—it felt like a sacred title she was handing back to him. He shifted his weight, turning slightly onto his side so he could wrap his other arm around her, caging her securely against his chest.

"I don't think I could stop if I tried, sweetheart," he murmured fiercely against her hairline, the word tasting like a vow on his tongue. "It's yours. It always was."

He was perfectly content to just hold her for the rest of the night, to soak in the sheer miracle of being back in her bed. But the moment her flat palm began its slow, deliberate glide down his stomach, Cameron’s body betrayed him instantly.

His breath caught sharply, his abdominal muscles cording and jumping under the warm friction of her skin. He had literally just experienced the most earth-shattering climax of his entire life, but the second her fingers brushed the coarse hair just above his pelvis, a fresh spark of heavy, throbbing heat flared to life between his legs. His body was so hyper-attuned to her, so deeply, permanently addicted to her touch, that he was already starting to stir under her hand.

He opened his eyes, looking down through the dim silver light to see her watching him through her lashes, that soft, playful smile curving her lips. It was a look that perfectly balanced the dry, witty girl he remembered with the confident, devastating woman she had become.

Cameron let out a ragged sigh, letting his head fall back against the pillows. He reached down, his large, heavy hand covering hers where it rested over his pelvis. He didn't move it away; he simply pressed her palm firmer against his skin, lacing his thick fingers through hers to anchor her there.

"You're going to actually kill me, Corbett," he breathed out, a helpless, boyish smile breaking across his own face. He turned his head to look at her, his dark eyes entirely soft, stripped of any arrogance and filled only with a raw, terrifyingly honest adoration. "You realize I have absolutely zero defense against you, right? You look at me like that, you touch me, and I'm ready to go again. I'm completely at your mercy."

He shifted his hips just a fraction, a slow, deliberate roll that pressed the returning weight of his arousal against the back of her hand, letting her feel exactly how much truth was in his words. "So, whatever you want to do with me, sweetheart... I'm yours."

Lucy felt a sudden, fierce rush of warmth bloom in her chest at the raw honesty in his voice. The absolute surrender in his dark eyes—stripped of all that guarded, confident armor he usually wore around the rest of the world—made her breath hitch. He was so big, so overwhelmingly powerful, yet here he was, completely pliant beneath her fingertips, openly admitting that he was entirely at her mercy.

When he rolled his hips, deliberately pressing that undeniable, heavy heat against the back of her hand to prove his point, a soft, vibrating chuckle spilled from her lips. She couldn't help it. The sheer, overwhelming reality of him yielding to her like this was intoxicating. Unable to bear the beautiful, heavy intensity of his adoring stare for another second, she shifted forward and buried her burning face deep into the solid, warm expanse of his chest.

She loved the way his racing heart still thumped against her cheek, loved the familiar, grounding scent of his skin mixed with the heavy, golden aftermath of what they'd just shared. She didn't try to pull her hand away from where his thick fingers anchored hers against his pelvis. Instead, she let her fingertips curl just slightly, a gentle, soothing stroke against his taut skin.

"I'm just showing you affection," she whispered, her voice soft and muffled against his pectoral muscle, her breath fanning hot across his skin. She pressed a tender, lingering kiss just over his heart, a lazy smile curving her lips against his chest. "Aftercare."

She let one bare shoulder lift in a small, lazy shrug, the movement brushing soft against the heavy arm he had caged around her. She could feel the steady, rapid thud of his heart beneath her lips, the subtle, involuntary twitch of his abdominal muscles under her captive hand as she spoke.

"And," she murmured, her voice dropping into a lower, huskier register that vibrated directly against his warm skin. She shifted her hand just a fraction beneath his, her fingertips idly mapping the coarse hair and taut muscle there. She turned her head, resting her cheek against his chest so she could look up at him through her lashes, that same playful, devastating smile playing on her lips.

"If that affection happens to turn into something more..." She let the sentence hang in the quiet air of the bedroom for a second, her gaze dropping briefly to his chest before meeting those dark, hopelessly devoted eyes of his once again. "Well. So be it."

Cameron felt the sudden, shy shift in her demeanor, and his heart practically melted into his ribs. The fierce, demanding woman who had just brought him to his absolute knees was suddenly blushing, burying her face against his pecs like she hadn’t just completely rearranged his entire universe. The contrast was so beautiful, so uniquely *Lucy*, that it physically ached.

He didn't let her pull her hand away. Instead, he kept his thick fingers laced tightly through hers, trapping her palm against the tight, sensitive skin of his lower stomach. When she mumbled the word *aftercare* against his skin, a deep, chest-shaking laugh rumbled out of him, the sound vibrating straight through the mattress.

"Aftercare," he repeated, the word escaping as a gravelly, deeply amused whisper. He turned his head, pressing a long, warm kiss to the crown of her blonde hair. "Right. Of course. That's definitely what this feels like."

But the teasing amusement in his chest vanished the second she dropped her voice into that low, husky register. When she shifted her fingers, just a fraction of a movement against the coarse hair and taut muscle of his pelvis, a violent shiver wrecked its way through his massive frame. He stared down at her as she looked up through her lashes, that devastating, playful smile curving her lips, and Cameron felt his pulse spike all over again.

*So be it.*

With a rough, ragged exhale, Cameron shifted his weight. He rolled slightly toward her, his heavy arm wrapping tighter around her waist to properly cage her against his side. The movement deliberately pressed the rigid, pulsing length of his arousal fully flush against the back of her trapped hand, making absolutely sure she knew exactly what her brand of "aftercare" was doing to him. He was burning up, completely out of his mind with wanting her, and he had absolutely no intention of hiding it.

"If that's how it's gonna be," he rasped, his voice dropping an octave, thick and heavy with renewed need.

He moved his free hand from her back, bringing it up to gently cup her jaw. His large, calloused fingers were incredibly gentle as he tilted her head up just enough so he could properly see those beautiful, mischievous eyes in the silver moonlight. He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, his gaze dropping to her mouth with a dark, starving intensity before snapping back up to hold her stare.

"Then I guess I don't need those five minutes to recoup after all," he whispered fiercely, his breath mingling with hers. He leaned in, his nose brushing against hers, his broad shoulders shielding her from the rest of the world. "Just say the word, Luce. You want to see if six years changed anything? I will gladly spend the rest of the night proving exactly how much stamina I've got."

The playful spark in Lucy’s eyes suddenly flickered out, entirely snuffed by a cold, sharp spike of panic. The heavy, pulsing reality of his arousal pressed against the back of her hand, combined with the dark, starving promise in his raspy voice, made the air in the room suddenly feel very thin.

She loved the beautiful, golden bubble of intimacy they had just built. But the sheer, monumental weight of what he was offering—of taking this all the way, of actually having sex for the first time in six years—pressed down on her chest like a physical weight.

Unable to hold the blinding, raw intensity of his stare for another second, she dropped her gaze. She stared down at the broad, solid expanse of his chest, her heart giving a nervous, erratic flutter that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with fear. Her hand, still trapped beneath his against his lower stomach, went completely rigid.

In the quiet span of a single heartbeat, her mind began to race, spiraling into a quiet, breathless panic. He's going to be so mad, a tiny, terrified voice whispered in her head. Her brain drifted off, vividly picturing the soft, devastating adoration in his dark eyes instantly hardening into frustration. She imagined him letting go of her jaw, the warm, grounding weight of his heavy body pulling away as he sat up, grabbed his clothes, and walked out the door because she had brought him right to the edge and was now abruptly drawing a hard line.

"Cam," she started, her voice dropping to a frail, trembling whisper. She didn't dare look up at him, terrified of seeing that terrible shift in his expression, terrified that this boundary was going to change the way he saw everything they had just done. She gently turned her face into the large, calloused hand still cupping her jaw, instinctively seeking the comfort of his palm before she ruined it all.

"I..." She swallowed hard, her throat feeling painfully tight. "I want to wait."

She rushed the words out before she could lose her nerve, her breath hitching against his warm skin. "Before we do anything else. I just... I know where this is going, and I know it's going to lead to us having sex, and I..." She squeezed her eyes shut, a small, involuntary shiver wracking her smaller frame. "I don't want us to have sex right now. I really want to wait."

She braced herself, waiting for him to pull his hand away, her chest aching with the sudden, overwhelming fear that she had just ruined the most perfect twenty minutes of her life.

"I'm sorry," she added quickly, her voice barely audible and laced with genuine, barely-contained panic. "Please don't be mad. I just want to stop here for tonight. Please don't leave."

The silence stretched for a fraction of a second, and the quiet was so heavy it made Lucy’s heart race faster. Desperate to fill the space, to offer him something—anything—so he wouldn't feel rejected and pull away, she kept talking, her words tumbling out in a soft, rushed stream against his chest.

"We could... we could watch a movie," she rambled quietly, her thumb anxiously stroking the edge of the large hand that was still gently cupping her jaw. "Or play a board game. I have a really terrible deck of cards in the living room. Or..."

She swallowed the tight, nervous lump in her throat, her voice dropping down to a fragile whisper. "We could just talk."

She let out a small, unsteady breath, a tiny, self-conscious shrug lifting her bare shoulder against the heavy weight of his arm. Slowly, she forced herself to open her eyes, peering up at him through her lashes with a tentative, hopeful vulnerability. She searched his shadowed face, bracing herself for disappointment but praying for understanding.

"Anything, really," she murmured, her features softening as she looked at him, the panic slowly giving way to a deep, genuine ache just to be near him. "We do have six years to catch up on."

Cameron felt the exact second the air in the room shifted. The warm, teasing woman in his arms suddenly went completely rigid, the hand trapped beneath his turning as stiff as a board. When she dropped her gaze and her voice fractured into that tiny, trembling whisper, the heavy haze of arousal vanished from his brain instantly, replaced by a sharp, physical ache right in the center of his chest.

Please don't be mad. Please don't leave.

Hearing those words—hearing the genuine, breathless panic in her voice over a simple boundary—shattered him. The idea that she thought he would ever get angry at her for saying no, that he would just get up and walk out of her apartment because he didn't get his way, made him feel sick to his stomach. He hated that he had ever given her a reason to doubt that she was safe with him.

He moved immediately to shut the fear down.

He didn't pull away—he knew the sudden loss of contact would only trigger her panic more—but he deliberately shifted his hips back, rolling fully onto his side to remove the heavy, demanding pressure of his body against hers. He released her hand from where it was pinned against his pelvis, but he didn't let it go; instead, he brought her hand up to his chest, flattening her palm right over his racing heart so she could feel him.

With his other hand, the one still gently cupping her jaw, his large thumb began a slow, soothing sweep across her cheekbone.

"Hey," he murmured, his voice incredibly soft, stripped of all the husky heat from a moment ago and filled only with a deep, grounding tenderness. "Luce. Hey, look at me."

He waited until she forced her eyes open, making sure she could clearly see his face in the silver light. He wanted her to look at him and see that there was absolutely no frustration in his dark eyes, no trace of disappointment, and no coldness. There was only absolute, unwavering devotion.

"I'm not mad," he promised fiercely, his thumb continuing its steady, rhythmic stroke against her skin. "I could never be mad at you for that. I told you earlier, I didn't expect to go all the way tonight either. You don't have to do anything you aren't ready for."

He leaned in, pressing a long, impossibly gentle kiss to her forehead, letting his lips linger against her skin so she could feel how steady and calm his breathing was.

"You don't ever have to apologize for telling me to stop, sweetheart," he whispered against her hair, his thick arm tightening around her waist to pull her flush against his side again, tucking her safely against him under the duvet. "I meant what I said. I'm not walking out that door. I'm right here."

When she nervously rambled out her suggestions—movies, terrible cards, talking—a soft, genuine smile broke across his face, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He felt the tension slowly beginning to bleed out of her smaller frame, and it was the best thing he’d felt all night.

"Talking sounds perfect," he agreed softly, his chest rumbling beneath her cheek in a comforting vibration. He shifted his grip, tangling his heavy legs comfortably with hers under the covers and pressing a soft kiss to her temple. "Six years is a lot of ground to cover. But if we run out of things to say, I will gladly let you beat me at whatever terrible card game you've got in the living room. I'm yours for the rest of the night, Lucy. However you want me."

The relief hit Lucy so hard it almost made her laugh.

Not because any of it had been funny.

Just because the tight, awful knot that had seized in her chest a second ago loosened so suddenly that her whole body didn’t seem to know what to do with the leftover adrenaline except shake it out in the smallest, breathiest exhale against him.

He wasn’t mad.

He wasn’t pulling away.
He wasn’t going cold.
He wasn’t leaving.

He was just… holding her.

Still warm. Still gentle. Still right there.

And God, that did something dangerous to her in an entirely different way.

Lucy kept her hand where he’d placed it against his chest, her palm spread over the steady thud of his heart beneath her fingers, and for a few quiet seconds she just stayed there letting herself feel it—his heartbeat, his thumb moving over her cheek, the firm safety of his arm around her waist, the fact that he had met her fear with tenderness instead of frustration.

That alone almost undid her worse than the panic had.

When he kissed her forehead and told her she never had to apologize for stopping him, Lucy shut her eyes for a second and let the words settle somewhere deep.

Then, very slowly, the tension began to leave her face.

Her shoulders softened first.
Then her mouth.
Then the worried little line between her brows eased until something much smaller and sweeter took its place.

By the time he said I’m right here, she was smiling.

Tiny at first.

Then a little more.

Then enough that when she finally tipped her face up to look at him, it was there plain as day—relief, affection, and a little bit of shy embarrassment all tangled together.

“Well,” she murmured, her voice still soft but steadier now, “that was… deeply unfair of you to handle that so well.”

A faint, crooked little smile pulled at her mouth.

“Like, actually kind of rude.”

Her thumb moved once under her palm against his chest, like she was grounding herself in him now instead of bracing against him, and she let out a tiny breath through her nose.

“Because now I have to add emotionally safe in a crisis to the list of things I’m annoyed about.”

That got a little more life back into her voice.

A little more Lucy.

Her cheek rested against him for another second before she pulled back just enough to look at him properly, her expression warmer now. Softer. A little more herself by the second.

“And for the record,” she added, quieter, more sincere now, “thank you.”

No joke over that one.
No save.

Just true.

Then, because staying too still in tenderness for too long had always made her feel like her skin was too tight, Lucy shifted and sniffed once, lightly, like she was resetting herself back into the world.

“Okay,” she said, a little more awake now. “Talking, I can do.”

A beat.

“Talking is very respectable. Very mature. Very PBS after-school special of us.”

That finally pulled a real little grin out of her.

She untangled herself carefully from his arms—not in a way that felt like retreat, just with the easy familiarity of someone moving around her own room—and slid out of the bed, bare feet touching the floor with a soft whisper against the rug.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said automatically, already crossing toward her dresser.

Then she glanced back over her shoulder and added, dryly, “Actually, you physically cannot if you want to stay under that blanket, so that feels unnecessary.”

The room had gone quiet in that cozy, after-midnight way now. Not tense. Just soft. The bedside lamp still cast everything in warm amber light, and Lucy moved through it looking more like herself than she had all night—hair a little messy, cheeks still pink, the adrenaline gone out of her enough that comfort had started taking over.

She pulled open her dresser drawer and started digging around.

“You can pick the topic,” she said as she searched. “We can do the normal post-near-emotional-collapse options.”

She found a pair of little worn sleep shorts and tugged them free with one hand.

“Town gossip.”
A second later, she found an oversized faded T-shirt and held it up triumphantly.
“Your weird years in baseball.”
She tossed the shirt onto the bed.
“My weird years in Bedford Falls.”
A pause.
“Mutual ranking of which people from high school absolutely peaked in the junior parking lot.”

That one made her smile to herself.

She peeled on the shorts first, then pulled the oversized shirt over her head, disappearing into it for a second before her face popped back through the collar. It swallowed her in that soft, old, lived-in way favorite shirts always did, hanging off one shoulder for a second before she fixed it.

By the time she pushed her hair free and turned back toward him, she looked softer now. Smaller somehow. Cozier.

Safer.

And maybe that was the whole point.

“I do feel like,” she said, walking back toward the bed, “you owe me at least one really good story from whatever deeply masculine, emotionally avoidant baseball universe you were living in for the last several years.”

She climbed back under the duvet and immediately tucked herself back against his side like she’d never left, one knee hooking lightly over his leg under the covers.

No hesitation now.

Just instinct.

Her hand found his chest again, this time more lazily, and she tipped her chin up to look at him with a smile that had fully come back into place.

“Like, I want specifics,” she said. “I want to know if there was a coach with a terrifying mustache. I want to know if anybody ever punched a locker. I want to know if you had one emotionally repressed roommate who listened to country music in complete silence.”

A tiny pause.

Then, with a softer smile:

“Or…”

Her fingers shifted lightly against his shirt.

“You can tell me something real.”

That landed quieter.

Warmer.

She held his eyes for a second, her voice gentler now, no longer joking just to fill space.

“Something nobody here knows.”

Then, because she was still Lucy and could only let something sit in sincerity for so long before instinct kicked in again, her mouth twitched.

“But if you say I actually love documentaries or something equally disappointing, I am absolutely judging you.”

Cameron looked at her for a second after she said it—emotionally safe in a crisis—and the laugh that came out of him was soft enough not to break the room.

Not because it was funny, exactly.

Because the relief in her was so plain. Because he could feel it where her hand rested over his heart. Because he’d watched the fear leave her face in pieces and something in him was still a little wrecked that she’d trusted him enough to let him see it happen.

“Yeah,” he murmured, mouth tipping at one corner. “Real inconsiderate of me.”

But when she thanked him—quiet, sincere, no joke over it—his expression changed.

The smile eased. Something steadier settled in behind it.

That one he felt low.

He covered her hand with his for a second, just pressed it a little closer against his chest like he needed her to know he’d heard the full weight of it.

“Always,” he said softly.

It slipped out that simple. Like the answer had been waiting there already.

Then she shifted, started piecing herself back together in that very Lucy way—humor first, then movement, then acting like if she just kept talking long enough she could keep tenderness from getting too big in the room—and Cameron let her.

Didn’t stop her when she slid out of bed. Didn’t pretend the sight of her padding barefoot across the room in the warm lamp light wasn’t doing anything to him.

It was doing a lot, actually.

Especially when she looked back over her shoulder and told him not to go anywhere before immediately correcting herself because he was trapped under the blanket anyway.

That got a real grin out of him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, settling back into the pillows with a look that said he had no problem being told what to do by her under these exact circumstances.

The room had gone soft in the nicest way by then. Quiet and warm and lived-in. The kind of after-midnight hush that made everything feel smaller and more private. Cameron stayed where he was, one arm stretched across the bed, and watched her move around the room with that same disbelieving fondness that had been catching him off guard all night.

The dresser. The old T-shirt. The sleep shorts. The way her hair got briefly swallowed and then shaken free again.

There was something so intimate about the ordinariness of it that it nearly got him worse than the heavy stuff had.

Not because it was sexy—though it was, in a way that had his brain working very hard not to say something that would undo all her newly returned calm.

Because it was domestic. Because it was Lucy in her own room, dressing for comfort with him still in it. Because she looked smaller somehow in the oversized shirt, softer, more unguarded, and Cameron had the sharp, ridiculous thought that he could get used to this far too easily if he let himself.

Then she came back.

Not careful. Not hesitant.

Just slid under the duvet and back into his side like it was the most natural thing in the world, knee hooking over his leg, hand finding his chest again like she’d never taken it away.

That did him in all over.

He tucked the blanket more securely around her on instinct, one hand dragging slow and warm over her back before settling there, and listened while she laid out her menu of possible conversation topics with that half-dry, half-sleepy little authority of hers.

Town gossip. His weird baseball years. Her weird Bedford years. A ranking of who peaked in the junior parking lot.

By the time she got to the emotionally repressed roommate listening to country music in silence, Cameron was laughing under his breath.

“Oh, that guy was definitely real,” he said. “Had a truck, two duffel bags, and one facial expression. Lived on sunflower seeds and pure avoidance.”

He glanced down at her, warm amusement still in his face.

“And there was a coach with a mustache, since that feels important to you. Thing looked like it called bunts on its own.”

That earned him another smile from himself before it softened.

Because then she gave him the other option.

Or you can tell me something real.

And Cameron felt the shift in the room the second it left her mouth.

Not heavier. Just truer.

He looked at her for a beat, one thumb moving slow over her side through the T-shirt, and when he spoke this time his voice had gone quieter.

“You want the real one?”

It wasn’t a stall. Wasn’t him trying to get out of it.

Just making sure. Because he’d figured out by now that Lucy could ask for the truth and still deserve to know you understood what she was offering when she did.

When he kept talking, it was with his eyes still on her face.

“Okay.”

A breath moved through him first.

Not dramatic. Just enough to make space for it.

“Nobody here knows I almost came home way sooner than I did.”

His hand stayed steady on her back. His voice did too.

“I thought about it a lot, actually. More than once.”

He looked up toward the ceiling for a second, not to avoid her, just to find the shape of the memory before he gave it to her.

“Freshman year I kept tellin’ myself everything just felt off because it was new. New place, new team, new coaches, all that.” He huffed softly. “Then sophomore year came and I was still waitin’ on it to start feelin’ right.”

His gaze dropped back to hers.

“It wasn’t that baseball was bad. It wasn’t. I loved parts of it. I was good at it. Better than good, some days.”

A small shrug.

“That almost made it worse.”

Because then he had to explain it.

Cameron’s fingers shifted lightly against her back, not restless exactly—just something to do with the feeling of saying it out loud.

“Everybody down there knew the version of me that made sense on paper. Scholarship guy. Starting pitcher. Easy to get along with. Good in interviews.” His mouth pulled faintly, humorless this time. “Real clean, real useful version.”

A beat.

“But there were a whole lotta nights I’d get back from a game and sit in my truck in the parking lot for twenty minutes before I could make myself go inside.”

He could still see it if he let himself. The steering wheel. The dark lot. The stupid hum of the dash lights.

“I’d just sit there thinkin’.” He glanced down at her. “Which, historically, has not been my best hobby.”

That got the smallest flicker of a smile back into him before it faded again.

“And mostly I was thinkin’ about home.”

Not just the town. Though that too.

The roads. The air. The shape of things he knew without looking.

And her.

He didn’t say that part right away. Then decided there wasn’t much point pretending around it.

“And about you,” he said, quiet and clean.

No flourish. No sidestep.

“Not in some dramatic movie way. Just…” He exhaled through his nose. “You were tied up in all of it. Main Street, that bell over your parents’ shop door, you shoving a milkshake at me when I was in a bad mood, the way you used to look at me like you could tell when I was full of shit before I’d even opened my mouth.”

His arm tightened around her the smallest amount, just enough to pull her a fraction closer like he was grounding himself in the fact that she was here while he said it.

“I missed home, sure. But I think what really got me was realizing I’d blown up the one place I ever felt the most like myself in it.”

That sat between them quietly.

He didn’t rush to cover it.

Outside, somewhere beyond the window, a car moved faint and far away. The room stayed warm. Her knee stayed over his leg. Her hand still rested over his heart.

Cameron swallowed once.

“I didn’t come back right away because part of me wanted to,” he said. “And part of me knew if I did, I’d just be the same idiot standing in front of you hoping being sorry would magically be enough.”

His mouth tipped a little at that. Sadder than amused.

“And it wasn’t. Wouldn’t’ve been.”

So he’d stayed away. Grown up the long way. Learned things later than he should have.

He looked at her again, softer now.

“I don’t think anybody here knows how scared I was to come back either.”

A small pause.

“Not of town.” His thumb moved once against her side. “Of you.”

That one he let land plain.

“Of seeing you and finding out you looked right through me.” He gave the faintest shake of his head. “Or worse—finding out you were still you and I’d just missed my chance to ever know that version.”

There was no self-pity in it. Just truth.

And because this was Lucy, and because she’d told him if he tried to get away with something disappointing she was going to judge him, Cameron added, quieter and a little more crooked now:

“Also, for the record, I do kind of love documentaries.”

That brought the warmth back to his face just enough to save them both from drowning in it.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her hairline, slow and absentminded, then settled back against the headboard with her still tucked into him.

“But that’s not the real secret,” he murmured.

His hand smoothed once over her back again.

“The real one is I was lonely a lot longer than I admitted. And not because I didn’t have people around.” He looked down at her. “Because none of ‘em were you.”

There.

That was the center of it.

Simple enough that it hurt a little. Simple enough that it sounded true because it was.

Cameron held her gaze after saying it, not dressing it up, not running from it, and the look in his eyes was open in that quiet, dangerous way he only seemed to get around her when he quit trying to be anything but honest.

Then his mouth tilted faintly.

“So,” he said, gentler now, “that enough of a deeply masculine, emotionally avoidant baseball story for one night?”

His fingers brushed lightly under her jaw, coaxing her face up a little more toward his if she wanted it there.

“Or you want me to start naming names from the junior parking lot list too?”

The smile in his voice came back then, soft and low and warm enough to wrap around the edges of everything heavy he’d just said.

Not to undo it. Just to hold it.

Because that was the rhythm between them tonight, apparently: the truth, then the tenderness, then the little laugh that made it survivable.

And Cameron, with Lucy curled against his side in the quiet of her room and her hand still over his heart like she trusted it there, found that he could live inside that rhythm for a very long time if she kept letting him.

Lucy didn’t say anything right away.

She just… looked at him.

Really looked at him.

Not the easy version she’d been letting herself see all night—the one that joked, that kissed her in doorways, that let her tuck herself against him like no time had passed. Not even the careful version that had handled her panic without flinching.

This one.

The one that had just handed her all of that without trying to soften it.

Without trying to make it sound better than it was.

Without trying to win anything from it.

Her eyes stayed on his face, searching a little like she was trying to line up this version of him with the one she used to know, the one she had spent years being angry at, the one she had convinced herself she understood completely.

And for a second—just a second—she looked a little stunned.

Not in a fragile way.

Just… caught off guard.

Because Cameron didn’t do halfway honesty.

Not like that.

Not back then.

Her fingers pressed a little more firmly into his chest without her realizing she was doing it, like she was grounding herself again—but this time not because she was afraid.

Because she was processing.

Because what he’d just given her mattered.

When he said he almost came home sooner, her brows knit faintly. Not in anger—just in quiet surprise. And when he kept going, when he talked about sitting in his truck, about it not feeling right, about missing home—

about missing her—

Lucy’s expression shifted again.

Softer.

But not easier.

Because that part didn’t just land.

It echoed.

She held his gaze when he finally looked back at her, didn’t look away when he said he’d been scared to come back. Didn’t flinch when he admitted he was scared of her.

That one almost got her.

Not because it hurt.

Because it fit.

Because she could see it.

Because if she was honest, she had spent years being exactly the kind of person he’d been afraid to come back to.

And she didn’t regret that.

But hearing him say it out loud—

that he knew—

that he understood what he’d been walking back into—

that mattered more than she expected it to.

Lucy inhaled slowly, her chest rising where it rested against his side, and for once she didn’t rush to fill the space with something lighter.

Didn’t deflect.

Didn’t joke it off.

She let it sit.

Let him sit.

Her eyes flicked briefly over his face again, like she was taking inventory of him in a different way now, and when she finally spoke, her voice came quieter. Steadier. Still Lucy—but less guarded than usual.

“…wow.”

It wasn’t dismissive.

It wasn’t flippant.

It was honest.

Her mouth pulled slightly to one side, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with the weight of what he’d just said but wasn’t going to pretend it hadn’t landed.

“You really just—” she exhaled softly, a faint shake of her head, “—went ahead and did the whole thing, huh.”

There was the smallest trace of a smile in it, but it didn’t undercut the moment.

If anything, it made it more her.

Her hand shifted against his chest, fingers spreading a little flatter this time, more intentional now. Less instinct. More choice.

“I asked for something real,” she said, eyes still on his, “and you just… dropped the entire emotional archive on me.”

A beat.

“Which, for the record, I appreciate.”

That part came more plainly.

More directly.

She wasn’t backing away from it.

She wasn’t shrinking from what he’d said or pretending it hadn’t mattered.

Lucy shifted slightly against him, pushing herself up just enough so she could see him better, her chin tilting, her gaze still steady and searching in that quiet, perceptive way that had always been hers.

“I didn’t know that,” she admitted.

Not accusing.

Not hurt.

Just… honest.

“About you almost coming back. About it not feeling right there.”

Her thumb moved once against his shirt, small and thoughtful.

“I mean, I knew you loved it. Or at least I thought you did.” A faint breath of a laugh left her. “You always looked like you belonged anywhere people were watching you.”

There was no bite in it.

Just memory.

Then her expression shifted again—something more serious settling in.

“And I definitely didn’t know you were sitting in your truck thinking about… all of that.”

About her.

She didn’t say it again out loud.

Didn’t need to.

It was already sitting there between them.

Lucy held his gaze for another second, then let out a quiet breath and shook her head just slightly, more to herself than to him.

“That’s…” she paused, searching for the right word and not settling for something easy, “that’s a lot.”

Not too much.

Not overwhelming.

Just… real.

Her eyes softened a little after that.

Not pity.

Not even forgiveness, exactly.

Something closer to understanding.

“You were right, though,” she said, voice still low but more grounded now. “If you had come back then… it wouldn’t have worked.”

She didn’t say it harshly.

Didn’t soften it either.

“You would’ve still been you. And I would’ve still been…” her mouth tipped faintly, “a little terrifying, probably.”

That got the smallest flicker of humor back into her eyes.

Then it faded again into something quieter.

“I wouldn’t have known what to do with you being sorry,” she added. “Not back then.”

A beat.

“I didn’t even really know what to do with myself.”

That one came softer.

Less practiced.

More honest than she probably meant it to.

Lucy shifted a little closer into him again after that, not retreating from the moment—just settling back into it, like she’d decided she could sit here with him and not feel like she had to brace for what came next.

Her hand stayed over his heart.

Her gaze stayed on his.

And when she spoke again, there was something warmer threading through it now.

“You being scared of me, though…” she huffed a tiny breath, almost a laugh, “that feels fair.”

Her brows lifted just slightly.

“I was absolutely gonna ruin your life if you showed up acting like nothing happened.”

Not a joke.

Not entirely.

But not cruel either.

Just… true in the way Lucy always was when she wasn’t hiding.

Then her expression softened again.

More than before.

“You didn’t, though,” she said.

That part mattered.

“You didn’t come back like that.”

Her eyes moved over his face again, slower this time.

Taking him in.

The version of him that had come back.

The version that had stayed.

The version that had just told her all of that without trying to make himself look better than he was.

“I think I needed you to not,” she admitted quietly.

A small pause.

“Because I wouldn’t be able to sit here like this with you if you had.”

And there it was.

Not dramatic.

Not overwhelming.

Just… clear.

Lucy let that sit between them for a second, then her mouth twitched faintly again as the edge of her usual self came back just enough to keep things from tipping too far into heavy.

“And also,” she added, a little softer, a little lighter, “you admitting you love documentaries after all of that is honestly the most offensive part.”

That earned him a small, genuine smile from her.

But her eyes didn’t leave his.

Didn’t lose that steady, grounded warmth.

She shifted her hand slightly, her fingers curling just a little into his shirt this time instead of laying flat.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said.

Simple.

Direct.

Real.

Then, after a beat, quieter—

“I’m really glad you came back when you did.”

Lucy didn’t move away after that.

She stayed tucked into him, her hand still resting over his heart, her fingers lightly curled into his shirt like she’d decided—quietly, without saying it out loud—that this was where she wanted to be while she answered him.

Her eyes drifted for a second, not away from him exactly, just… inward.

Like she was sorting through where to start.

Then she let out a soft breath through her nose.

“Okay,” she murmured. “Your turn to get the extended version, I guess.”

There was the faintest hint of a smile in it, but it wasn’t a deflection this time. Just Lucy easing herself into something that mattered.

“I didn’t do anything… dramatic,” she started, voice steady but quieter now. “No big reinvention. No running off to New York or suddenly becoming some tortured art student with a cigarette and a terrible haircut.”

Her mouth twitched slightly.

“Which feels like a missed opportunity, honestly.”

Then she glanced back at him, just briefly, like checking he was still right there with her.

He was.

So she kept going.

“I tried the normal things first,” she said. “Like I was supposed to.”

Her thumb shifted absently against his chest.

“I signed up for classes at the community college in Nashville for a semester. Thought maybe I just needed to get out of town a little, sit in a classroom, figure out something that sounded like a real plan when people asked.”

A small pause.

Her nose wrinkled faintly.

“I hated it.”

Not dramatic. Just honest.

“Not the people. Not even the work. Just… sitting there. Being told what I was supposed to care about. It felt like I was watching someone else’s life happen and waiting for it to feel like mine.”

She shrugged one shoulder slightly against him.

“So I stopped.”

No apology in that.

No regret either.

“Which was a whole thing with my parents for about six months,” she added, a little dry now. “My dad kept saying the word structure like it was going to magically fix me.”

That got a faint, softer breath of a laugh out of her.

Then it faded again.

“I tried dating.”

That one came more casually, but there was a weight under it.

“Not… a lot. Just enough to prove to myself I could.”

Her eyes dropped briefly to where her hand rested against him, fingers tracing a small, absent pattern into his shirt.

“Apps first,” she said. “Which was… deeply humbling.”

A beat.

“Turns out there are a lot of men who think holding a fish is a personality.”

That pulled a real, small smile from her, the corner of her mouth lifting.

“And then a couple actual dates. Real ones. Dinner, drinks, polite conversation, all of that.”

She exhaled softly.

“They were fine.”

Which, somehow, sounded worse than if they hadn’t been.

“No one was terrible,” she clarified. “No disasters. No horror stories.”

A pause.

“Just… nothing.”

Her fingers stilled for a second.

“I kept waiting for it to feel like something. Like I was supposed to be there. And it just…” she shook her head faintly, “…didn’t.”

Lucy didn’t look away from him when she said that part.

Didn’t hide it.

“I think I stopped trying after a while,” she admitted. “Not because I decided I didn’t want anything. I just—”

She hesitated.

Then said it anyway.

“—didn’t trust myself to pick something that wouldn’t end the same way.”

There it was.

Not accusing him.

Not blaming him.

Just… part of the truth.

She let that sit for a second, then eased the weight of it with a small, quieter shift of tone.

“I did have one almost-boyfriend,” she added. “Which sounds worse than it was.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“He was nice. Really nice. Worked at the hardware store for a while, actually. Knew how to fix everything. My dad loved him immediately, which should’ve been a red flag.”

A beat.

“I broke up with him because he started talking about moving in together after, like… three months.”

Her brows lifted just slightly.

“And I had this very clear moment where I realized I didn’t want to share a kitchen with him. Or a couch. Or a life.”

No cruelty in it.

Just clarity.

“So I ended it.”

She huffed a small breath.

“He took it… pretty hard.”

That one lingered a second longer.

“I felt awful about that.”

Lucy shifted a little closer against Cameron after that, her knee pressing more firmly into his, like she was grounding herself again without even thinking about it.

“Lost a friend too,” she added, quieter now. “Not in a big dramatic way. Just… slow.”

Her eyes softened slightly, but she didn’t look away.

“She got engaged, moved to Knoxville, everything got very Pinterest very fast.” A faint, almost fond exhale. “And I didn’t fit into that version of her life anymore.”

A small shrug.

“We stopped calling as much. Then texting. Then…” she tilted her head faintly, “…nothing.”

She didn’t dramatize it.

But it sat there anyway.

“It felt big at the time,” she said softly. “Like I’d done something wrong. Like I was the kind of person people outgrew.”

A beat.

Then she shook her head just slightly, grounding herself back in the present.

“But it wasn’t like that,” she added. “Just… life moving.”

Lucy’s hand shifted again, her fingers curling a little more firmly into his shirt now, like she was anchoring herself back to him after letting all of that out.

“I think most of it was just… figuring out how to be okay on my own,” she said.

Her eyes came back to his fully then.

Warmer again.

“I got the shop. Started taking photos more seriously. Built this place.” She gestured faintly around them with her chin. “Figured out how to make my life feel like mine without waiting for someone else to fit into it.”

That part held something steadier.

Stronger.

Then, softer—

“And I did get my heart broken a few times.”

A faint, almost amused breath.

“Nothing as catastrophic as you,” she added, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly, not unkind, just… honest, “but enough to remind me I wasn’t completely immune to bad decisions.”

Her eyes stayed on his.

Open.

Not guarded.

Not accusing.

Just real.

“But…” she paused, then let out a small breath, “…I also got a lot better at walking away when something didn’t feel right.”

That mattered too.

She let that sit between them for a second.

Then her thumb moved once over his chest again, slower now, more thoughtful.

“And I got really, really good at being by myself.”

That one came softer.

Not lonely.

Just true.

Lucy held his gaze for a second longer, then her mouth curved faintly again, warmth returning more fully now.

“So,” she murmured, “that’s the thrilling highlight reel.”

A small beat.

“Community college dropout. mediocre dating history. one emotionally confusing almost-relationship. light social fallout. and a minor personality shift toward independence.”

Her brows lifted just slightly.

“Pretty impressive, honestly.”

But the smile she gave him after that was gentle.

Grounded.

And just a little bit proud of herself, whether she meant to be or not.

Cameron didn’t say anything at first.

He just looked at her.

Really looked at her the same way she’d just looked at him—like the room had gone quiet around the truth of what she’d handed over and there was no decent way to rush in on top of it with the wrong kind of words.

Because she’d given him all of it.

Not the shortened version. Not the polished one. Not the cute, self-deprecating little summary she’d tacked on at the end so it wouldn’t sit too heavily between them.

The real stretch of years.

The classes. The dates. The almost-boyfriend. The friend who drifted away. The long, hard work of becoming someone who could hold her own life steady without waiting for another person to come in and validate it.

And God, that landed.

Not just because it mattered. Because it sounded like her.

The way she told it. Dry in places, brutally honest in others, funny exactly where it hurt enough to need softening, but never dishonest. Never once pretending those years had been easier or sadder or prettier than they were.

His hand moved slowly over her back beneath the oversized shirt, warm and unhurried, and Cameron let himself feel the full shape of what she’d said before he tried to answer any of it.

The community college part got him first.

Not because it was dramatic. Because he could see it.

Lucy Corbett in a classroom in Nashville, trying to make herself care because it sounded like something people would approve of. Trying to sit still inside a version of life that looked right from the outside and felt wrong everywhere else.

He could picture the exact way her face would’ve gone flat with patience by week three.

Then the dating.

The apps. The dinners. The polite, fine men who didn’t do anything wrong and still somehow never reached her.

That part tugged somewhere lower.

Not jealousy, exactly. Not the kind a younger version of him would’ve grabbed onto and made selfish. He didn’t have any right to that.

But it still did something to hear it.

To know there had been other men sitting across from her in restaurants, other people trying to make her laugh, other names and faces filling spaces he used to occupy so easily he’d never been smart enough to realize they were sacred.

The hardware store almost-boyfriend got a quiet, involuntary twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Not because he liked the idea.

Because of course the guy had known how to fix things. Of course her dad had loved him. Of course he’d made sense on paper.

And the part that should’ve bothered Cameron—the part about somebody almost moving into her kitchen, almost onto her couch, almost into her life—didn’t land the way he expected.

What landed was Lucy realizing she didn’t want that and ending it anyway.

That was her all over now, wasn’t it?

Not staying just because something was good enough. Not forcing herself deeper into a life she didn’t actually want because it would be more convenient for other people. Not mistaking safety for fit.

He respected the hell out of that.

Even hearing it in bed beside her with her knee over his leg and her hand over his heart.

Especially then.

The friend hurt too, in a quieter way.

Not because he knew the girl well enough to hold a grudge against her or mourn it properly. Just because Lucy had said it so plainly—that awful feeling of being the person people outgrew—and Cameron hated the idea of her carrying that even for a little while.

And underneath all of it was the thing that hit hardest:

She’d built a life.

Really built it. Not waited in it. Not floated through it. Built it.

And she sounded just a little proud of herself at the end, whether she meant to or not, and that nearly undid him in a brand-new way.

His thumb brushed once, slow and thoughtful, over the fabric at her side.

Then he let out a quiet breath.

“That’s not a mediocre highlight reel,” he said finally, voice low and warm in the dim room. “That’s a whole life.”

The words settled between them without any rush behind them.

He meant them exactly as they came out.

He tipped his head slightly against the headboard, eyes still on her face.

“A messy one in places, sure,” he added, the faintest pull of a smile touching his mouth. “A little fish-based trauma. Some emotional property damage. One poor hardware store fella who probably thought he was headed for forever and got a hard no on the shared-kitchen dream.”

That got just enough humor into it to keep the room breathing.

Then the smile softened again.

“But it’s still a life, Luce.”

The nickname slipped out this time without either of them flinching from it. Soft. Familiar. Earned back inch by inch instead of grabbed for.

“And it sounds like yours.”

That mattered more than any single part of the story.

He looked down at where her hand rested over his chest, then back up to her eyes.

“You didn’t just… wait around till something happened to you.” He shook his head once. “You figured yourself out. The hard way, maybe, but still.”

A little more quietly, he added, “That’s not nothing.”

His gaze traced slowly over her face after that—not in a hungry way, not this time, but in that steady, open way he had when he was taking her seriously enough not to rush past her with easy reassurance.

“The class thing makes sense,” he said. “The dating thing too.”

And when her mouth almost twitched like she might joke over it, he got there first, just enough to keep her from having to hide.

“I mean that.” His hand flattened a little more fully against her back. “You don’t do real well trapped in something because it looks respectable. Never have.”

That got a quieter smile out of him.

“You can fake it for about ten minutes if you really commit. Then you start getting that look.”

He didn’t overexplain.

He didn’t need to. She knew the look.

The one where she smiled just enough to be polite while internally setting the entire scenario on fire.

Cameron let that sit for a beat before his expression shifted again—softer, more careful this time.

“And I hate the part where you didn’t trust yourself after me.”

There was no self-pity in it. No fishing for forgiveness.

Just truth.

He took the hit where it belonged.

“I get it,” he said. “I do. But I still hate it.”

Because she had deserved better than that. Better than second-guessing her own choices because of what he had done at eighteen with all the self-awareness of a golden retriever in a varsity jacket.

His mouth pulled faintly at the thought, a little rougher around the edges now.

“And the heartbreak line?” He looked at her, one brow lifting slightly. “Mean.”

A second later the warmth returned to it. “Fair. But mean.”

That got the sting out of the sentence without taking the honesty away.

Then he grew quiet again, eyes moving over her face, her hair, the oversized shirt she’d pulled on like armor and comfort all at once.

“The thing about you getting good at walking away, though…”

He paused there.

Not because he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Because he wanted to say it right.

“I think that’s part of why this works now.”

His fingers moved once against her side.

“Not because I want you halfway out the door.” A faint breath of a smile. “Obviously.”

He tipped his head a little, watching her.

“But because you know how to leave now if something feels wrong. You know how to call it when it isn’t yours. You know how to stop before you disappear inside somebody else’s version of what they want.”

A small shrug.

“And that means every time you stay?”

His eyes held hers.

“I know you mean it.”

That was the center of it for him. Maybe the center of the whole night.

Not just that she was here. That she was choosing it.

Now. As herself. Knowing full well how to walk if she needed to.

That made every soft thing bigger. Not smaller.

It made the hand over his heart feel like trust instead of habit. The bed feel like choice instead of nostalgia. Her letting him into her apartment, her darkroom, her room, her side of the bed feel like something he had no business taking lightly.

Cameron’s arm tightened around her just enough to bring her a fraction closer.

“I like that you got proud of yourself,” he said quietly.

His mouth curved a little when he said it, because she absolutely had, whether she’d tried to disguise it or not.

“At the end there.” He gave her a look. “You did.”

And because he knew her, because he knew the instinct to deny it was probably already loading somewhere behind her eyes, he kept going before she could throw a joke at him.

“You should be.”

Simple. Firm. No room to wiggle out of it.

“The shop. The pictures. This place. The fact that you know what fits and what doesn’t now.” He shook his head once, a little awed in spite of himself. “That’s not small, Lucy.”

Then, more lightly, because the room had earned a little breath again, “Even if your dating résumé is apparently full of men with fish and concerningly early cohabitation goals.”

That got a softer laugh out of him, and this time when it faded he didn’t let the warmth go with it.

The admission about the friend came back to him then, and his hand slid up and down her back once, gentle as a thought.

“I don’t think you’re the kind of person people outgrow,” he said.

He kept his voice low. Matter-of-fact. Like he wasn’t interested in making a speech out of something that deserved better.

“I think you’re the kind they miss later if they’re dumb enough to drift.”

That one came from somewhere very clean in him.

No embellishment. No angle.

Just Cameron Tate, older now, finally able to say the thing straight when it mattered.

His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth and then back to her eyes.

“And for the record,” he added, softer now, “I’m glad none of it made you smaller.”

The classes that didn’t fit. The dates that didn’t land. The people who drifted. The heartbreaks that didn’t take. The years alone.

None of it had shrunk her.

If anything, it had done the opposite.

Made her sharper. Clearer. More herself.

He could feel it all around him in the room.

Then he huffed out a breath and tipped his head back against the headboard for a second like he was collecting himself.

“Also,” he said, tone drying just enough to match hers, “community college dropout is a hell of a branding choice. Very rebellious. Very misunderstood local business owner.”

His eyes cut back to hers, warmer now.

“I’m into it.”

That brought the softness back into the room in exactly the right proportion.

Then Cameron shifted slightly, enough to angle himself more toward her without dislodging her hand from his chest, and looked at her with that same quietly wrecked expression he’d worn half the night whenever she let him too close to the center of her.

“I’m glad I came back when I did too.”

He didn’t dress that one up. Didn’t need to.

Because the rest of it was already there between them: her saying it, him meaning it, both of them knowing too well that if timing had bent wrong by even a little, none of this would’ve happened like this.

He reached up then and tucked a piece of hair back from her face, fingers grazing her temple before settling briefly at the side of her neck.

The touch was intimate in that easy, after-midnight way that belonged to them now.

“When was it?” he asked softly. “The first time you looked at the shop and knew it was yours.”

A beat.

“Not legally. Not paperwork. I mean really yours.”

His thumb moved once under her jaw.

“The first time you stopped feeling like you were borrowing your life and started feeling like you lived in it.”

The question hung there warm and open.

Not because he needed to keep her talking. Because he wanted to know.

Because if this was what the night had become—her hand over his heart, his arm around her, truth traded slow in the dark—then Cameron was greedy for it in the gentlest way possible.

Greedy for all the parts of her he hadn’t earned the first time. Greedy for the stories he never got because he’d left too early and grown up too late. Greedy, now, in the way a man got when he finally understood that knowing someone wasn’t a possession. It was a privilege.

His mouth tipped faintly.

“And after that,” he murmured, “I absolutely want the junior parking lot rankings.”

That got the playfulness back where it belonged, low and easy and wrapped around something steadier underneath.

“Because there are at least four people I’m prepared to argue about.”

He paused, then added with a softer smile, “Maybe five if we’re being honest.”

And Cameron, with Lucy tucked warm against his side and the night stretched wide and quiet around them, found himself wanting exactly what he’d promised her a little while ago:

not to rush, not to push, not to spoil it by asking too much too fast—

just to stay right here and keep learning her until morning made them stop.

Lucy stared at him for a long second after he finished.

Not blankly.

Not because she didn’t know what to say.

Because unfortunately—and she did mean unfortunately—Cameron Tate had just answered her in the most thoughtful, emotionally competent, deeply irritating way possible.

And that was a problem.

A real one.

Because she had spent a truly impressive number of years building a very stable internal case against him, and he was currently in her bed, warm under her hand, looking at her like she was something worth understanding all the way through.

Which was rude.

Her mouth twitched first.

Then she narrowed her eyes at him just slightly, like maybe if she looked annoyed enough, it would somehow undo the fact that he had just said three or four things that landed directly in the center of her chest and sat down there with their boots on.

“You,” she said at last, quiet and pointed, “are being wildly inconvenient tonight.”

There was no real bite in it. Only warmth. Only that Lucy edge that came out whenever she was trying very hard not to let tenderness fully win in public.

Or, apparently, in bed.

Her fingers moved once against his chest, tracing a tiny absent line over his T-shirt before she exhaled softly through her nose.

“Also,” she added, “I hate how annoyingly right you are about the ‘I can fake it for ten minutes and then internally set the room on fire’ thing.”

A beat.

“That was a very invasive observation.”

But she was smiling now. A little. Enough that he’d see it.

And more than that—she wasn’t hiding from him.

She held his gaze instead.

Let him see the fact that everything he’d just said had actually gotten in.

That she’d heard every piece of it.

That she knew when someone was trying to hand her something real and, for once, she wasn’t immediately sprinting for the nearest exit disguised as a joke.

Her expression softened then. Not dramatically. Just honestly.

“I know,” she said more quietly. “About the trust thing.”

Her voice didn’t go fragile. It just went true.

“I know it wasn’t all you. Life did eventually jump in and contribute its own weird little traumas like an overcommitted group project.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“But you definitely got the ball rolling, so congratulations on that legacy.”

That earned itself the tiniest dry note again, but it didn’t take the meaning out of it.

She still meant it.

And he knew she did.

Lucy shifted a little higher against him then, enough to rest more fully on her side so she could see his face properly without having to crane her neck like a Victorian woman dying beautifully on a chaise lounge.

Her hand stayed over his heart.

Like it belonged there.

Like she’d forgotten to be weird about that part.

And then, because he had asked an actual question and apparently deserved an actual answer, she sighed softly and let herself think back.

Really back.

To the shop.

To that Tuesday.

To the version of herself that still hadn’t fully understood she was already in the middle of her own life.

Her eyes drifted past him for a second, not because she was leaving the moment, just because memory sometimes needed a different angle to come into focus.

“It was…” she started, then smiled to herself a little. “It was stupidly small, actually.”

A beat.

“Which feels on brand for me.”

Her voice went softer.

“It wasn’t some big dramatic day. Nobody handed me keys in slow motion while Fleetwood Mac played in the background. There was no spiritual thunderclap.”

Her mouth tipped.

“Which, honestly, feels cheap. I deserved at least one tasteful indie-film montage.”

Then she looked back at him.

“It was raining.”

Of course it was.

“Like really gross Tennessee rain too. That weird cold kind that makes the whole street look vaguely depressed.”

Her fingers moved idly over his shirt while she talked.

“And I’d been there all day because my mom had left early and my dad was in the back doing fake inventory, which is what he calls standing near boxes while listening to sports radio and eating contraband peanut M&Ms.”

She glanced up at him.

“There is an emergency candy drawer, by the way.”

A beat.

“I know that sounds fake, but it is absolutely real and deeply respected.”

Then she smiled a little to herself again.

“And I was up front by myself, and there were no customers, and I remember the heater was making that weird ticking noise like it was threatening to die out of spite…”

Her voice softened more there.

“And I just looked around.”

That was it.

Simple.

She shrugged one shoulder lightly beneath the blanket.

“At the stupid velvet pumpkins. And the shelf I’d repainted twice because the color was wrong. And the display in the front window that I’d rearranged three times because I hated all the spacing.”

Her eyes flicked back to his.

“And I had this very unsexy realization that nobody was coming to hand me a more official life.”

That one sat there for a second.

Then she added, quieter—

“That if I kept waiting for something bigger or more impressive or more explainable to happen, I was gonna miss the fact that I was already standing in something I loved.”

Her expression changed a little after that.

Softer. Less defended.

“It was the first time I didn’t feel like I was helping with someone else’s dream.”

And there it was.

The center of it.

Lucy looked at him for a beat longer after saying that, then gave the smallest little shrug like she hadn’t just casually handed him the blueprint of her adult life in one sentence.

“So,” she said dryly, “obviously I went in the back and cried for, like, four minutes.”

A beat.

“Very graceful. Very business owner of me.”

Her nose wrinkled.

“There was also a box of ceramic geese back there at the time, which really took a lot of dignity out of the moment.”

That got a little smile out of her again.

Then softer—

“But yeah.”

She looked back at him fully then.

“That was the first time it felt like mine.”

A pause.

“The first time I felt like mine, probably.”

That one she didn’t cover with a joke.

Didn’t rush to soften.

Just let it sit there between them.

Warm and a little vulnerable and real enough that she could feel it in the quiet.

Then she caught the look on his face and immediately had to ruin it a little for self-preservation.

“Anyway,” she murmured, “that was very vulnerable of me.”

Her brows lifted.

“So I’m gonna need you to either kiss my forehead or say something mean about Tyler McKinney to restore balance.”

A beat.

“Those are your only respectful options.”

But she was smiling when she said it. Really smiling.

And before he could answer, she went on, because if he had truly invited the junior parking lot rankings into the room, then that was on him.

“You absolutely cannot argue with me about Tyler, by the way,” she informed him, now speaking with the grave authority of a woman discussing war history.

“He was insufferable.”

Her eyes widened slightly for emphasis.

“He had the confidence of a man who got called handsome by one emotionally unstable aunt at a barbecue and then built an entire personality around it.”

She looked at Cameron very seriously.

“And the body spray situation was criminal.”

A beat.

“You could taste him in the air from thirty feet away.”

Then she continued, getting a little more animated now, because apparently this was what she did with emotional intimacy—she followed it directly with deeply committed social analysis.

“Rachel Hensley is obviously top three, but she loses points because her breakdown over the duplicate Steve Madden wedges at homecoming was, while unhinged, technically iconic.”

Her mouth twitched.

“She recovered beautifully. I respect resilience.”

Another finger lifted against his chest.

“Travis Cole is absolutely on the list because he spent all of junior year leaning against his truck like he was in a country music video no one had financed.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“He had one chain wallet and thought it made him mysterious.”

Then she paused.

Looked at him.

And smiled in that sweetly dangerous way that meant he was about to become collateral damage.

“And yes,” she said softly, “you were on the list.”

A beat.

“But not in the same category.”

Her fingers curled lightly into his shirt again.

“You were your own separate issue.”

Lucy’s smile deepened, small and fond and impossible to miss now.

“You were in the ‘too charming to be allowed near emotionally vulnerable teenage girls unsupervised’ category.”

Her brows lifted.

“Which, frankly, was worse.”

Then, a little quieter—

“More dangerous.”

She held his gaze when she said that one.

And there was humor in it, yes. But something else too. Something warmer. Something truer.

Because that had been the thing about him back then, hadn’t it?

Not just that he was pretty, or popular, or good at being liked.

It was that he had always made people feel chosen too easily.

And when you were seventeen, that could look a whole lot like forever if you weren’t careful.

Lucy’s expression softened around the edges again after that.

“But,” she added, voice gentler now, “you did at least have significantly less body spray than Tyler McKinney.”

A beat.

“So that helped your overall ranking.”

Then she smiled—really smiled—and settled more comfortably against him, her hand still warm over his heart, her knee still looped over his leg, her whole body relaxed in that quiet, unthinking way it only got when she felt safe enough to stop monitoring every little thing.

And that was maybe the truest part of the whole night.

Not the confessions.
Not the kisses.
Not even the darkroom.

This.

This soft after-midnight stretch of honesty and dry humor and old history being turned over carefully in warm sheets while Bedford Falls slept outside her window.

Lucy looked at him for one more long second, the corners of her mouth still curved.

Then she asked, quieter this time—

“So what was your category?”

A beat.

Her smile sharpened just slightly.

“And be honest, because I promise you I already have a ranking and I will fact-check it.”

Cameron was already gone by the time she got to the ceramic geese.

Not in the catastrophic, can’t-form-a-thought way she’d been knocking him sideways earlier tonight.

In the quieter one.

The more dangerous one.

The kind where she handed him something small and specific and absolutely, unmistakably hers—the rain, the heater ticking, the velvet pumpkins, the ugly little back-room cry that had somehow become the hinge point of her whole life—and he felt it settle so deep in him it almost made his chest ache.

Because of course that was how it happened for her.

Not with fireworks.
Not with applause.
Not with somebody finally showing up to tell her she was doing it right.

Just Lucy, alone in a shop on a wet Tuesday, looking around and realizing no bigger, shinier, more official version of her life was coming.

That this was it.
And that it was enough.
More than enough.

Maybe the first thing that was fully hers.

Jesus.

He looked at her for a second too long after she said it, and when she caught the look on his face and tried to save herself by demanding either a forehead kiss or a mean Tyler McKinney comment, Cameron huffed a soft laugh and leaned in without a word.

He kissed her forehead first.

Slow.
Warm.
The kind of kiss that landed like an answer.

Then he stayed there for half a second, mouth brushing lightly against her skin, and murmured, “You absolutely deserved the tasteful indie montage.”

That got the corner of his mouth lifting before he drew back just enough to look at her again.

“And Tyler McKinney smelled like a department store exploded in the back of a Ford.”

There.

Respectful option fulfilled.
Balance restored.

Mostly.

But the look in his eyes when he settled back against the pillow was still too full of her for the joke to erase much of anything.

Because she’d said the first time the shop felt like hers.
Then she’d said the first time she felt like hers.
And Cameron had no real defense against lines like that. Not from her. Not when she was soft in his arms and smiling like she knew exactly how badly she was getting him tonight.

His hand moved over her back once, dragging warm through the soft cotton of her shirt.

“That Tuesday sounds perfect,” he said quietly.

A beat.

“Not perfect-perfect. Obviously. The weather sounds terrible, and I’m real sorry about the ceramic geese.” His mouth tipped faintly. “But the rest of it.”

He shook his head a little, like he was still picturing it.

“The heater threatening mutiny. Your dad fake-inventorying with contraband candy. You up front fixin’ the spacing on something nobody else would’ve even noticed.” He looked at her then, his gaze warm and steady. “That sounds exactly like the moment it would happen for you.”

Not dramatic.
Not polished.
Just true.

“And for the record,” he added, softer now, “I like that it was small.”

His thumb brushed once at her side.

“Feels more honest.”

Like her.
Like the shop.
Like tonight, really.

That one sat there warmly between them for a second before she launched into Tyler and Rachel and Travis with the full, grave seriousness of a woman defending sacred local history, and Cameron laughed under his breath again—genuine now, loose and easy.

The Tyler description nearly got him.

One emotionally unstable aunt at a barbecue.

He turned his head into the pillow for a second, grinning helplessly, then looked back at her and said, “That is so specific it has to be true.”

And the body spray thing?

He actually winced.

“Yeah, no, that’s fair. There were days you could taste that man in homeroom.” He lifted his brows. “Which, frankly, should’ve been actionable.”

By the time she got to Travis Cole and the chain wallet, Cameron was smiling openly.

Not just because she was funny—which she was, always had been.

Because she’d settled all the way in now.

Her weight against him.
Her knee over his leg.
Her hand over his heart like it had forgotten how to be self-conscious there.

That part undid him quietly while she was busy pretending to hold court over the junior parking lot.

And then she got to him.

Said he’d been his own separate issue.

Said he belonged in the category of boys too charming to be allowed near emotionally vulnerable teenage girls unsupervised.

That did something to his face that he couldn’t stop.

Part laugh.
Part surrender.
Part well, hell.

He dropped his eyes for a second, smiling into the blanket like she’d managed to catch him and call him out in one breath.

“Okay,” he said, looking back up at her. “That one’s fairer than I’d like.”

A little more quietly, with the same warm self-awareness that had been threading through him all night, he added, “Also kind of brutal.”

Not because it wasn’t true.
Because it was.

That had been the problem, hadn’t it?

Not just that he’d been liked.
That he’d liked being liked.
That he’d moved through the world like being chosen and being worth choosing were the same thing, and when you were seventeen and good at sports and everybody in town knew your name, nobody exactly stepped in to teach you the difference.

Lucy had learned it the hard way because of him.
Cameron knew that.
Felt it.

But right now she was smiling when she said it, fondness all through the edges, and he was too stupidly grateful to have her here in his arms to go dark on her over it.

So he let the warmth stay.

When she asked what his category was, though—told him to be honest because she already had a ranking and would fact-check it—Cameron looked at her for a long second like he was genuinely considering the historical record.

Then he exhaled through his nose and said, “Honestly?”

His hand slid up her back and settled between her shoulder blades, holding her a little closer as he thought it through.

“I think I was in the ‘every adult thinks he’s a nice boy and that’s how he gets away with way too much’ category.”

That one came out easy.
Too easy.
Because he knew it in his bones now.

His mouth pulled a little crooked.

“Real dangerous mix. Baseball, manners, and a face that made teachers assume I had good intentions.”

A beat.

“Which, to be clear, I mostly did.” He glanced down at her. “I was just also an idiot.”

That got a small laugh out of him, warmer around the edges than the line deserved.

Then he kept going, because if she wanted honesty, she was getting it now.

“I think I was the guy people trusted too fast.”

The words were quieter.
Not flirty.
Not defensive.

Just plain.

“The guy moms liked. The guy dads didn’t mind drivin’ their daughters around town with. The guy who could stand in somebody’s kitchen and act like he’d never break anything.”

His fingers moved once against her back, almost apologetically.

“And that was the worst part, probably. Not that I was secretly awful.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t. I just… wasn’t as good as the version people were seeing yet.”

That landed softer than the rest.
Closer to the truth than the joke category had.

Cameron looked down at her then, expression gone open again in that way she kept pulling out of him whether he meant to give it or not.

“So my official category?”

He thought about it for another beat, then smiled a little.

“Small-town golden retriever with a truck and no emotional supervision.”

That one he gave her with a straight face for almost a full second before it broke and he laughed.

Because it was true.
Embarrassingly true.

“And before you say anything,” he added, pointing lightly at her with the hand that had been on her back, “the baseball thing should’ve canceled out at least part of the charm problem. I had to wear those awful white pants on purpose. That should’ve counted as a warning.”

The line came warm and low, and when her smile deepened, Cameron felt it like a reward he absolutely did not deserve and was happily taking anyway.

Then his expression softened again.

He tucked his hand back around her, fingertips trailing lightly at the base of her spine beneath the shirt, and looked at her with all the late-night fondness he’d been trying not to drown her in since Cherry Street.

“But you were right about the more dangerous part,” he said quietly.

No dodge.
No grin.

“You weren’t wrong.”

Because she hadn’t been.

Because seventeen-year-old Cameron had made being chosen feel easy.
And easy had looked a lot like forever when you didn’t know better yet.

His gaze moved over her face slowly, soft and full and just this side of too much.

“I hate that I proved you right that way.”

That part he didn’t dress up.

Then, because he wasn’t going to let the room tip too far back into ache when she’d worked this hard to bring them somewhere softer, he nudged her gently with his knee under the blanket.

“But I do appreciate the significantly-less-body-spray footnote.”

His smile came back, low and crooked.

“Feels like an important part of my legacy.”

A tiny beat.

“And I want it on the record that Tyler McKinney still loses.”

He shifted then, just enough to angle down toward her a little more, his nose brushing once near her temple before he kissed the corner of her forehead again—lighter this time, almost absentminded with affection.

When he spoke after, his voice dropped into that quieter register that belonged to the hours after midnight and the space under the covers and the version of him that didn’t seem capable of bullshitting her anymore.

“I think my favorite part of tonight,” he said, “might be hearin’ you talk about the shop like that.”

A small pause.

“Or maybe watchin’ you do rankings like it’s a congressional hearing.”

That brought the teasing back just enough.

Then he looked at her with a smile that softened almost as soon as it arrived.

“No, it’s the shop thing.”

He didn’t hesitate on that.

“The way you knew it was yours.” His thumb moved once against her back. “The way you knew you were.”

That sat in the warm quiet between them for a second.

Then Cameron’s eyes flicked over her face with a more playful glint again, because apparently he had recovered enough to get brave.

“Though for the record,” he murmured, “if I’m gettin’ my own category, I think you need one too.”

A beat.

“Somethin’ like—looks sweet, notices everything, quietly ruins your life in a permanent way.”

His mouth pulled crooked.

“Real dangerous girl, Lucy Corbett.”

And there it was again—that easy, boyish softness under the flirt, the smile that meant he was messing with her a little but only because the truth underneath was already sitting there plain as day.

Because she had ruined him, hadn’t she?
In the nicest way.
In the most lasting one.

He didn’t say that part out loud.

Not yet.

Instead he just stayed there with her in the warm dark, one arm around her, one hand still spread over her back, holding her like he had nowhere better to be—which, right then, he genuinely didn’t.

Then his brows lifted just slightly.

“So,” he said, eyes warmer than his tone, “what happened to the ceramic geese?”

A tiny pause.

“Please tell me they didn’t survive long enough to become part of the permanent inventory.”

Lucy didn’t answer him right away.

Not the geese part.
Not the category part.
Not even the dangerous girl thing—which, honestly, should’ve been addressed immediately on principle.

She just… looked at him.

Properly.

The kind of look that didn’t dodge or soften or joke its way out of anything. The kind that stayed a second too long and said more than she would’ve admitted out loud if you’d asked her to explain it.

Because he kept doing that.

Saying things like you knew it was yours like it wasn’t a small miracle anyone had ever seen her that clearly in the first place.

Saying the way you knew you were like that hadn’t taken her years to figure out in quiet little pieces no one applauded.

And then—casually, like it was just a fact—calling her dangerous.

Her mouth twitched.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, finally, voice soft but edged just enough to feel like her again. “Quietly ruin your life in a permanent way?”

A beat.

“That’s a strong allegation to make while I’m currently being extremely well-behaved.”

But she didn’t pull away when she said it.

Didn’t break the way she was folded into him, her leg still hooked over his, her hand still resting over his chest like it had settled there hours ago and decided not to leave.

If anything, she tucked in a little closer.

Which—unfortunately for her argument—probably supported his point.

Her fingers shifted slightly against his shirt, absentminded, tracing nothing in particular, and her eyes stayed on his for another second before she exhaled softly through her nose.

“Also,” she added, quieter now, “for the record… you’re not wrong.”

That landed simple.

No dramatics.
No deflection.

Just truth.

“You were that guy.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“The moms-loved-you, teachers-trusted-you, ‘he seems like such a nice boy’ guy.”

A small pause.

“And then you’d go and be just emotionally catastrophic enough to keep things interesting.”

There it was.

Dry.
Accurate.
Not entirely unkind.

Her mouth softened at the edges after it, though, the weight of it already settling into something easier between them than it used to be.

“You weren’t evil,” she said, quieter. “You were just… unchecked.”

A beat.

“And seventeen.”

She let that sit there, because it mattered. Because it was true. Because she wasn’t eighteen anymore either, and neither of them were standing in a parking lot pretending feelings were something they could just out-charm or out-run.

Then her gaze flicked back up to his, a little spark returning.

“But I stand by my classification,” she added. “Public safety concern. Should’ve come with a warning label.”

That got her the faintest hint of a smile before it softened again.

“And for the record,” she added, more quietly now, “you don’t get to hate yourself for proving me right back then and also expect me to like you now.”

Her thumb pressed once, lightly, against his chest where her hand rested.

“Pick a lane.”

There was no bite in it.

Just Lucy.

Honest.
Clear.
Not letting him get away with turning himself into something smaller than what he’d grown into just because it was easier to apologize forever than actually accept that he’d changed.

Then—

finally—

she circled back.

To the geese.

Her nose wrinkled again on instinct.

“Oh, they were done for,” she said, immediate and decisive.

Then she shifted slightly, propping herself up just enough to see his face better, her hair falling a little messier around her shoulders as she settled into the story.

“Like… the second the store was legally mine?”

She shook her head.

“I took a hit.”

A small, unapologetic shrug.

“Anything that didn’t fit what I wanted it to feel like—gone.”

Her brows lifted.

“No nostalgia. No ‘but your mom loved this.’ No ‘it’s always been here.’”

A beat.

“Respectfully? I did not care.”

There was a quiet kind of pride in it now. Not loud. Not performative. Just… earned.

“I kept the bones,” she added, softer. “The stuff that felt like it had history without… suffocating everything.”

Her fingers traced a slow line over his shirt again, grounding herself in the feel of him while she talked.

“But everything else?”

Another small shrug.

“Sold it. Donated it. Gave it to people who thought ceramic geese were a personality trait.”

That got the faintest ghost of a grin out of her.

“And then I got a little… obsessive.”

Her eyes flicked back up to his.

“Like, I spend an embarrassing amount of time on eBay now.”

A beat.

“Not casually. Not ‘oh I’ll check this out.’ I mean tracking listings, Cameron.”

Her tone was dry, but there was something lighter underneath it now—something fond.

“I have saved searches. Alerts. I have opinions about shipping prices.”

Another beat.

“I’ve messaged people at two in the morning over a chipped frame.”

She watched his face for a second, like she knew exactly how that sounded.

“And I drive,” she added, quieter now but just as certain, “like… two hours sometimes. Just to go to some random thrift store in the middle of nowhere because someone online said they saw good mid-century stuff there once in 2018.”

Her mouth tipped slightly.

“Fifty percent of the time it’s nothing.”

A pause.

“But the other fifty…”

Her eyes softened a little.

“You find something.”

Not big.
Not flashy.

Just right.

“And then it’s in the shop,” she said. “And it fits. And it stays.”

Her hand settled more fully against his chest again, her weight sinking back into him as she relaxed into the quiet of the room.

“That’s kind of my whole system now,” she murmured. “Get rid of what doesn’t feel right. Go find what does.”

A small beat.

“Repeat.”

She glanced up at him again, a little smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“So no,” she added lightly, “the geese did not make it.”

Another beat.

“They died so the aesthetic could live.”

Cameron had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too early.

Not because she was intimidating him with the warning-label thing.

Because she was doing that Lucy move again—calling him out with one hand and curling closer with the other.

Public safety concern. Pick a lane. The geese were done for.

All of it in the same soft voice while her leg stayed looped over his and her hand kept tracing lazy little patterns against his chest like his heartbeat had become part of her thinking process somewhere in the last hour.

It was getting hard to take any of her complaints seriously.

Not that he planned on telling her that.

At least not right away.

His mouth pulled crooked first, then warmer when she got to the part about taking a hit on the shop inventory the second the place was legally hers. No nostalgia. No mercy. No deference to ceramic birds just because they’d been there longer than she had.

By the time she said they died so the aesthetic could live, Cameron’s laugh had slipped out clean and low into the quiet room.

“Jesus,” he murmured, looking at her like she’d just confessed to a small but deeply justified crime. “Cold.”

The word came out fond.
Admiring, even.

Because she wasn’t really cold about it. Not in the way that mattered. He could hear the care all through the story—the bones she kept, the history she respected, the way she’d made room for the shop to become itself instead of letting it stay embalmed in everybody else’s idea of what it had always been.

That was Lucy all over, wasn’t it?

She didn’t destroy things for fun.
She cleared out what felt dead so something living had room to breathe.

That thought landed in him harder than he expected.

His hand moved up her back slowly, settling between her shoulder blades, warm and broad through the cotton of her shirt.

“And for the record,” he said, quieter now, “you’re right about me picking a lane.”

His eyes stayed on hers when he said it.

No joke over that part.
No shrug.

“I’m not lookin’ for a lifetime pass to keep apologizin’ instead of actually bein’ better.”

That sat there cleanly between them.

Then his thumb brushed once along her side, and the warmth returned to his face.

“So I’ll work on not actin’ like I still deserve detention for crimes committed in the junior parking lot.”

A beat.

“Even if the historical record is not great.”

That got just enough air back into the room to keep it from turning too serious again.

Then he followed her back to the shop.

To the saved searches.
The shipping opinions.
The two-in-the-morning messages about chipped frames.
The two-hour drives on the word of some stranger online who might’ve seen one good chair in a rural thrift store eight years ago.

And God.

That got him worse than it should have.

Not because it was funny—though it was a little.

Because she sounded lit from within when she talked about it.

Not louder, exactly.
Just more precise.
More herself.

Like every part of her that spent the day being charming and capable and dry and well-adjusted quietly gave way to something sharper and more alive the second she started talking about finding the right thing and knowing, instantly, where it belonged.

He loved that.

Way too much, probably.

His gaze drifted over her face while she talked, taking in the little shifts—the almost-smile, the certainty, the lack of embarrassment when she admitted the obsession even while calling it embarrassing.

He let her finish before he said anything.

Then, with a look that was openly wrecked in the gentlest possible way, he said, “See, this is exactly what I mean.”

A tiny beat.

“Dangerous.”

His hand slid from her back to the side of her waist, holding her there while he looked at her like he was assembling evidence in real time.

“You’re sittin’ here tellin’ me—with your whole face lit up, by the way—that you’ve got saved searches and shipping beef and some secret back-road thrift-store circuit like you’re runnin’ a one-woman vintage cartel…”

His mouth tipped.

“…and I’m supposed to act like that’s not gonna permanently alter a man?”

The smile on his face told her he knew exactly how ridiculous he sounded.

The look in his eyes told her he meant every word.

He dipped his head a little, closer now, voice dropping softer.

“You get that, right?” he murmured. “That this is how people end up gone over you.”

Not just because she was pretty.
Not just because she was warm in his bed and funny in the dark and knew how to kiss him until he forgot his own name.

Because she cared about things in a way that made the whole room rearrange itself around her.

Because she made systems out of instinct.
Beauty out of clutter.
A life out of whatever she decided was worth saving.

That was the lethal part.

Cameron brushed his knuckles lightly along her side, then let his hand settle again.

“And I like that you took a hit on the geese,” he added, grin returning. “No hesitation. No mercy. Just—sorry, birds, you no longer serve the vision.”

He made a tiny chopping motion in the air with one hand, then tucked it back around her.

“Real leadership.”

He was teasing, yes.
But under it sat the same admiration as before.

The kind he didn’t know how to hide from her anymore.

His eyes dropped to her mouth for half a second, then lifted back to hers.

“That whole system, though,” he said. “Get rid of what doesn’t feel right. Go find what does.”

He repeated it like he was trying the shape of it out in his own mind.

Then he gave the smallest nod.

“That’s a hell of a system.”

There was something more thoughtful in him now. Something quieter.

Because it wasn’t just about the shop and the geese and the road trips and the eBay alerts.

It was about her.
About everything she’d told him tonight.
About the way she’d learned to walk away from what didn’t fit and keep building toward what did.

And Cameron, lying here with her weight sunk into his side and her hand over his heart like she trusted it there, had a very specific, very humbling thought:

He was grateful as hell to be in the second category.

He didn’t say that part out loud.
Not because it wasn’t true.
Because it felt too big to toss in casually.

So instead he reached up and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger for a second at the side of her neck.

“What was the best one?” he asked softly.

A beat.

“Not the most expensive. Not the most impressive. The one you found and knew immediately you were keepin’ it.”

His thumb moved once under her jaw.

“The thing that made the whole stupid two-hour drive worth it.”

The question was warm, curious, greedy in that gentle way he kept becoming around her tonight—hungry for the pieces of her story that didn’t belong to anybody else.

Then, because he couldn’t help himself, his mouth curved again.

“And if you say some perfect battered old mirror or a chair with suspiciously beautiful legs, I’m countin’ that as cheating.”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead once more, lighter this time, almost smiling against her skin.

Then her temple.

When he drew back, he stayed close enough that she could still feel the warmth of him there.

“Also,” he murmured, “I’d like it officially noted that you say things like ‘the aesthetic could live’ and then expect me not to look at you like you’re trouble.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“That feels unrealistic.”

The line landed exactly where he meant it to—half tease, half confession.

Because the truth was, she had been trouble from the second she started talking.
Not the loud, dramatic kind.
The quieter one.

The kind that got under your skin by being specific and funny and a little ruthless about ceramic geese and then turned around and handed you the blueprint of her whole adult life in bed at one in the morning like it was no big deal.

That was the kind that lasted.

Cameron’s hand spread once more over her back, easing her a little closer into him on instinct, and the smile he gave her after that was soft and fond and entirely too gone for a man who was still, technically, trying to play it cool.

“So no,” he said gently. “I’m not worried about the geese anymore.”

A tiny pause.

“I’m mostly worried about the day you decide my apartment’s got bad bones and start makin’ executive decisions.”

Lucy made a face the second he said executive decisions.

Not a dramatic one.

Just enough.

A tiny squint. The faintest wrinkle of her nose. The kind of expression that said he had said something objectively annoying and unfortunately a little bit charming at the same time.

Which was, frankly, becoming a pattern tonight.

Her fingers stilled for half a second against his chest while she looked at him, and the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that she could feel the heat rising into her face again before she’d even decided what she wanted to say.

Because he kept doing that too.

Saying things in that low, easy voice like one-woman vintage cartel and this is how people end up gone over you and I’m grateful as hell to be in the second category without technically saying the last part out loud, but somehow still managing to make her whole body understand it anyway.

It was deeply irritating.

Her gaze dropped for a second—not away exactly, just down to the space between them, to the soft fold of the blanket, to the place where her hand rested over him like she needed a second to recover some amount of dignity before she looked back up.

When she did, there was a little pink still sitting warm across her cheeks.

“Okay,” she muttered, voice quieter now, edged with a tiny thread of embarrassment she wasn’t going to acknowledge if he valued his life. “You actually need to stop saying things like permanently alter a man like that.”

A beat.

“It’s very…”

She searched for the word and failed in real time.

“…effective.”

That got her nowhere closer to composure.

So she solved it the only way Lucy Corbett ever solved anything that threatened to get too sincere too fast:

she got dry about it.

“And no,” she added, a little more pointedly now, “you’re not allowed to act like I’m some sort of criminal mastermind because I know how to use eBay filters and have standards.”

Her mouth twitched.

“That is called taste.”

Still, she was smiling when she said it.

Small.
Soft.
Not fully under her control.

Because he was looking at her like she was the most interesting thing in the room again, and that had always been annoyingly hard to withstand when it came from him. Maybe harder now, actually, because older Cameron didn’t throw charm around like confetti anymore.

He aimed it.

And worse—

he meant it.

Lucy shifted a little closer into him without really deciding to, the movement happening before she could stop it, her leg sliding a little more comfortably over his and her shoulder settling more fully into the shape of him beneath the blankets.

Then she narrowed her eyes at him slightly.

“And for the record,” she said, “your apartment would absolutely be in danger.”

A beat.

“Not because I’m controlling.”

Another beat.

“Because men always have at least one lamp that makes them look like they’re being interrogated.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“And I just know—know—you probably own at least one tragic piece of furniture you’re emotionally loyal to for no reason.”

She could picture it too easily.

Some ugly chair.
A weird side table.
A deeply suspicious recliner inherited from a cousin or purchased out of pure masculine confusion.

The thought made her mouth pull into a real smile this time.

“I wouldn’t even do it aggressively,” she added. “I’d be very subtle.”

She lifted one hand from his chest just enough to demonstrate with sleepy little fingers.

“One throw blanket. A lamp. Maybe a better framed print situation.”

A pause.

“You’d wake up one day and just feel calmer without knowing why.”

That got her.

A soft little laugh slipped out of her before she could help it, and she ducked her face briefly into the side of his chest like she could hide it there.

It didn’t work.

Mostly because he was warm and she liked being tucked there more than she should have, and also because she was still, annoyingly, a little pink from the way he’d looked at her a minute ago.

When she finally tilted her face back up, her hair was a little messier, her expression softer.

And this time, when she answered his actual question, she did it without sidestepping.

“The best one?” she repeated, quieter now.

Her eyes drifted for a second—not far, just enough to catch on the dim shape of her dresser, the shadowed corner of the room, the familiar outlines of things she’d picked with her own hands.

Then they came back to him.

“It was this mirror, actually.”

Her voice changed when she said it.

Not bigger.
Just more precise.

“There’s this thrift place outside Franklin that looks like it should absolutely be a front for something illegal.”

A beat.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere. No sign. Just an old white building and one very suspiciously judgmental cat.”

She felt his hand at her back and kept going, the picture of it opening in her head as she spoke.

“And I almost didn’t stop because it was raining and I’d already driven forever and the first room was mostly broken wicker and weird porcelain children.”

Her nose wrinkled at the memory.

“Which is never a good sign.”

Then her face softened again.

“But in the back, leaning against a wall under a stack of ugly seasonal decor, there was this tall old mirror.”

She looked up at him again.

“The frame was chipped in one corner and the gold was all dulled down and kind of perfect.”

A small pause.

“It wasn’t fancy. It just… felt like it had already lived a whole life before it got to me.”

Her fingers traced once lightly over his shirt again, absentminded.

“And the second I saw it, I knew exactly where it was gonna go in the shop.”

Her mouth tipped.

“So naturally I had to drag it to the register alone like some kind of deranged Victorian widow.”

That made her smile again, but softer this time.

“And when I got it home and leaned it against the wall?”

She shrugged, one shoulder lifting against him.

“That was it.”

Her voice lowered just a little.

“The whole front room made sense after that.”

There was a quiet satisfaction in the memory even now, still warm after all this time.

Not because it was a mirror.

Because it had been one of those rare, immediate little yeses.

The kind that didn’t need explaining.

The kind she’d learned, finally, to trust.

Lucy looked at him for a second after that, her face still a little flushed, her expression more open than she probably would’ve let it be if it weren’t one in the morning and warm under the covers and him looking at her like every tiny stupid detail actually mattered.

Then she huffed softly through her nose.

“And before you get too smug,” she added, “no, I’m not telling you where it is.”

Her brows lifted.

“Because the second I do, you’re gonna go in there and look at it all pleased with yourself and I’ll have to die.”

A tiny beat.

“And I live there, so that would be inconvenient.”

But she was smiling when she said it.

Really smiling now.

The kind that sat all the way into her cheeks and made her eyes look brighter even in the low light.

Then, quieter, with less armor around it:

“I like that you asked that.”

That one came out before she could stop it.

She felt it the second it landed between them and almost took it back on instinct.

Almost.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she let herself stay there in it.

Let herself look at him.

Let herself mean it.

“Most people ask what sells the best,” she said softly. “Or what’s worth the most. Or what kind of stuff tourists buy.”

Her fingers curled lightly into the fabric of his shirt.

“You asked what I kept.”

A small pause.

“That’s… different.”

Her cheeks warmed again—God, again—and she rolled her eyes a little at herself before leaning forward just enough to press a quick, slightly shy kiss to the corner of his mouth like she needed to do something with the feeling before it got too obvious.

When she pulled back, her nose brushed his once.

Light.
Affectionate.
Barely there.

Then her mouth curved.

“But if I ever see a recliner in your apartment with cup holders,” she murmured, “I’m leaving you to die in it.”

A beat.

“No executive mercy.”

Lucy’s own smile lingered for a second after she said it, small and helpless at the edges, like she’d accidentally let herself get too soft and was now trying to recover without fully leaving the warmth of it.

She didn’t get very far.

Mostly because he was warm.

And solid.

And because every time she shifted even a little closer, he just seemed to make room for her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

So instead of pretending she was about to say something devastatingly cool and detached, she just let herself sink.

A little deeper.
A little more honestly.

She turned her face into his chest, the soft cotton of his shirt warm against her cheek, and tucked herself in with the quiet, sleepy confidence of someone whose body had already made up its mind about where it wanted to be. Her leg stayed looped over his, her arm slid more securely around his middle beneath the blanket, and she gave a tiny, content little exhale that she absolutely hoped he wouldn’t clock for how embarrassingly comfortable it sounded.

Too late, probably.

Still, she kept her face mostly hidden there, which at least gave her the illusion of control.

From where she was tucked against him, her voice came out slightly muffled and softer than before.

“Give it a month,” she murmured.

A beat.

“Your apartment’s done for.”

Her mouth curved faintly against his chest.

“Subtly,” she added, like that was an important legal distinction. “I’m not gonna, like, storm in there with a mood board and ruin your life in one afternoon.”

A tiny pause.

“It’ll be gradual.”

That made her smile more, and she could feel it where her cheek pressed against him.